Henri Coand

Henri Marie Coand 7 June 1886 25 November 1972[1]) was

aRomanian inventor, aerodynamics pioneer and builder of an experimental aircraft, the Coand1910 described by Coand in the mid-1950s as the world's first jet, [2] a controversial claim disputed
by some and supported by others.[3]He invented a great number of devices, designed a "flying
saucer" and discovered the Coand effect of fluid dynamics.[4]

Early life
Born in Bucharest, Coand was the second child of a large family. His father was
General Constantin Coand, amathematics professor at the National School of Bridges and Roads.
His mother, Aida Danet, was the daughter of French physician Gustave Danet, and was born
in Brittany. He was later to recall that even as a child he was fascinated by the miracle of wind.
Coand attended Elementary school at the Petrache Poenaru Communal School in Bucharest, then
(1896) Began his secondary school career at the Liceu Sf. Sava (Saint Sava National College). After
three years (1899), his father, who desired a military career for him, had him transferred to the
Military High School in Iai where he required four additional years to complete high-school. He
graduated in 1903 with the rank of sergeant major, and he continued his studies at the School of
Artillery, Military, and Naval Engineering in Bucharest. Sent with an artillery regiment to Germany
(1904), he enrolled in the Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg, Berlin.
Coand graduated as an artillery officer, but he was more interested in the technical problems of
flight. In 1905, he built a missile-aeroplane for the Romanian Army. He continued his studies (1907
08) at the Montefiore Institute in Lige, Belgium, where he met Gianni Caproni. In 1908 Coand
returned to Romania to serve as an active officer in the Second Artillery Regiment. His inventor's
spirit did not comport well with military discipline and he 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.

Aviation activities in France

Upon his return in 1909, he travelled to Paris, where he enrolled in the newly founded cole
Nationale Superieure d'Ingenieurs en Construction Aronautique (now the cole Nationale
Suprieure de l'Aronautique et de l'Espace, also known as SUPAERO). One year later (1910) he
graduated at the head of the first class ofaeronautical engineers.

Coand-1910 airplane

Coand-1910 airplane with the compressor on separate display

In 1910, in the workshop of Gianni Caproni, he designed and built an aircraft known as the Coand1910, which he displayed publicly at the second International Aeronautic Salon in Paris that year.
[5]

The aircraft used a 4-cylinder piston engine to power a rotary compressor which was intended to

propel the craft by a combination of suction at the front and airflow out the rear instead of using a
propeller.
Contemporary sources describe the Coand-1910 as incapable of flight. [6] Years later, after others
had developed jet technology, Coand started making claims that it was a motorjet, and that it
actually flew.[3] According to Charles Gibbs-Smith: "There was never any idea of injecting fuel; the
machine never flew; it was never destroyed on test; and Flight noted that it was sold to a Monsieur
Weyman."[2] Gibbs-Smith continued, "The claim said that after a disastrous crash (which never
happened) Coand wished to begin a 'second aircraft', but 'his funds were exhausted.' Within a year
he was ... exhibiting (in October 1911) a brand new propeller-driven machine at the Reims Concours
Militaire..."[2] Other aviation writers accepted Coand's story of his flight tests with the Coand-1910. [7]
[8]

Coand's colleague at Huyck Corporation, G. Harry Stinea rocket scientist, author and "the father
of American model rocketry"stated in his book The Hopeful Future that "there were several jetpropelled aircraft in existence at an early time-the Coand-1910 jet and the 1938 Caproni Campini
N.1, the pure jet aircraft flight was made in Germany in 1938". Rolf Sonnemann and Klaus Krug from
the University of Technology of Dresden, mentioned in passing in their 1987 book Technik und
Technikwissenschaften in der Geschichte (Technology and Technical Sciences in History) that the
Coand-1910 was the world's first jet.[9]

1912 Bristol-Coanda monoplane

Between 1911 and 1914, he worked as technical manager of the Bristol Aeroplane Company[1] in the
United Kingdom, where he designed several aeroplanes known as the Bristol-Coanda Monoplanes.
In 1912 one of these aircraft won a prize at the British Military Aeroplane Competition.
In 1915, he returned to France where, working during World War I for Delaunay-Belleville in SaintDenis, he designed and built three different models of propeller aeroplane, including the Coand1916, with two propellers mounted close to the tail. This design was to be reprised in the 1950s Sud
Aviation Caravelle transport aeroplane, for which Coand was a technical consultant.
In the years between the wars, he continued travelling and inventing. In 1934 he was granted a
French patent related to theCoand Effect. During early 1930 he used the same principle as the
basis for the design of a disc-shaped aircraft calledAerodina Lenticulara, a "flying saucer" that used
an unspecified source of high pressure gases to flow through a ring-shaped vent system. In 1936
Coand applied for a patent for his design.[10] No practical full-scale version was built.

World War II
Coanda spent World War II in occupied France where he worked for the Nazis to help their war effort
by developing the turbopropulseur (turbopropeller) drive system from his 1910 biplane into a
propulsion system for snow sleds.[11] The German contract concluded after one year, yielding no
plans for production. [12]

Later work
Coanda's research on the Coand Effect was of interest post-war and became the basis for several
investigations of entrained or augmented flow.[11] A small stream of a high-velocity fluid could be used
to generate a greater mass flow, at lower velocity. Although eventually unsuccessful for aircraft
propulsion, this effect has been widely used on a smaller scale, from packaging machinery for small
pills through to the Dyson Air Multiplier bladeless fan.

In 1969, during the early years of the Ceauescu era, he returned to spend his last days in his
native Romania, where he served as director of the Institute for Scientific and Technical Creation
(INCREST) and in 1971 reorganized, along with professor Elie Carafoli, the Department of
Aeronautical Engineering of thePolytechnic University of Bucharest, spinning it off from the
Department of Mechanical Engineering.
Coand died in Bucharest on 25 November 1972 at the age of 86. He is buried at Bellu cemetery.

Inventions, and discoveries

1910: The Coand-1910, an experimental aircraft constructed on the principle of air-reactive

propulsion

1911: An aircraft powered by two engines driving a single propeller [14] - the configuration
cancelled the torque of the engines.

He invented a new decorative material for use in construction, beton-bois; one prominent
example of its use is the Palace of Culture, in Iai.

1926: Working in Romania, Coand developed a device to detect liquids under ground,
useful in petroleum prospecting. Shortly thereafter, in the Persian Gulfregion, he designed a
system for offshore oil drilling.[citation needed]

The most famous of Coand's discoveries is the Coand Effect. After more than 20 years
studying this phenomenon along with his colleagues, Coand described what Albert Metral was
later to name the "Coand Effect". This effect has been utilized in many aeronautical
inventions. See Coanda Effect#Applications

A modular system of sea water desalination and transformation to fresh water, based on
solar energy, a clean, ecological and adaptable system