Ramon Casanova (1892-1968) and the pulse jet engine

摘要

In October 1944, Ramon Casanova Danes (1892-1968), who at the time was living in Barcelona, read an article in the British magazine The Illustrated London News about the V1 flying bombs that the German army had been using to attack London since June 13th of that same year. One of the bombs had failed to explode, allowing its mechanism to be examined. Casanova, who in 1917 had patented a pulse jet engine, was surprised to realize that the pulse jet engine that powered the V1 was very similar to his own invention. Two years before, in 1942, he had worked for the French state-owned aircraft company Societe nationale des constructions aeronautiques du Midi (SNCAM), in Toulouse. Although he had presented his invention to his French colleagues and shown them documents related to it, he was unable to arouse their interest. But in 1944, after reading the magazine article, he became convinced that his invention, which he never imagined could be applied for the purposes of war, had inspired the construction of the German flying bombs. But, who was this man, Ramon Casanova?