First Bulgarian-made airplane, world’s first airbag

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In the Aeroplanno Otdelenie division, Asen Yordanov gained expertise, he designed the first Bulgarian-made airplane, and it was built in the summer of 1915. Yordanov test flew the plane, and it was subsequently named the Diplane (biplane) Yordanov-1. He sold the plane’s design to the military and they started to produce it. In one year’s time Bulgaria already had 23 airplanes.

Yordanov already became known as designer, mathematician, and inventor at his young age. He introduced a valuable new device, namely a feature which prevents the plane from losing altitude, into the new plane.

Yordanov decided to remain in the United States, where he later found his new home. 

A very important activity was the preparation and the distribution of thousands of copies of descriptive books and practical manuals for aircraft. Jordanoff also became renowned for his many articles and publishing on aviation, as well as his commentaries and editorials. He was presented as a prominent authority on all the areas of aviation. Jordanoff eventually became the largest American publisher and editor of specialized military manuals.

In the 1940s Jordanoff was assigned the task by the United States Department of Defense to prepare instruction manuals for military aircraft, submarines and aircraft carriers, on topics like land support with radio equipment, air meteorology, theoretic and flight preparation of the pilots for diurnal and nocturnal piloting. These were for crew use, inspection, maintenance and repair.

Aside from his many patents on plane design, Jordanoff also introduced the so-called Jordaphone from his Electronics company, a wireless telephone, with an answering function and amplifier and intercom functions. It was the first of its kind, and preceded the modern inventions of the answering machine and tape recorder by 5 to 30 years. Another invention was the Frozen Gasoline System for airplanes.

The idea was to super-cool the fuel in an aircraft’s tank with dry ice and alcohol, thus making it inflammable. This system was never finally implemented, but its principles were later adopted in different forms. Further inventions of note included The Reverse Thrust device, which was made to decrease the specific fuel consumption and to increase the thrust of jet engines. The world’s first air bag, meant to ensure the safety of pilots and automobile drivers alike, was designed by Jordanoff in (1957).

Conclusion

Jordanoff’s popularity in America became almost legendary. Jordanoff was made an honorary citizen of New York City, his name appeared in Who’s Who. The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum holds his papers and mementoes.

References

1. Asen Yordanov
2. Composite Gazetteer of Antarctica: Jordanoff Bay.
3. Wikipedia article.

The contents of this page are sourced from Wikipedia article. The contents are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.