Klemperer, Wolfgang B.

Wolfgang Benjamin Klemperer was born in Dresden, Germany on January 18, 1893. He joined the Austrian Air Force in 1915 as a pilot and helped to develop weaponry on military aircraft. He graduated from the Dresden Institute of Technology in 1920, taught at the Aachen Aerodynamics Institute, and completed his doctorate in engineering in 1924 at the Aachen Institute of Technology. Klemperer was a pioneer in non-motorized flight in the early 1920s. He was a glider pilot and helped to organize several gliding and soaring clubs in Germany. From 1922-1924 he was head of research at the Zeppelin Airship Company. He then became manager of research at Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation in Akron, Ohio. where he continued his work in the development of zeppelins, most notably the "U.S.S. Akron" and "U.S.S. Macon". In 1936 he became research engineer at Douglas Aircraft Company in Santa Monica, California, later becoming vice president of research and development. Here he invented and patented a visual flight simulator and the pressurized flight cabin.