page_title: George Huebner
section_title: Mid-life and career
hierarchical_section_title: George Huebner / Mid-life and career
caption_attribution_description: English: 1963 Chrysler Turbine experimental car
context_page_description: George John Huebner Jr. was an American executive engineer who worked for the Chrysler Corporation. While in his twenties he worked for the Central Engineering Division at Chrysler developing new technology in mechanical engineering using science. It was long-term concepts he worked on that didn't come to fruition for some ten to twenty years. He researched an experimental gas turbine engine for passenger automobiles. A version of this engine was later installed and used as the main motorization for certain military tanks worldwide.
  Huebner was put in charge of Chrysler's new Missile Branch division in the 1950s as executive engineer. He organized a missile research and development facility. The Corporation ultimately engineered out the Redstone rocket, which was used in the Unites States aerospace industry to place permanent satellites in orbit and for space travel. He worked with the rocket scientist Wernher von Braun on these developments.
context_section_description: Huebner joined Chrysler Corporation in Detroit part-time in 1931 before graduating from the university a year later.  He was, at first, a research engineer and, in 1936, became assistant chief engineer at the age of 26. He held that position until 1939 when he went to the Central Engineering Division within Chrysler Corporation to work as assistant to Carl Breer, one of the core engineers of 15 years before. Breer inspired him to look into future technology, which lead him into technology that involved mechanical engineering enhanced by science. Huebner worked on advanced concepts with longer-term objectives that were expected to take ten to twenty years to achieve. This eventually lead him to the idea of developing a gas turbine engine because of the pure and applied science involved in such a sophisticated machine.
  One of Huebner's first jobs at the Central Engineering Division within Chrysler was working on aircraft turbine engines. He designed in May 1940, with a group of engineers he directed, a liquid-cooled V-16 fighter aircraft engine called the XI-2220 that had 2,500 horsepower. It was flight tested in a Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft, but never manufactured and its development was discontinued in 1945 because World War II ended and it was no longer needed. 
  Chrysler reorganized their research department in 1946 and Huebner was made chief engineer. Chrysler then  started research on a regenerative recuperative turbine design after the XI-2220 engine development came to a stop. The new engine was given the designation A-86. The U.S. Navy gave Chrysler a contract for the design of a 1,000-horsepower turboprop aircraft engine based on the A-86 of which Huebner was the main engineer in charge of its research and development. Four test engines were built by 1949 but never used in a Navy aircraft and no further progress came about.
caption: 1963 Chrysler Turbine automobile
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