Jim Drake, 83, an aeronautical engineer who helped design the X-15 rocket plane and the Tomahawk cruise missile and in his spare time created the Windsurfer, a surfboard with a sail that became synonymous with sailboarding, died June 19 at his home in Pfafftown, N.C. The cause was complications of pulmonary fibrosis.
Mr. Drake was more Steve Jobs than Thomas Edison: The inventors S. Newman Darby and Peter Chilvers had already built early sailboards, but Mr. Drake's version, which he first built in his garage in Santa Monica, Calif., made windsurfing attractive to a mass market.
