Grigore Brişcu

Grigore Brişcu (1884, Bârlad - 1965, Bucharest) was a great Romanian engineer and inventor.


Having a real inclined towards engineering, he joined in 1903 the National School of Bridges and Roads in Bucharest and followed also some courses in Paris. At the same time he joined the Faculty of Law in Iaşi, where he earned a degree in legal sciences.

He published in "Car Magazine" no. 48 of December 15, 1909, p. 8 and no. 53 of 1910, p. 98 the study titled "Helicopters", which showed that the helicopters are "practical, economical, safe operation and will be used widely by the general public". He was the first engineer who in 1909 began experimenting with the cyclic variation of rotor blade pitch in order to ensure horizontal flight and stability and piloting helicopters. Even today, the automatic deviation device is still one of the most important helicopter systems.

Grigore Brişcu stands as one of the most important theorists of mechanical flight. He made an helicopter model he named "air-carriage" which had all the features of a helicopter-like flying-machine: horizontal, vertical and lateral movement and fixed-point landing. It was equipped with two coaxial propellers rotating in contrary directions, whose angle of incidence of the blades may vary during rotation, to gain ascension force and propulsion. The solution was experimented by French aviator Paul Cornu (1881-1963), who built a prototype with an Antoinett engine. The Brişcu rotary engine was patented by the Romanian Office for Inventions (patent no. 2323/2046 of 1912).

Grigore Brişcu's contributions to the study and development of mechanical flight earned him a place among the greatest Romanian inventors of the 20th century.

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