Engelbert Zaschka (September 1, 1895 in

Freiburg im Breisgau Freiburg im Breisgau or simply Freiburg is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fourth-largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart, Mannheim and Karlsruhe. Its built-up area has a population of abou ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

– June 26, 1955 in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany) was a German chief engineer, chief designer and inventor. Zaschka is one of the first German helicopter pioneers and he is a pioneer of flying with muscle power and the folding car. Zaschka devoted himself primarily to

aviation Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' include fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air aircraft such as h ...

and automotive topics, but his work was not limited to them. Engelbert Zaschka is a prominent representative of the rotary aircraft, a class of rotorcraft systems - according to Zaschka. In 1928/1929 Zaschka developed and constructed the first collapsible and foldable small car (folding car) and in 1934 an early muscle-powered airplane.

Biography

Engelbert Zaschka came from a family of musicians, his father Wenzel taught zither and played in the

Freiburg Freiburg im Breisgau or simply Freiburg is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fourth-largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart, Mannheim and Karlsruhe. Its built-up area has a population of abou ...

City Orchestra, his mother Emilie, née Rombach, was a singer; he was the second oldest of four children. He grew up in the Scheffelstraße and in the Bürgerwehrstraße, where his father had the tenement house no. 11 built in art nouveau style in 1910. At the age of 14 he applied for his first patent, founded a "hobby flying club" in Freiburg-Wiehre and allegedly made his first flying attempts at the Freiburg Schlossberg. After attending the "Höhere Bürgerschule" in Freiburg, he went to Altenburg to study

engineering Engineering is the practice of using natural science, mathematics, and the engineering design process to Problem solving#Engineering, solve problems within technology, increase efficiency and productivity, and improve Systems engineering, s ...

. Afterwards he worked as an engineer at Rheinmetall in

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...

and went to

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

in 1916. There he worked as chief designer at Orion Aktiengesellschaft für Motorfahrzeuge. In the 1930s and 1940s Zaschka was employed by the aircraft manufacturer

Henschel Henschel & Son () was a German company, located in Kassel, best known during the 20th century as a maker of transportation equipment, including locomotives, trucks, buses and trolleybuses, and armoured fighting vehicles and weapons. Georg C ...

. In Berlin, he was registered in 1926 in the Neukölln district of Lichtenrader Straße 59, in 1929 in Selchower Straße 15/16 near Tempelhofer Flugfeld, in 1934 in Flughafenstraße 21 and in 1943 in Weserstraße 34a. After the Second World War, he settled again in Freiburg im Breisgau, where he operated a workshop (vehicle factory. family

bicycle A bicycle, also called a pedal cycle, bike, push-bike or cycle, is a human-powered transport, human-powered or motorized bicycle, motor-assisted, bicycle pedal, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, with two bicycle wheel, wheels attached to a ...

s or Zaschka vehicle factory) at Türkenlouisstraße 47. Zaschka died on 26 June 1955 in his hometown Freiburg im Breisgau. Zaschka became one of the first German

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which Lift (force), lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning Helicopter rotor, rotors. This allows the helicopter to VTOL, take off and land vertically, to hover (helicopter), hover, and ...

pioneers. His machine is a striking representative of the ''Rotationsflugzeug'' (Zaschka calls it "rotating airplane"). Chief Engineer Engelbert Zaschka pursued in 1929 in

, the approach of the ''folding-Zaschka three-wheeler''. This

city car The A-segment is the first category in the passenger car classification system defined by the European Commission. It is used for city cars, the smallest category of passenger cars defined. A-segment sales represented approximately 4.2% of the ...

concept was aimed to be cost effective and space saving by the vehicle could be folded after use sparingly. In 1934 Engelbert Zaschka completed a large human-powered aircraft. He was an inventor who held numerous international patents as it related to the helicopter.

Engineering Activities

Zaschka Helicopter

In 1927 Engelbert Zaschka of

built a helicopter, equipped with two

rotor ROTOR was an elaborate air defence radar system built by the British Government in the early 1950s to counter possible attack by Soviet bombers. To get it operational as quickly as possible, it was initially made up primarily of WWII-era syst ...

s, in which a

gyroscope A gyroscope (from Ancient Greek γῦρος ''gŷros'', "round" and σκοπέω ''skopéō'', "to look") is a device used for measuring or maintaining Orientation (geometry), orientation and angular velocity. It is a spinning wheel or disc in ...

was used to increase stability and serves as an energy accumulator for a

gliding Gliding is a recreational activity and competitive air sports, air sport in which pilots fly glider aircraft, unpowered aircraft known as Glider (sailplane), gliders or sailplanes using naturally occurring currents of rising air in the atmospher ...

flight to make a landing. Gliding in this case means a straight descent. He wanted to develop an efficient

propeller A propeller (often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon a working flu ...

drive. A swivelling propeller at the rear provided

propulsion Propulsion is the generation of force by any combination of pushing or pulling to modify the translational motion of an object, which is typically a rigid body (or an articulated rigid body) but may also concern a fluid. The term is derived from ...

and

rudder A rudder is a primary control surface used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, airship, or other vehicle that moves through a fluid medium (usually air or water). On an airplane, the rudder is used primarily to counter adverse yaw ...

control. The machine was a combination of an

autogyro An autogyro (from Greek and , "self-turning"), gyroscope, gyrocopter or gyroplane, is a class of rotorcraft that uses an unpowered rotor in free autorotation to develop lift. A gyroplane "means a rotorcraft whose rotors are not engine-d ...

and a

. The principal advantage of the machine, Zaschka says, is in its ability to remain motionless in the air for any length of time and to descend in a vertical line, so that a landing may be accomplished on the flat roof of a large house. In appearance, the helicopter does not differ much from the ordinary

monoplane A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple wings. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing con ...

