Bernhard H. Goethert; Led Air Force’s Research Efforts

Bernhard H. Goethert, 80, a German aeronautics scientist during World War II who later became chief scientist for the Air Force Systems Command near Washington. During World War II Goethert was a department chief of high-speed aerodynamics at the German Research Institute for Aeronautics in Berlin. He was involved in the development of the Messerschmidt-262 German jet fighter of the 1940s, the American F-111 fighter with movable swept-back wings and the Saturn moon rocket. Goethert became chief scientist of the Air Force Systems Command at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington in 1964. In that job he had primary responsibility for technical and scientific justification for the Air Force’s research and development programs. In Manchester, Tenn., on Tuesday.