On February 24, 1898, German aeronautical engineer Kurt Tank is born. Born in Bromberg (now Bydgoszcz, Poland), Tank served in the German cavalry during the First World War. After the war he attended the Technical University of Berlin and worked for the aircraft firm Rohrbach after graduation. Tank later left Rohrbach and, in 1931, went to work for Focke-Wulf. It was at Focke-Wulf that his most successful designs would be developed and produced. Among these were the Fw 44 biplane and the Fw 200 Condor, originally designed as a four-engine airliner and later used as a bomber and transport aircraft during World War II, and the Ta 183 jet fighter. Perhaps his most famous and successful design was the Fw 190 single-engine fighter which dominated the skies over Europe early in the war and proved a more pilot-friendly and forgiving aircraft than the Messerschmitt Me 109.

After the war Kurt Tank left Germany to move to Argentina where he continued his career designing aircraft including the FMA IAe 33 Pulqui II jet fighter (based on Tank's Ta 183 fighter design from late in World War II); however, the fall of the Perón government forced Tank to leave the country. He would move to India where he helped develop the HF-24 Marut fighter-bomber before returning to Germany in the late '60s-early '70s where he worked as a consultant to MBB (Messerschmitt-Boelkow-Blohm). Kurt Tank passe away in Munich at the age of 85 on June 5, 1983.