Talk:Henri Coandă

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I took the liberty of improving the English of the translated quotation in the "Quotes" section. However, I'd love to see the original to verify that it is translated correctly. It's not in the (rather extensive) Romanian-language Wikipedia article from which I have been drawing most of this material. -- Jmabel 07:17, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I've brought in the list of Awards and Medals from the Romanian-language site. However, I'm a little skeptical about its accuracy, especially (1) the vagueness of the first New York listing and (2) the actual names of the various medals. I see essentially the same list reproduced around the web, apparently first published in Romanian and then translated or mistranslated from there. If someone who likes to do the kind of research that actually involves hitting library archives rather than just browsing the web wants to work on one aspect of this article, that list might merit a good fact-check. -- Jmabel 08:11, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

"Liceu" is romanian for "Highschool" [User:Mihai] 19 Dec 03

Agreed, in terms of the age of the students but the word is well-known in English (from the French) and the curriculum, as I understand it, resembles a French liceu far more than an American high school. Similarly, in an article about a German, I would not translate gymnasium. -- Jmabel 17:38, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

User:Greyengine5 recently changed "the world's first jet plane" to "the world's first thermojet aircraft." There were also some other related edits. I believe he is subtantially correct (a thermojet is not the same thing as what we usually call a "jet"), but I do believe that this was the first aircraft to use jet propulsion of any sort. Unless I am wrong (and this is not an area were I am expert), the article should say as much. -- Jmabel 17:33, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

From opening paragraph: "the parent of the modern jet aircraft." Hardly. His jet engine was nothing like a modern jet and his aircraft crashed on its only outing (amendment made to later section). I would suggest rewording along the lines of "one of the precursors of jet aircraft", but leave out 'modern' (he used a piston to to drive the compressor rather than a turbine) and 'the' (he was one of many, not The). What do others think? Emeraude 23:25, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I strongly suspect that "precursor" would be a better choice. - Jmabel | Talk 03:47, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WW2

Where and how did he spent World War II? --Error 00:26, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

This article is practically devoid of any information on the man after the age of 30. Cripipper 12:22, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Henri Coandă - the parent of the modern jet aircraft

In the history of the aviation Coandă is credited for two major discoveries: The Coanda-1910 airplane and the Coandă effect. The revolutionary plane that Coandă built in 1910 was way ahead of its time by the fact that it had no propeller and it used a reactive jet for propulsion; The issue is that he was the very first to build a jet engine, regardless of the technology; of course, in today's jet engine, the technology used is the gas turbine and not the thermojet, but this doesn't change the fact that he was the first who thought of that.

A simple search on the references will guide you the same answer: Coandă is credited today 100 % as the father of the modern jet aircraft.Cristibur 03:34, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Let's take a look at the sources in the article:

• [1] says "This was 30 years prior to Heinkle, Campini, and Whittle who have been considered the 'fathers' of jet flight"
• [2] is a dead link
• [3] is a list of his patents, so doesn't help us
• [4] doesn't state he's the father/parent of jet flight

So the only one of the references to discuss this subject says that Heinkle, Campini and Whittle are considered the fathers of jet flight. Let's look at a few more through Google. This Wired article describes him as the "father of the jet engine" (my emphasis) not jet flight or aircraft. This geek.com comment does describe Coanda as the "father of jet planes" but isn't a reliable source. This is another blog entry, so again not reliable for our purposes.

So, please provide a reliable source for this statement, otherwise its just original research. I've added a citation needed tag to it. Thanks, Gwernol 03:49, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Discovery Channel Europe [5] Cristibur 02:01, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

That says "godfather of the modern jet aircraft", which is a colloquialism that does not mean the same as "father of..." or "parent of...". Even if we accepted this, we also need to look at [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15] etc. etc. For every citation that Coanda is the "father of the jet age" there are 10-100 that say its someone else. Claiming "Coandă is credited today 100 % as the father of the modern jet aircraft" is simply untrue.

We don't give undue weight to minority opinions. I'm sorry, but this statement really can't stay in the article. I'm going to change it so that it reflects the facts: he was the inventor of the thermojet. Gwernol 02:18, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

[16] (" ... a thermojet is still a jet ...") ... and still searching (I don't have too much time right now) ... btw no need to hurry about the changing, there will be quite a debate. Cristibur 02:22, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the thermojet is still a jet, that was not the question. What I'm disputing is "Coandă is credited today 100 % as the father of the modern jet aircraft" which is clearly not true. Its not even true to say that some people say he is the father of the modern jet aircraft; almost no-one makes this claim. Its such a minority view that it shouldn't be included in the article. Just stick to the fact, that he was the inventor of the thermojet. There is no need to make falsely inflated claims for him: let his real achievements stand on their own - they are very impressive. Gwernol 02:42, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I have mixed opinions on this (it's my blog which is linked to above, btw). On the one hand, the Coanda-1910 was powered by a thermojet; a thermojet is a jet; ergo the Coanda-1910 was a jet aircraft, and the first such. On the other, it was a technological dead-end which, as far as I can tell, had little or no influence on the aircraft designers who developed the direct ancestors of the jets we use today. I think it is fair to say that aviation historians generally wouldn't consider Coanda "the father of the jet aircraft" (after all, the Coanda-1910 never achieved sustained, controlled flight) -- whether that's fair or not can be debated, but it's the current consensus view which should be summarised in Wikipedia. Airminded 03:28, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

This looks more and more like a popularity contest to me. Did you guys try searching Google in Romanian, German or Italian? The technological progress happens through trial, testing and error. And it happens in increments. Coanda had an accident, he should have continued working on the jet engine. Had he done so, I have no doubt that he would have reached the same solutions as Whittle and von Ohain latter. Unfortunately, at his time, the normal propeller engine had a lot of potential left, and Coanda could get no more funding for his unconventional jet engine. The funding appeared only when the propeller engine reached its limit, after 30 years. And it is possible that Whittle, von Ohain and Campini knew about his attempts. Even if the people forget, the scientific community does not forget easily. Campini even built his plane in the same place where Coanda built his. Saying that Campini was one of the fathers but Coanda was not makes no sense to me.67.81.182.37 02:12, 28 October 2007 (UTC)