George de Bothezat
George de Bothezat | |
---|---|
Born | 7 June 1882 |
Died | 1 February 1940 Boston, Massachusetts, United States | (aged 57)
Nationality | Russian Empire, United States |
Education | Kharkov Polytechnic Institute University of Paris |
Occupation | Engineer |
Spouse | Julia Ramsay Hilton[2] |
Engineering career | |
Projects | de Bothezat helicopter |
George de Bothezat (
Biography
George de Bothezat was born in 1882 in Saint Petersburg,[1] Russian Empire, to Alexander Botezat and Nadine Rabutowskaja.[3][4] His father Alexander Il'ich Botezat belonged to a family of Bessarabian landlords, graduated from the department of history and philology of the Saint Petersburg University and worked in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, first in Saint Petersburg and then in Paris. Mother, Nadezhda (Nadine) L'vovna Rabutovskaya, belonged to Russian nobility.[5] After the father's death in 1900, the family returned to Russia and settled in Kishinev, where the family friend and local manufacturer Egor Ryshkan-Derozhinsky supported the educational expenses of all three children: George and his sisters Vera (born 1886) and Nina (born 1884).[6]
After graduating the School of Exact Sciences (
In 1914, de Bothezat accepted the position of director at the Polytechnical Institute in
In May 1918, with his homeland in the throes of the
In 1921, the US Army Air Service hired de Bothezat to build a prototype
In March 1923 Time magazine reported Thomas Edison sent Dr. Bothezaat a congratulations for a successful helicopter test flight. Edison wrote, "So far as I know, you have produced the first successful helicopter." The helicopter was tested at McCook's Field and remained airborne for 2 minutes and 45 seconds at a height of 15 feet.[14]
The US Army, now more interested in autogyros, cancelled the underperforming project.[9][13]
De Bothezat returned to New York City and started his own business in making industrial fans, which was incorporated in 1926 as de Bothezat Impeller Company, Inc.[15] The company's axial fans were installed on US Navy cruisers, but this was as far as de Bothezat would go in dealing with the government. He continued publishing essays on topics ranging from flight dynamics to economics of the Great Depression.[11] His 1936 book Back to Newton attacked Albert Einstein's theory of relativity and the whole world of contemporary academics "who are utterly unable to acquaint themselves with the subject".[16] Einstein personally refuted de Bothezat's claim at a public lecture given by de Bothezat at Princeton on 15 June 1935.[17] He worked for the film industry, designing mechanical special effects props for Dudley Murphy's The Love of Sunya (1927).[18]
In 1938 de Bothezat returned to designing and building helicopters. His new company was incorporated as Air-Screw Research Syndicate and later renamed Helicopter Corporation of America.
See also
Selected works
- The general theory of blade screws (1920). National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.
- General theory of the steady motion of an airplane (1921). National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.
- The Depression, Its Real Causes and the Remedy (1933). Economic Security League.
References
- ^ a b Leonard, John William; Downs, Winfield Scott; Lewis, M. M. (15 April 2019). "Who's who in Engineering". John W. Leonard Corporation. Retrieved 15 April 2019 – via Google Books.
- ^ The New York Sun– February 1940
- ^ a b c Gheorghe Botezatu Archived 29 April 2014 at the Wayback Machine at The National Library of Moldova (in Romanian)
- ISBN 978-1-4556-1568-1.
- ^ "Дом с историей – Орловская Городская Газета". orelgazeta.ru. Archived from the original on 2 September 2017. Retrieved 15 April 2019.
- ^ "Как американский авиаконструктор свою сестру и племянницу в Орле от голода спас – История Орловского края – "МАСТЕРА" – Клуб творческих личностей "Мастера"". klub-mastera.narod.ru. Retrieved 15 April 2019.
- ^ School of exact science activity in Chişinău in period of 1873–1918 at nationalmuseum.md
- ^ Étude de la stabilité de l'aéroplane at catalog.hathitrust.org
- ^ a b c d Ботезат Георгий Александрович, Institute of history of science and technology, Russian Academy of Sciences (in Russian)
- ^ a b Mikheev, p. 175.
- ^ a b c Mikheev, p. 176.
- ^ "Why Don't We Fly Straight Up?". Popular Science, February 1928 (Vol. 112, No. 2) p. 126.
- ^ a b c Leishman, p. 25.
- ^ "A Successful Helicopter". Time. 3 March 1923. p. 23. Retrieved 2 March 2021.
- ^ The company survived its founder. A notable civil law case, American Machine & Metals, Inc. v. de Bothezat Impeller Co., Inc. took place in 1948.
- ^ Gardner, p. 84.
- ^ Chiles, pp. 62–64.
- ^ Delson, pp. 74–75.
- ^ He was laid off by Sikorsky Aircraft as the company imploded due to falling demand for flying boats.
- ^ "One-Man Helicopters Give Soldiers Wings". Popular Science, March 1940 p. 129.
- ^ Mikheev, p. 177.
Further reading
- Delson, Susan (2006). Dudley Murphy, Hollywood wild card. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0-8166-4654-6.
- Chiles, James (2007). "God Machine". Bantam Books. ISBN 978-0-553-80447-8.
- Gardner, Martin (1957). Fads and fallacies in the name of science. Courier Dover Publications. 2nd edition: ISBN 0-486-20394-8.
- Leishman, Gordon J (2006). Principles of helicopter aerodynamics. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-85860-7. pp. 25–26.
- Mikheev, V. R. (2001, in Russian). Russkaya aviatsionnaya emigratsia (Российская научная эмиграция), in: Bongard-Levin, G. M. (editor, 2001, in Russian). Rossiyskaya nauchnaya emigratsia (Российская научная эмиграция. Двадцать портретов). Editorial URSS. ISBN 978-5-382-00998-8. pp. 167–178.
- Sergievsky, Boris; Forsyth, Allan; Hochschield, Adam (1999). Airplanes, women, and song: memoirs of a fighter ace, test pilot, and adventurer. Syracuse University Press. ISBN 0-8156-0545-5.