By: Rénald Fortier
Ingenium – Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation
“I preferred to be a cutting edge engineer” The most important rocketry pioneer you have never heard of, the French engineer and inventor Louis Damblanc, part 1
Louis Damblanc, French pioneer of rocketry, and the device he designed to launch short-range postal rockets, circa 1937. Alexandre Ananoff, “L’histoire des fusées.” La Nature, 15 May 1939, 312.
Ignoring our consecrated habits, my reading friend, yours truly would like to begin this issue of our blog / bulletin / thingee with a question. Had you heard of Louis Damblanc before you read his name in the title of this article? Why is he so important?
And do not go online to do a little research. That would be cheating.
That name means nothing to you? How about those of Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky and Robert Hutchings Goddard?
Pioneers of rocketry, the first being a Russian mentioned in February 2019 and December 2023 issues of that same blog / bulletin / thingee and the second an American mentioned in several issues of that incomparable source of information, and that since July 2018, say you? And you would be able to pontificate about them for several minutes? I am impressed, but how about Damblanc? Why is he so important?
If I may quote, out of context, two lines from a 1977 (!) song sung by the American singer / actor Meat Loaf, of his true name Michael Lee Aday, born Marvin Lee Aday, now don’t be sad, ‘cause two out of three ain’t bad. Sorry. I like that song, but I digress.
Indeed, why is Damblanc so important? Let me tell you.
Recognising the possibility that you were about to ask me a question, allow me to pontificate for a brief moment about Aleksandr Mikhranovich Ananoff, the author of the article in which yours truly found the photograph you saw a few moments ago. That Russian-French astronomy enthusiast of Armenian and Polish origin discovered astronautics in 1927, when he was still only 17 years old. He then discovered a passion for that field of activity which would haunt him for the rest of his days.
Ananoff soon began a more or less ongoing correspondence with some of the big names in astronautics of the time, including Tsiolkovsky and Goddard, as well as with Hermann Julius Oberth, a German physicist / engineer of Austro-Hungarian origin mentioned in July 2020 and March 2023 issues of our very excellent blog / bulletin / thingee.
In 1929, Ananoff began presenting lectures on astronautics aimed at the general public. He wrote articles for various publications. Ananoff also supervised the creation of the first exhibition on astronautics on French soil, in Paris, in 1937, at the Palais de la Découverte. Said exhibition was in fact a room located in the astronomy section of that brand new science museum.
Would you believe that Ananoff helped with one of the most important and impressive adventures experienced by the hero created by a bande dessinée giant and artistic director of the Belgian weekly magazine Tintin? That work on which Georges Prosper Remi, known as Hergé, had been working with more or less success since 1947, a work whose first boards appeared in Tintin in March 1950, was Objectif Lune / On a marché sur la Lune, in English Destination Moon and Explorers on the Moon.
And yes, Remi was indeed mentioned in many issues of our fantabulastic blog / bulletin / thingee, and this since July 2018, but back to Damblanc.
His story and, therefore, the present article began in June 1889, in Lectoure / Leitora, France, in the southern region of Aquitaine, with the birth of that future engineer.
Admitted to the Institut électrotechnique of the Université de Grenoble, in… Grenoble / Grenoblo, France, in September 1906, Damblanc obtained a diploma in 1910.
Mobilised during the First World War, Damblanc worked in the Direction des Inventions of the Ministère de l’Armement et des Fabrications de Guerre, as a test engineer.
At some point during the conflict, perhaps as early as 1916, Damblanc began to work on helicopters for the Ministère de la Guerre. Some officers of the Aéronautique militaire of the Armée de Terre were indeed wondering if that type of flying machine could replace the tethered and vulnerable observation balloons used all along the front line to regulate artillery fire.
At another point during the conflict, Damblanc met a lecturer at the École centrale des arts et manufactures. Louis Marie Paul Lacoin was also interested in helicopters. Indeed, that engineer joined forces in 1915 with two very little-known people, Alexis Beurrier and Émile Jean Bigourdan, to patent an aircraft halfway between an aeroplane and a helicopter whose rotors were mounted side by side.
Those last two gentlemen were not new to such matters, however. Nay. Indeed, a French patent for an aerial vehicle dating from October 1912 bore the names of Beurrier and Bigourdan, but back to Damblanc.
