Henri Coandă

Life & Legacy

Henri Marie Coandă (Romanian pronunciation: [ɑ̃ˈri ˈko̯andə] ; 7 June 1886 – 25 November 1972) was a Romanian inventor, aerodynamics pioneer, and builder of an experimental aircraft, the Coandă-1910, which never flew. He invented a great number of devices, designed a "flying saucer" and discovered the Coandă effect of fluid dynamics.
In the 1950s, Coandă inflated his importance in aviation history, describing falsely how he had invented the air-breathing jet engine and incorporated that design into the Coandă-1910 aircraft. However, his ducted engine design, the "turbo-propulseur", was described in its patent as working the same way with either water or air running through.