Raúl Pateras Pescara
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Raúl Pateras Pescara de Castelluccio (born in Buenos Aires in 1890 and died in Paris in 1966), marquis of Pateras-Pescara, was an Argentine engineer and inventor specializing in automobiles, helicopters, as well as free-piston engines.
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[edit] Biography
At the beginning of the 20th century, his family returned from Buenos Aires to Europe.
In 1911, Gustave Eiffel workshop tested in their wind tunnel a scale model (1:20) of a monoplane seaplane designed by Pescara and Italian engineer Alessandro Guidoni[1] named the Pateras Pescara.[2] In 1912, the Italian Ministry of the Navy commissioned Guidoni to build a torpedo bomber based on the Pescara model, tests took place in 1914 without success.
From 1919, Pescara built several coaxial helicopters and submitted numerous patents across several countries. He first tested his machine indoor in 1921, before moving to Paris, France, where government funding was available.
On January 28, 1924, near Paris, with his model 2F, "The Marquis Pateras Pescara broke his own world’s records for helicopter flight by remaining in the air eight minutes 13 4/5 seconds while flying 1,160 meters - about two-thirds of a mile – in a vertical line."[3] Equipped with this type of coaxial double rotor apparatus, he was able to achieve a new world record on April 18, 1924 with a flight of 736 m (805 yd) in 4 minutes 11 seconds (approximately 13 km/h) at a height of 1.8 m (5 ft 11 in).[4]
In 1929, with his brother Henri, the Italian engineer Edmond Moglia, and the Spanish government, he founded La Fábrica Nacional de Automóviles ("National Automobile Factory") with an investment of 70 million pesetas. A car, the Nacional Pescara, was exhibited at the 1931 Paris Motor Show, at the Grand Palais, on the stand next to Voisin's.[5] In 1931 this eight-cylinder car won the European Grand Prix for hill climbing.[6]
The Spanish Civil War forced Pescara to return to France. On February 28, 1933, the Pescara Auto-compressor Company was unveiled in Luxembourg.[7] It remained in business for 30 years, supported by six French patents.[8] One of its shareholders was the Pescara & Raymond Corporation based in Dover, Delaware, USA. Pescara auto-compressors fall into two basic types: symmetrical and asymmetrical.
During the Second World War, Pescara worked on electrical power in Portugal. Free-piston engines received new attention when they were mass-produced by SIGMA (Société industrielle générale de mécanique appliquée), a French company which developed the GS-34, a 1138-horsepower generator.[9] In 1963, Pescara rejoined his sons in Paris where he served as an expert for S.N. Marep which was testing its 2000-horsepower EPLH-40. Raúl Pateras-Pescara subsequently proposed the production of more powerful machines - new tandem generators based on the existing EPLH-40 and GS-34[5]). The formation of a company to apply these processes was underway when Pescara died.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Pateras-Guidoni - Blue prints
- ^ G. Eiffel Air resistance and aviation, p. 240
- ^ AERONAUTICS: Pateras Pescara - Time Magazine January 28, 1924
- ^ Helicopter Development in the Early Twentieth Century
- ^ a b Photos available on the website http://www.pateras-pescara.net.
- ^ 1931 Hill Climb Championships - Hill Climb Winners 1897-1949
- ^ Suivant acte reçu par Maître Charles-Marie-Emile Faber. Des assemblées générales extraordinaires ont eu lieu le 7 décemnbre 1936 et du 9 mai 1938, publiés au Mémorial, Recueil Spécial n° 102 du 23 décembre 1936 et N°46 du 21 mai 1938.
- ^ French patent numbers 595,341, 595,342, 595,343, 595,344, 595,345, and 595,346
- ^ A review of free-piston engine history and applications - R. Mikalsen et A.P. Roskilly, Applied Thermal Engineering, Volume 27, Issues 14-15, October 2007, Pages 2339–2352.
[edit] Further reading
- de Pescara, Christian. Aérofrance, pages 28–31. Issue 108. Dépôt légal: n° CPPAP 61682.
- de Pescara, Christian. Association des Amis du Musée de l'air. Pégase, pages 12–21 ISBN - 0399-9939.
[edit] External links
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