His experiments with model helicopters equipped with coaxial / superimposed rotors having failed to give the hoped-for results, Damblanc adopted the configuration previously adopted by Beurrier, Bigourdan and Lacoin. Indeed, he joined the latter to found the Société d’études d’aviation l’Alérion no later than April 1917. Damblanc was the technical director of that firm.
Mind you, Damblanc also founded, after the Armistice of November 1918 or as early as 1915, I cannot say, the Bureau d’études aéronautiques. He might, I repeat might, have founded that consulting engineering firm with a friend, a little known electrical and aeronautical construction engineer named Jean Tufféry who also had a diploma from the Institut électrotechnique of the Université de Grenoble, but back to the Société d’études d’aviation l’Alérion.
The Alérion vertical take-off and landing rotary-wing aircraft designed in part by Louis Damblanc, then under construction. The blades of the two rotors had not yet received their fabric covering. E.-H. Lémonon, “L’hélicoptère serait-il l’appareil aérien de l’avenir?” La Science et la Vie, August-September 1920, 299.
The construction of the prototype of an aircraft halfway between an aeroplane and a helicopter, called… Alérion, began during the second half of 1919, apparently in the workshops of the Institut aérotechnique, a research establishment located in Saint-Cyr-l’École, France, a suburb of Paris. The start of work might, I repeat might, have coincided with a significant injection of funds.
You see, the Section technique de l’aéronautique of the Ministère de la Guerre was so intrigued by the project that it bought all the rights to it, apparently in 1919, and provided a large sum to the team. That interest flipped over more than one observer.
The precious prototype arrived at the flight test center of Villacoublay, France, near Paris, in July 1920. Ground tests began but problems were numerous. The Alérion indeed had many innovations.
During the first test involving an engine operating at full power, in September, a test which took place before all the problems had been resolved, the beam which connected the vertical axes of the rotors broke. At least one of the rotating rotor blades hit Damblanc, who was then acting as test pilot. Even though he was not seriously injured, the engineer was seriously upset. Worse was to come, however.
Proclaiming themselves the sole inventors of the Alérion, Beurrier, Bigourdan and Lacoin disclaimed their responsibility in the accident. As a result, all the links uniting until then Beurrier, Bigourdan, Damblanc and Lacoin were broken.
The contract linking the team with the Section technique de l’aéronautique requiring that a first flight be held before mid-October 1920, the Alérion project ended without said flight taking place. Shelved for a while, the aircraft was scrapped at an undetermined date.
A brief digression if I may. By 1927 at the latest, Lacoin had designed a helicopter similar in appearance to the Alérion. That machine, however, had a third, smaller rotor on its rear fuselage. Interestingly, Lacoin’s helicopter also had a rotor placed inside its fin. That rotor could turn in one direction or the other to ensure control of the helicopter.
The cavity occupied by the tail rotor of the Lacoin helicopter strangely resembled the fenestron mounted on machines designed decades later by a French firm, the Société nationale de constructions aéronautiques Sud-Aviation, which was subsequently absorbed by other firms, French then European. Just think of the elegant Sud-Aviation SA 340 Gazelle civil and military helicopter (first flight in April 1968).
Lacoin died in 1928 or 1929 and his helicopter project did not proceed beyond the paper stage, but back to Damblanc.
Louis Damblanc, February 1920. Bibliothèque nationale de France, EI-13 (2629).
Damblanc’s expertise in rotary wing aircraft was such that a text written by him was presented in the premises of the prestigious Royal Aeronautical Society, in London, England, in November 1920. The French engineer counted among the rare (two?) foreigners thus honored until then.
Despite the fact that his English was very acceptable, Damblanc asked an American journalist passing through London, an aeronautics specialist named Edmond Percy “E.P.” Noel, I think, born Ephraim Percy Noel, to present the conference on his behalf.
Yours truly remembers spending at least a good part of a very pleasant day in the library of the Royal Aeronautical Society. That was in 1981, I think. Anyway, let us move on.
Alongside his contribution to the development of the Alérion, Damblanc began to become interested in the use of helicopter parachutes, in other words parachutes whose descent was slowed by a rotating wing.
