A Most UNUSAL True FLYING STORY

About

Henri M. Coanda


Henri Marie Coanda born June 7, 1886 – died November 25, 1972 was a Romanian inventor, aerodynamics pioneer and the builder of world's FIRST JET  POWERED aircraft in 1910.


Yes it was the Coanda from Romania who invented the first jet engine that powered an aircraft, not the British, Germans or anyone else. 

He studied (1907-1908) at the Monteflore Institute in Liege Belgium in where he met Gianni Capronis In 1908, Coanda returned to Romania to serve as an active officer in the Second Artillery Regiment. However, his inventor's spirit did not comport well with military discipline. He solicited and obtained permission to leave the army, after which he took advantage of his renewed freedom to take a long automobile trip to Isfahan, Teheran and Tibet.

Upon his return in 1909, he traveled to Paris where he enrolled in the newly founded École Nationale Superieure d'Ingenieurs en Construction Aéronautique called the Ecole National also known as SUPAERO.  One year later (1910) he graduated at the head of the first class of the aeronautical engineers.

With the support of engineer Gustave Eiffel and mathematician and the politician and aeronautical pioneer Paul Painieve, he began experimenting on aerodynamic techniques.  One  was mounting a jet device on a train running at 90 km/h so he could analyze the aerodynamic behavior of a " jet engine"

.  Later using the workshop of famous Italian designer Gianni Caproni, he designed and built the first thermojet powered aircraft, known as the Coanda Jet.

On the 10th of December 1910, he demonstrated his Coanda Jet publicly at the Second International Aeronautic Salon in Paris.  His jet powerplant used a 4-cylinder piston engine to power a compressor, which fed two gas burners for thrust instead of using a propeller.

At the airport of Iissy-les-Moulineauxnear in Paris, Coanda was demonstrating his jet powered aeroplane publicly and though he had never flown, he was only intending to do a high speed taxi in his jet powered aircraft in front of thousands of people, when he got too much jet power and became airborne. Not knowing how to fly, he  lost control and crashed.

Fortunately, Coanda escaped with only minor injuries and burns to his face and hands. He then promised his mother he would never attempt to fly again and stuck to designing and building aircraft.

coanda jet

The World’s First Jet engined powered Aeroplane made in 1910

I00 years ago.



Soon afterwards, Coanda abandoned his jet engine and aircraft design experiments due to a lack of interest and support on the part of the public and scientific and engineering institutions.

Between 1911 and 1914, he worked as technical director for the Bristol Aeroplane Company in the England, where he designed several aeroplanes known as Bristol-Coanda aeroplanes.

In 1912 one of these planes won the first prize at the International Military Aviation contest in the UK. In 1915, he returned to France working during World War I.  Working for Delaunay-Beloleville in Saint-Denis, he designed and built three different models of propeller aeroplane, including the Coanda-1916 with two propellers mounted close to the tail of his design. The French  "Caravel" jet transport, for which Coanda was a technical consultant had the same design.

Coanda continued traveling and inventing.  His inventions included the first jet-powered sleigh, and the first de luxe aerodynamic railroad train.  In 1934 he was granted a French patent for the COANDA EFFECT In 1935 and he used the same principle as the basis for a hovercraft   called " Aerodine Lenticulara", which was very similar in shape to the flying saucers later developed by Avro Cananda before being bought by the US Air Force becoming a classified project.

coanda himself
Pictured in England soon after his first and last jet flight
 
He was 24 when he became the first human to fly a jet aeroplane that he designed and built.  And he unintentionally become the world's first experimental jet test pilot.   
 
Gustave Eiffel who built the famous tower in Paris bearing his name, said Henri Coanda was like Edison, Bell and other great inventors but born too soon to be appreciated.
Henri Coanda was some man.

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