The Coandă-1910 was the first jet-propelled aircraft ever built. It was constructed by Romanian inventor Henri Coandă and exhibited by him at the Second International Aeronautical Exhibition in Paris around October 1910.
Design
The aircraft was quite unconventional in design, and its most striking feature was its powerplant, since it featured a kind of motorjet, a hybrid of jet engines and piston engine technology. This used a reciprocating internal combustion engine to drive a compressor instead of a propeller. The compressed air was mixed with fuel and ignited in two combustion chambers (one on each side of the fuselage) before being exhausted along the sides of the aircraft. This was intended to provide a reactive force that would push the aircraft along.
Other than the radical propulsion system, the airframe construction was conventional for the time. Wood-frame fabric-covered biplane wings ran above and below the fuselage, held in place by struts and flying wires. The powerplant was installed in the nose of a fabric-covered fuselage which contained one seat in an open cockpit. The fuselage terminated in a cruciform empennage installed at 45°.
During a ground test of the engine on 16 December 1910, Coandă was caught unaware by the power of the engine and found himself briefly airborne.[citation needed] He lost control of the machine, and it crashed, burning, to the ground. Coandă was thrown clear of the crash.
During the machine's short flight, Coandă was able to observe that the burning gases from the engine seemed to hug the sides of the aircraft very closely and this is what seemed to cause the fire. He (and other scientists) spent many years researching this effect, which is now known as the Coandă effect in his honour.
Coandă did not pursue this line of development of the jet engine. Years later, the Italian Campini Caproni CC.2 aircraft flew with a similar type of engine, and Japanese engineers developed another such engine to power the Ohka kamikaze aircraft. However, practical jet engines depended on the development of the turbojet to become a reality.
Specifications
General characteristics
- Crew: 1
See also
- Lippisch Ente, the world’s first rocket-powered aircraft.
References
- The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Aircraft. London: Aerospace Publishing.
- Taylor, Michael J. H. (1989). Jane's Encyclopedia of Aviation. London: Studio Editions.
- World Aircraft Information Files. London: Bright Star Publishing.
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