Damblanc completed a prototype even before the end of 1920 and carried out tests by placing said prototype horizontally, on an automobile moving at low speed. At the end of December 1920 or the beginning of January 1921, the engineer requested permission to launch a prototype, to which a mannequin was suspended, from the first platform of the Eiffel Tower, in Paris. He received a polite but firm refusal.
Attachment of a Damblanc helicopter parachute with coaxial rotors under the nacelle of a gas balloon, Aérodrome de Saint-Cyr, Saint-Cyr-l’École, France. Anon., “Le nouveau planeur à voilure tournante expérimenté à Saint-Cyr.” Excelsior, 29 April 1927, 6.
Thanks to the strong backing of the Ministère de la Guerre, tests using a captive gas balloon were held towards the beginning of 1921, in a suburb of Paris. Damblanc’s improved prototypes then included 2 rotors rotating in opposite directions. Those tests continued successfully at least until 1930, or even 1931, as proven by the following illustration, which showed the device used by Damblanc.
The electric trolley of the Institut aérotechnique used by Louis Damblanc to test one of his coaxial rotor helicopter parachutes, Saint-Cyr-l’École, France. Anon., “Helicopter Railway Runs in France.” Popular Science, May 1931, 39.
And yes, Damblanc used the electric trolley of a French research establishment, the Institut aérotechnique of Saint-Cyr-l’École. Normally used for research work of an aerodynamic nature, said trolley could reach speeds approaching 80 kilometres/hour (50 or so miles/hour).
Ultimately, however, Damblanc’s work on helicopter parachutes led to nothing concrete.
A (good?) part of those tests might have been linked to a French patent dating from 1922 concerning a piloted helicopter whose cylindrical fuselage would be vertical, and not horizontal, hence the nickname obus volant, in English flying shell, given by some to that curious, to say the least, project, a project which would never see the light of day.
Mind you, Damblanc obtained a patent in 1921 concerning the use of helicopter parachutes carrying explosives and guided by radio from an aircraft or airship to attack various types of targets.
A Damblanc-Mutti variable compression and cubic capacity rotary engine mounted on a test bench in a laboratory of the Section technique de l’aéronautique, Issy-les-Moulineaux, France. Louis Damblanc is the second person on the right of the photograph. Louis Damblanc, “Les vols aux grandes altitudes et les moteurs à compression variable.” La Vie Aérienne, 25 March 1920, 1055.
Continuing work begun during the First World War, Damblanc developed, no later than early 1920, a lightweight device which made it possible to change the stroke of the cylinders of an aircraft engine in mid-flight, and this to improve its performance at high altitude. He carried out said work with the help of a little-known French engineer, Louis Mutti.
At least one prototype of a Damblanc-Mutti variable compression and cubic capacity engine was running on a test bench at the Section technique de l’aéronautique, at Issy-les-Moulineaux, France, near Paris, no later than March 1920.
The increases in cubic capacity and compression obtained by Damblanc’s device made it possible, according to him, to increase the power of a conventional engine with optimal compression by almost 50% at an altitude of 5 000 or so metres (16 400 or so feet). Wah!
André Herbemont, the chief aeronautical engineer of the Société pour l’aviation et ses dérivés (SPAD), a subsidiary of the Établissements Blériot Aéronautique, itself a sister / brother company of the Société anonyme des Établissements L. Blériot, a well-known French manufacturer of headlights for automobiles, wished to use that engine to power an aircraft which, at least he hoped, would set a world altitude record.
Before I forget, the Établissements Blériot Aéronautique and the Société Anonyme des Établissements L. Blériot were mentioned in May 2020, October 2022 and February 2024 issues of our dazzling blog / bulletin / thingee. SPAD, for its part, was so blessed in an October 2022 issue.
The SPAD S.32 made its first flight in May 1920. That flight proved to be brief. The Damblanc-Mutti engine was poorly balanced indeed. It was quickly sent back to a workshop to remedy that serious problem.
The S.32 made a second flight in December. While it was true that the Damblanc-Mutti engine worked a tad better, it seemed equally true that the development of that complex and fragile engine would take a long time. Given that, and the fact that its development might not have been all that useful anyway, it was soon cast aside.
