Anastase Dragomir

Anastase Dragomir (1896-1966) was a distinguished Romanian inventor, most famous for his patent registered together with Tănase Dobrescu, an early version of the modern ejection seat.

Anastase Dragomir was born on February 6, 1896, in Brăila, being the sixth child of the family. He was interested, as many of the young people of that period, of aviation issues. He went to France, where he worked on several aircraft factories. There he perfected his own system to save the pilots and passengers in case of accidents. On November 3, 1928, he recorded in France the patent application "Nouveau système de montage des parachutes dans les appareils de locomotion aérienne" and obtained patent no. 678,566 in April 2, 1930. This invention was "a new system of parachuting from the apparatus for air locomotion, each passenger having his own parachute that allows, in critical moments, the detaching of the whole ensemble from the plane, so the parachute along with the passenger installed in the seat go through a opening in the floor" and the patent require that this set of cell-parachute to have more controls, operated by the pilot.

Since there was not a favorable financial time for aviation, the idea of this system rescue was for a long time regarded with suspicion by officials and companies, due to significantly more expensive planes built. After several interventions, Anastase Dragomir managed to obtain necessary financing and began construction of "catapulted cabin". He experienced the invention in August 28, 1929, at Orly airport near Paris. For this purpose was modified a Farman airplane in which was installed the catapultable cockpit, after the indications of the inventor. The plane was piloted by Lucien Bossoutrot, owner of record of a flight without stopover. The experience was a success, confirming the usefulness of this invention. After the demonstration, French newspapers have emphasized the world priority of the invention.

After the experiment, Anastase Dragomir returned home, where, with the help of captain Constantin Nicolau, engineer of the Romanian aviation technical services, repeated the demonstration at the Băneasa Airport in Bucharest, in October 26, 1929. This time he used an AVIA plane, and the newspapers reported in detail about this ingenious and practical means of rescue. Based on the results obtained, he developed and refined the initial solution. In 1950 he obtained a new patent, Romanian, no. 40658/1950, for the "parachuted cell". In 1959 he recorded a new application, for a transport aircraft with cabins equipped with ejection, for rescuing the passengers (Romanian patent no. 41,424 from 1960). Anastase Dragomir died in 1966 in Bucharest.