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Coanda's jet at an aviation exhibition in Paris, 1910 |
Henri Coanda
Henri Marie Coanda was born in Bucharest, Romania on June 7, 1886, the son of a professor of military science. He studied engineering at universities in Belgium, Germany and Paris, graduating from L'ecole Superior Aeronautique with a degree in aeronautics in 1909.
In 1910, Coanda built a wildly advanced aircraft powered by a rudimentary jet engine, and in 1935 he patented a disc-shaped aircraft designed to take off vertically and hover on a column of air.
US Army techincal intelligence agents interrogated Coanda in 1946. T-2 Intelligence at Wright Field produced a report on his work in 1947.
Avro's saucer designers were well aware of Coanda's work, using the principle as the basis for some of their earliest VTOL saucer test rigs. Coanda was brought to Toronto twice, apparently to consult on the Project Y.
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Coanda VTOL saucer patent filed in the US in April 1957 |
Coanda is a most interesting and enigmatic figure, and he will be the subject of further discussion in the future.