The problems with the Damblanc-Mutti engine explained the abandonment by the French test pilot and First World War fighter ace Jean Pie Hyacinthe Paul Jérôme Casale of his attempt to retake the world altitude record that an American test pilot, Major Rudolph William “Shorty” Schroeder of the United States Army Air Service (USAAS), had wrested from him in February 1920.
And yes, Schroeder was indeed the pilot who, along with Sergeant C. Beatty, also from the USAAS, had won the handicap element of the international air race of August 1919, a return course of 1 680 or so kilometres (1 045 or so miles) between Toronto, Ontario, and New York City, New York, or vice versa. Your knowledge is impressive, my reading friend. Kudos!
Yours truly would be remiss if I did not mention that some of the aircraft types used by pilots competing in that race are in the collection of the wonderful Canada Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa, Ontario. Said collection includes a training aircraft, a Curtiss JN-4 Canuck, and a trio of fighter aircraft, a Fokker D.VII, a Royal Aircraft Factory SE.5 and a Sopwith 7F.1 Snipe.
By the way, the nickname “Shorty” was a tad amusing. Schroeder was actually 1.93 or so metre (6 feet 4 inches or so) tall, but I digress.
And no, the fact that the engine developed by Damblanc and Mutti was a rotary engine was apparently not a cause of its abandonment. You see, the device allowing the stroke of the cylinders of an aircraft engine to be hanged in flight could also be mounted on a radial engine and…
Your bewildered look makes me think that the expressions rotary engine and radial engine might a tad beyond your current understanding. Let me mansplain what that was all about.
A radial engine is a piston engine, usually air-cooled, whose cylinders, numbering 5, 7 or 9 for example, are arranged like the spokes of a wheel.
A rotary engine, for its part, is an air-cooled piston engine whose cylinders, numbering 7, 9 or 11 for example, are arranged like the spokes of a wheel. However, it differs from a radial engine by a detail of colossal importance. In a rotary engine, the crankcase, cylinders, propeller and connecting rods connecting the crankshaft to the pistons rotate in one direction while the crankshaft remains stationary. I kid you not, but back to our Damblanc.
Our friend did not give up his work on engines adapted to high altitudes. Nay. In March 1925, for example, the famous French mathematician / professor, member of the prestigious Académie des sciences and president of the Chambre des députés Paul Painlevé presented to the members of said academy a new device that Damblanc, an acquaintance, if not a friend, had developed for that purpose. Here again, Damblanc had rotten luck. His invention was seemingly not mass produced.
Damblanc had something else to keep him busy, however. He launched the French weekly aeronautical magazine L’Aviation française in 1926. Better still, Damblanc acquired the French aeronautics monthly La Vie aérienne et sportive, no later than 1927, thus becoming its editor-in-chief. He might, I repeat might, have merged those two publications in 1937.
Interestingly, Damblanc seemed to host a weekly radio program between March 1931 and May 1932. Broadcasted in the evening, on Wednesdays, Le quart d’heure de l’aviation française was produced by Radio Vitus, a private Parisian radio station belonging to the Société Anonyme Radio-Natan-Vitus, itself owned by the Compagnie Pathé-Natan.
A brief digression if I may. Some said that Damblanc was approached around 1928-29 by an Austro-Hungarian / German film director mentioned in February 2018 and July 2020 issues of our stunning blog / bulletin / thingee who was then working on a German silent science fiction feature film. The director was said to be… Friedrich Christian Anton “Fritz” Lang. The film was said to be… the very classic 1929 Frau im Mond / Woman in the Moon. Believe it or not.
Before I forget it, Damblanc launched 2 newspapers of opinion in Paris, as the Great Depression of the 1930s began to hit hard in France, La Gauche (1931-32) and La Concorde (1932-39).
In Fleurance, France, the small southern town whose mayor he had been since December 1928, Damblanc launched 2 other, apparently short-lived, newspapers of opinion, La Démocratie Paysanne and L’Écho du sol.
The time has now come to address the issue at the very heart of this article, in other words the role played by Damblanc in the evolution of rocketry. Well almost. In fact, it is next week that the second part of that little gem will reach you. Sorry, or not. Hee, hee, hee.
Rénald Fortier
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