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Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:
Brita M. Olson

Frank S. Meister has spent over three-quarters of a century involved in the aircraft industry. Born in 1909 in Germany, Frank was fascinated by airplanes even as a young child when he watched a plane crash-land in the fields outside his town during World War I. After he got his engineering degree he started working at Focke Wulf, a leading builder of aircraft located in Bremen, Germany, in 1936. There he worked on the FW-189, FW-190, TA-152, and the TA-183. He also worked on the FW 200 Condor where he designed a new fuel system allowing the aircraft to fly non-stop from Berlin to New York. The first such flight using the new system took place on Aug. 10, 1938 and was considered a milestone in the development of aircraft and transcontinental flight.

In 1951 he started working for Lockheed Aircraft Corporation in Burbank, California. There he spent several years working in preliminary design. He worked on projects such as the Super Constellation, designing a new engine mount for the Electra 188 after problems with the old mount, the P2V Patrol type which included designing new submarine detection equipment, the "Zero Length Launch" for the F-104, the C-130, which is still a work horse for the military today, and the L-1011 from the initial design where he holds a patent for the engine power control, a "Flying Hospital" version of the L-1011, and a design for a lower door entrance. He also worked on several proposals for Lockheed including the Supersonic Transport L-2000, submarine detection equipment, new military aircraft, helicopters and terrain contour following surface missiles. By the time he retired in 1974 he had made a substantial contribution to the aircraft and space industry.

Now 92 (in 2002), Frank continues to follow developments in the aircraft and space industry with great interest. He has been here to witness the development of the aircraft industry from its infancy to the space flights of today.