Rodrig Goliescu

Who was Rodrig Goliescu?

Rodrig Goliescu was a Romanian inventor, engineer, and Lieutenant, who built the avioplan, the first airplane with a tubular fuselage.The model, with a length of 1.2 m was successfully tested in 1909, having a take off angle of 30 degrees. The originality of this aircraft was the shape of the fuselage, designed for minimum drag and acting as a tube fan, similar to the way the modern vertical take off aircraft and helicopters are designed. This shape reduced drag and increased the efficiency of the propeller. Helped by the Minister of Education, Spiru Haret, who also helped Aurel Vlaicu, in 1909 he went to France to acquire an engine for his aircraft. In Paris he sent a survey "Laws of air dynamics" to the French Academy, study that was published in "La France automobile et aérienne" magazine, on 15 May 1909. Goliescu patented his invention in France. In the same year he learned to fly and he built an updated version of his aircraft, this time in full size. The aircraft had a half cylinder fuselage, but still the air from the propeller flowed through as in the first model.