From Helicopters to Vespas-The Aeronautical Engineering of Corradino d'Ascanio

摘要

Corradino d'Ascanio (1891-1981) was a prolific inventor who held dozens of patents, an accomplished aeronautical engineer, and a pioneer in the development of the helicopter. However, he is best known for his design of the Vespa motor scooter, into which he incorporated several novel aeronautical features. In 1917, while with the Pomilio Company, d'Ascanio developed one of the first automatic flight attitude indicators for an airplane, as well as an autopilot. By 1925, after having spent a year in the USA with Pomilio designing the FVL-8 fighter plane and the BVL-12 bomber, d'Ascanio had designed a helicopter. Alhough his first two helicopter prototypes were unsuccessful, the d'Ascanio-Trojani D'A.T.3 was flying by 1930. A unique feature of all d'Ascanio's helicopter designs was the use of trailing-edge mounted servo-flaps to aerodynamically twist each blade to control the helicopter during its flight. Combined with independent flapping hinges on each blade, d'Ascanio's D'A.T.3 showed much improved flight capabilities over all previous attempts at building a helicopter. By the end of 1930, the D'A.T.3 helicopter held several modest flight records, including hovering altitude, flight duration, and distance flown. While d'Ascanio's work was interrupted by the outbreak of WWII and the destruction of the prototype Piaggio-D'Ascanio P.D.3 single-rotor helicopter by Allied bombing, by the early 1950s both the P.D.3 and the P.D.4 tandem rotor helicopter had flown successfully. In the 1960s, d'Ascanio designed a small single-seater training helicopter for Count Domenico Agusta. Although none of his helicopter designs went into serial production, Corradino d'Ascanio is recognized as a true technical pioneer in the development of the modern helicopter.