Ducted fan or the world’s first jet plane? The Coanda claim re-examined

Extract

There is no question that the distinguished Rumanian inventor and aircraft designer, Henri Coanda (1886—1972), was a highly gifted and creative man. Many called him a genius. There have been at least five lengthy feature articles in various aeronautical or true adventure magazines extolling his remarkable career and bearing such flamboyant tides as, ‘The Jet-Propelled Genius and His Mighty Blow’ (True, December 1956); ‘The Amazing Dr. Coanda’ (Air Progress, August/September 1965); and ‘The Prowling Mind of Henri Coanda’ (Flying, March ] 967). These articles rightly praise Coanda’s multi-faceted pioneering achievements in pre-fabricated houses, soil regeneration, sea-water desalinisation, solar energy, the discovery of the ‘Coanda Effect’ which is well-known to aerodynamicists, his highly innovative aircraft designs such as a twin-engined machine of 1911 (also proclaimed by some as a world’s first), a vertical take-off aircraft, the 1934 ‘lenticular aerodyne’ (otherwise known as a flying saucer), and so on.