Early USA Ekranoplanes

[hesham]

Hi,


here is three ideas for early USA Ekranoplane,two from D. Warner and one
from A. Gazda;


http://vadimvswar.narod.ru/ALL_OUT/TiVOut0809/EkrplUSA/EkrplUSA001.htm

 

[hesham]

Hi,


anther artist drawing to Warner.


http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0376042106000637

 

[hesham]

Hi,


here is the Warner design,from a Russian book; Strannye Letajushchie.

 

[hesham]

from A. Gazda

Was him the same person who designed a helicopter ?;

Antoine Gazda's « Helicospeeder »: a cousin of Sikorsky's VS-300

the Gazda Model 100 Helicospeeder [NX69154] was a single-seat helicopter of all-aluminium construction designed by Antoine (Antonio) Gazda of Wakefield, Rhode Island in 1946. Gazda had been a World War I combat pilot, an ace, in the Austrian Air Force. A Swiss citizen, he had owned an aircraft...

www.secretprojects.co.uk

 

[Apophenia]

Yes, the Austrian [1] engineer Antoine Gazda DeSuchan (until he ditched the last name). There is also a 1941 patent filing for a twin-engined derivative of that WIG design: https://patents.google.com/patent/USD136794S/en

Gazda was best-known as the Oerlikon rep who brought the 20 mm anti-aircraft gun to the US in 1940.

Supposedly, Gazda flew for the K.u.K. Luftfahrtruppen during WWI (when he claims to have invented divebombing). I say supposedly because, according to Oerlikon's Emil George Beuhrle, almost nothing that Gazda said was ever 100% true.

Many of Gazda's concepts were fairly goofy - eg: his retractable aircraft factory:

Bombproof Plane Factories ROLL INTO MOUNTAIN SIDE - Popular Science (May, 1941)

Raid Shelters for Assembly Plants: A Swiss Inventor's Solution to the Problem of Protecting Production AIRPLANE FACTORIES that literally run to shelter from raiding bombers have been invented by Antoine Gazda, noted Swiss armament designer, and erected at undisclosed places in Switzerland by the...

blog.modernmechanix.com

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[1] In his US patents, he lists himself as "a citizen of no country". That seems reasonable (since Austria had ceased to exist with the Anschluß) but didn't stop the FBI from arresting Gazda as an enemy alien.