Helicopters?! will it ever be possible?

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by zapatista

slightly disturbing to see how she gets tittilated and exited speaking about the memories of her beloved nazi general and the warmongering industrialists

I just watched the interview by the way, i had forgotten about it.

To tell you the truth i don't know what her political beliefs were, but she didn't come off that way to me. What i saw was an old lady who had done some pretty impressive stuff in her day and even in her old age being enthusiastic about aviation and technology.

I don't know if she was a member of the party but simply flight testing some stuff doesn't make her an accomplice, just like explaining relativity doesn't make Einstein responsible for Hiroshima.

The way it usually happens is that scientists, engineers and testers collaborate to give us all sorts of useful new things that the governments will later use in the wrong way, usually to kill each other off

Also, the general she refers to was Ernst Udet. I think he was not a member of the nazi party, or at least was a secret objector to the regime, as he ended up taking his own life in 1941 or thereabouts. It's the same Ernst Udet that started flying in WWI at the age of 16, became an ace and survived the war, toured the US in the 30s giving aerobatic and aviation performances and so on.
Come to think of it, a guy who has lived such an interesting and accomplished life and managed to defy death in so many occasions, must have been either terribly depressed or very disagreeable to the way things were being done to end up commiting suicide.

[AndyJWest]

Hanna Reitsch was hardly an innocent 'scientist, engineer or tester' during the Third Reich:

During the winter 1943-44, she was assigned to the development of suicide aircraft; and, under the command of SS-Obersturmbannfürer Otto Skorzeny, she was the first founding member of the SS-Selbstopferkommando Leonidas (Leonidas Squadron). This project, where the pilots flew manned bombs and ultimately died during the mission, was similar to the Japanese later use of Tokkōtai ("Kamikaze") and was proposed by Adolf Hitler on 28 February 1944. It is probable that the idea originated with Reitsch during her testing of the Messerschmitt Me 163 in 1942, and she was also the first to volunteer for the newly formed Leonidas unit. This program was met with a considerable resistance at the German air-force high-command and was never realized, and even Hitler was initially reluctant to accept her proposal. The unit was disbanded one year later.

...

[In April 1945] Reitsch was soon captured along with von Greim and the two were interviewed together by American military intelligence officers. When asked about being ordered to leave the Fuhrerbunker on 28 April 1945 Reitsch and von Greim reportedly repeated the same answer, "It was the blackest day when we could not die at our Führer's side." Reitsch also said, "We should all kneel down in reverence and prayer before the altar of the Fatherland." When the interviewers asked what she meant by "Altar of the Fatherland" she answered, "Why, the Führer's bunker in Berlin..." She was held and interrogated for eighteen months. Her companion, von Greim, committed suicide on 24 May. Her father killed her mother, her sister, and her sister's children before killing himself during the last days of the war after expulsion by the Polish from their hometown of Hirschberg.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanna_Reitsch