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The Coandă-1910, designed by Romanian inventor Henri Coandă, was an experimental plane powered by a ducted fan. Built as a sesquiplane, it featured an experimental aircraft engine which Coandă called the "turbo-propulseur", having a multi-bladed centrifugal blower driven by a conventional piston engine and exhausting into a duct. The unusual aircraft attracted attention at the Second International Aeronautical Exhibition in Paris in October 1910, being the only exhibit without a propeller, but the aircraft was not displayed afterward and it fell from public awareness. Coandă used a similar turbo-propulseur to drive a snow sled, but he did not develop it further for aircraft. Decades later, after the practical demonstration of motorjets and turbojets, Coandă began to tell various conflicting stories about how his early experiments were precursors to the jet, even that his turbo-propulseur was the first motorjet engine complete with fuel combustion in the air stream. He also said that he had made a single brief flight in December 1910, crashing just after take-off, the aircraft destroyed by fire. Two aviation historians countered Coandă's version of events, saying there was no proof that the engine had combustion in the air stream, and no proof that the aircraft ever flew. In 1965, Coandă brought drawings forward to prove his claim of combustion ducting but these were shown to be recently reworked, differing substantially from the originals. Many aviation historians were dismissive, saying that Coandă's turbo-propulseur design involved a weak stream of "plain air", not a powerful jet of air expanding from fuel combustion.〔 In 2010, based on the notion that Coandă invented the first jet, the centennial of the jet aircraft was celebrated in Romania. A special coin and stamp were issued, and construction began on a working replica of the aircraft. At the European Parliament, an exhibition commemorated the building and testing of the Coandă-1910. ==Early developments== Coandă was interested in achieving reactive propelled flight as early as 1905, conducting tests of rockets attached to model aircraft, the tests held in Bucharest at the Romanian Army arsenal. In secret, at Spandau in Germany, Coandă successfully tested a flying machine equipped with a single tractor propeller, and two counter-rotating propellers providing lift, powered by a 50-horsepower (37 kW) Antoinette engine. Positioned along the fuselage centreline, the smaller rear lift propeller was mounted vertically, while the larger front one was inclined slightly forwards at 17 degrees to the vertical. According to later claims, Coandă tested the aircraft at Cassel, witnessed by the Chancellor of the German Empire Bernhard von Bülow. It was around this time that Coandă's interest in jet propulsion began, and according to him the aircraft and a jet-propelled model were displayed in December 1907 at the ''Sporthalle'' (indoor sports arena) in Berlin.〔 Coandă continued his studies at Liege, Belgium, where together with his room-mate and friend Giovanni Battista Caproni, he built the Coandă-Caproni box glider, based on the plans of gliders designed by Otto Lilienthal and Octave Chanute which he previously studied at Charlottenburg and Spandau.〔Antoniu ''et al'' (2010).〕 In 1909 he was employed as technical director of the Liège-Spa Aeroclub, and at the end of that year, with the help of car manufacturer Joachim he built the Coandă-Joachim glider. Caproni was present when the glider was flown at Spa-Malchamps, Belgium. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Coandă-1910」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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