Esnault-Pelterie

Robert Esnault-Pelterie
Robert Esnault-Pelterie
Born	(1881-11-08)November 8, 1881 Paris, France
Died	December 6, 1957(1957-12-06) (aged 76) Geneva, Switzerland
Nationality	French
Engineering career
Significant advance	Aircraft Rocketry

Robert Albert Charles Esnault-Pelterie (November 8, 1881 – December 6, 1957) was a pioneering French aircraft designer and spaceflight theorist. He is referred to as being one of the founders of modern rocketry and astronautics, along with the russian Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, the German Hermann Oberth and the American Robert H. Goddard.

He was born on November 8, 1881 in Paris to a textile industrialist. He was educated at the Faculté des Sciences, studying engineering at the Sorbonne.

He served in World War I and was made an Officier de la Légion d'Honneur.

In November, 1928, on board the Ile de France while sailing to New York City, he was married to Carmen Bernaldo de Quirós, the daughter of Don Antonio and Yvonne Cabarrus, and granddaughter of General Marquis of Santiago, Grandee of Spain, Head of the Military Household of Queen Isabella II.

He died on December 6, 1957 in Geneva.

His first experiments in aviation were based on the Wright brothers 1902 glider. His first glider design was tested on a beach near Calais, but was not successful. His glider was based upon an incomplete understanding of the Wright glider, and although using a version of the wing-warping which the Wright brothers had used to control their aircraft this did not work properly and was abandoned, since he considered it dangerous. After condemning the Wright brothers' approach, he developed the concept of the aileron, fitting a pair of mid-gap control surfaces in front of the wings.

In 1906 he began his first experiments in towed flight. On 19 September 1906 he flew 500 m (1,600 ft). He made his first powered flight on October 10, 1907, a distance of 100 m (330 ft) with the Pelterie I (or R.E.P. I). This was driven by a seven-cylinder, 30 hp air-cooled engine of his own design.