, but the carrying

wing A wing is a type of fin that produces both Lift (force), lift and drag while moving through air. Wings are defined by two shape characteristics, an airfoil section and a planform (aeronautics), planform. Wing efficiency is expressed as lift-to-d ...

s revolve around the body.

Zaschka Human-Power Aircraft (1934)

In 1934 Engelbert Zaschka completed a large human-powered aircraft, the ''Zaschka Human-Power Aircraft''. Zaschka constructed the large human-powered tractor monoplane with a narrow wing spanning about 66 feet (20 metres). On 11 July 1934 he flew his large human-powered aircraft, the ''Zaschka Human-Power Aircraft'', about 20 meters at

's Tempelhof Airport without assisted take off.

Motorcycle: The German Orionette (1921-1925)

From 1921 till 1925 the design department of '' Orionette AG für Motorfahrzeuge'' in Berlin (Berlin SO 26, Oranienstr. 6), headed by Engelbert Zaschka, also produced some interesting unorthodox designs. '' Orionette'' is a historic German

motorcycle A motorcycle (motorbike, bike; uni (if one-wheeled); trike (if three-wheeled); quad (if four-wheeled)) is a lightweight private 1-to-2 passenger personal motor vehicle Steering, steered by a Motorcycle handlebar, handlebar from a saddle-style ...

brand.

Folding Zaschka Three-wheeler (1929)

The space and parking problems of the

metropolitan area A metropolitan area or metro is a region consisting of a densely populated urban area, urban agglomeration and its surrounding territories which share Industry (economics), industries, commercial areas, Transport infrastructure, transport network ...

s were recognized in the 1920s. In 1929 Engelbert Zaschka invented a three-wheeled car in

. Zaschka's car was a folding three-wheeler, designed so that it could be taken apart within 20 minutes. The car could be "knocked down" into three main sections. It was capable of a speed of 25 to 30 miles an hour. Aspects of Zaschka's car were important to U.S. inventor and architect

Richard Buckminster Fuller Richard Buckminster Fuller (; July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983) was an American architect, systems theorist, writer, designer, inventor, philosopher, and futurist. He styled his name as R. Buckminster Fuller in his writings, publishing more th ...

in the development of his Dymaxion car in 1933.synchronofile.com
Dymaxion - Synergetics Stew January 2009
/ref>

Reception

Composer

As a composer, Engelbert Zaschka created

popular music Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fun ...

, including ''Slavoma - Der neuste Tanz'' (1925), which was recorded at least twice: by the orchestra Bernard Etté and the saxophone orchestra Dobbri under the direction of Otto Dobrindt. Furthermore, he wrote and composed the hit ''Wer hat denn bloß den Hering am Schlips mir festgemacht'' (literally, "Who just fastened the herring to my tie?" (1928).

Patents

* * * * * *

Publication

* Zaschka, Engelbert. ''Drehflügelflugzeuge. Trag- und Hubschrauber.'' Berlin-Charlottenburg: C.J.E. Volckmann Nachf. E. Wette. 1936. ASIN B001PE5XZ2. One of the first publications about helicopters. It is written in 1936 for airplane designers, as well as supporters of the rotary-wing aircraft construction.

Gallery

Image:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-09261, Engelbert Zaschka mit Rotationsflugzeug.jpg, Image:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-10105, Berlin-Tempelhof, Modell eines Kreisel-Flugzeuges.jpg, Image:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-10106, Engelbert Zaschka mit Modell des Kreisel-Flugzeugs.jpg, Image:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-12440, Rotationsflugzeug beim Senkrechtstart.jpg, Image:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-13806, Rotationsflugzeug (cropped).jpg, Image:ZASCHKA Human-Powered Aircraft 1934.jpg, Image:Zaschka - Drehflügelflugzeuge. Trag- und Hubschrauber. 1936.jpg,

Bibliography

* Fay, John Foster. ''The Helicopter: History, Piloting and How It Flies.'' David & Charles PLC. 1976. * Reay, David Anthony. ''The history of man-powered flight.'' Oxford/New York: Pergamon Press. 1977. * Nowarra, Heinz J. ''German Helicopters 1928-1945.'' Schiffer Publishing. 1991. * Besser, Rolf. ''Technik und Geschichte der Hubschrauber: Von Leonardo da Vinci bis zur Gegenwart.'' Bonn: Bernard & Graefe Verlag. 1996. * Grosser, Morton. ''Gossamer Odyssey: The Triumph of Human-powered Flight.'' Zenith Press. 2004.

TV documentary in which Zaschka is treated

''Große Ideen – kleine Flops: Geistesblitze von A bis Z.'' Documentary, Germany, 2016, 90 minutes, authors: Andreas Kölmel and Jürgen Vogt; Production: SWR Fernsehen, German premiere: May 16, 2016
Information about the documentary

References

External links

*Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Washington:
Zaschka
Articles

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

, June 4, 1927.

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

, June 6, 1927. * ttp://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3965501 Aeroplane that rises vertically The Argus (Australia), October 27, 1928. * Pictures
The ''Zaschka Human-Power Aircraft'' and Engelbert Zaschka (Berlin, 1934)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zaschka, Engelbert 1895 births 1955 deaths Engineers from Freiburg im Breisgau German aerospace engineers 20th-century German inventors Cyclecars Businesspeople from Berlin