Helmut Schelp
German engineer
Helmut Schelp was the director of advanced engine development at the RLM's T-Amt technical division leading up to and during World War II. He used his office to fund a widespread program in jet engine development, which led to many of the engine concepts still used today. Unlike the United Kingdom, where the jet had no single champion within the Air Ministry and their efforts were long delayed as a result, Schelp can be directly credited with the advancement and refinement of the jet in Germany over a few years.
Biography
Born in Görlitz, Germany, Schelp finished high school in 1927 and went on to study mechanical engineering in Chemnitz and Dresden, before traveling to the United States where he completed a Master of Science in engineering at Stevens University in Hoboken, NJ.
While studying in Chemnitz in 1931, Schelp joined the Nazi Party. He later became a squad leader in the Nazi paramilitary wing, the Sturmabteilung. From 1932 to 1933 he was trained and qualified as a pilot.
On his return to Germany in 1936, Schelp was invited to join a new advanced course in aeronautical engineering being offered by the DVL research institute in Berlin. Following in Frank Whittle's footsteps of a few years earlier, Schelp became interested in the problems of high-speed flight, and attempted to calculate the maximum speed an aircraft could obtain. He eventually came to the conclusion that flights over Mach 0.82 were impossible due to the decreasing efficiency of propellers, which one of his professors at DVL demonstrated would be only 71% at Mach 0.82, and falling rapidly. For higher speeds a much larger engine would be needed, one whose weight would offset the amount of thrust that could be generated by the propeller. He was aware of developments in jet engines, and became convinced they were the only way forward.
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