* Astronomy

Helmut Graf von Zborowski (born August 21 1905 in Terezin, Bohemia - 16 November 1969 in Brunoy, Paris) was an Austrian aircraft designer of VTOL aircraft.
His father, Oberst NN Zborowski, a colonel in the Austria-Hungarian army, was commander of the first Austrian airship.
His mother was Marianne von Schönerer.
He attended elementary school in Vienna and secondary schools in Strasbourg and Graz, where he studied mechanical engineering and then his state examination. In connection with the political events of 1934 he left the country, and received from the Berlin TH a graduate engineer degree and was naturalised in 1935.
He was involved with Wernher von Braun in missile development, and helped develop the Fieseler Fi 103 and the A4 long range strategic rockets.
Zborowski was developer of the liquid propellant and an expert on anti-tank missiles. He held 300 patents in the aerospace and missile industries.
In 1934 he started working for the "Bayerische Motoren Werke (BMW), later joined with the aerospace engineer Eugen Sänger in Dare, Munster. He worked until end of the war for the BMW aircraft engine works because of his expertise with rocket liquid propellant engines. He was Director of the BMW plants Allach-Untermenzing (District 23 of the Bavarian State capital Munich) where aircraft engines were mass-produced by 20,000 workers (including. 3,000 prisoners of war, and 5,000 inmates of the Dachau concentration camp). Zborowski was responsible for the rocket engines for the Messerschmitt 163 interceptor developed for Messerschmitt AG. In 1944 he headed a rocket group focused on new weapons research. The tests were performed in Basdorf (Wandlitz) and Zühlsdorf. Zborowski designed the Ringflügler (ring wings) for two Heinkel development projects. Research had shown that the performance of a propeller by the Bernoulli effect could be increased by 25% if it is mounted in a tube.
From January 1947 he was, because of his membership in the Waffen-SS, a prisoner of war in camp 317 in Göttingen. In the postwar period it was forbidden (military) to develop German corporate aircraft. Therefore, like most German aircraft engineers he worked outside Germany; after his release he joined as a research engineer the Société d'Etudes de la Propulsion par Réaction (SEPR) that operated in a castle near Paris. In 1950 he founded the Bureau Technique Zborowski (BTZ) in France, and researched into the V/STOL design (Vertical and/or Short Take-Off and Landing aircraft) with Ringflüglern. Here he also developed the experimental aircraft SNECMA C.450. Zborowski later returned to Bonn.

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