Anton Flettner
| Anton Flettner | |
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Anton Flettner
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| Born | November 1, 1885 Hattersheim am Main |
| Died | December 29, 1961 (aged 76) |
| Nationality | Germany |
| Engineering career | |
| Discipline | aviation engineer |
| Projects | helicopters |
Anton Flettner (November 1, 1885 – December 29, 1961) was a German aviation engineer and inventor. He made important contributions to airplane and helicopter design. He was born in Eddersheim (today a district of Hattersheim am Main).
During World War I, Flettner developed the servo tab / anti-servo tab, and working under the aegis of Graf Zeppelin, he worked on remote control and pilotless aircraft. This work culminated in the prototype Siemens Schuckert Werke 1000 kg wire guided air to surface missile of 1918.
The servo, or trim tab, is used in the control surfaces of aircraft and boats. It is important for large boats, that are able to move very large rudders with vastly reduced power. Trim tabs in airplane rudder are a basic part of most modern planes
Following World War I, Flettner directed an aeronautical and hydrodynamic research institute in Amsterdam.
In the 1920s, he bought a schooner and added two rotating 50-foot cylinders onto it, and thus was the first to build a propulsion system based on the Magnus effect. He came upon the idea while at the beach with his wife. He used sand, flowing over his rotating hand, to describe the Magnus effect and realized its potential on sail propulsion. The ship was named Baden-Baden and crossed the Atlantic in 1926. It could outsail normal schooners under moderate to heavy winds, but was destroyed by a storm in 1931. A commercial ship, the Barbara, was also built, and sailed to the United States.
During World War II, he headed Anton Flettner, Flugzeugbau GmbH, which specialized in helicopters.
Anton Flettner was also noted for his invention of the famous Flettner rotary ventilator, widely used on buses, vans, boats, campervans and trucks to assist cooling without the use of energy — modern derivatives of his ventilator are still manufactured in Britain by Flettner Ventilator Limited.
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Wikipedia