The Coanda-1910, designed by Romanian inventor Henri Coanda, was an experimental plane powered by a ducted fan. Built as a sesquiplane, it featured an experimental aircraft engine which Coand? called the "turbo-propulseur", having a multi-bladed centrifugal blower driven by a conventional piston engine and exhausting into a duct. The unusual aircraft attracted attention at the Second International Aeronautical Exhibition in Paris in October 1910, being the only exhibit without a propeller, but the aircraft was not displayed afterward and it fell from public awareness. Coand? used a similar turbo-propulseur to drive a snow sled, but he did not develop it further for aircraft.
Early developments
Coanda was interested in achieving reactive propelled flight as early as 1905, conducting tests of rockets attached to model aircraft, the tests held in Bucharest at the Romanian Army arsenal.In secret, at Spandau in Germany, Coanda successfully tested a flying machine equipped with a single tractor propeller, and two counter-rotating propellers providing lift, powered by a 50-horsepower (37 kW) Antoinette engine. Positioned along the fuselage centreline, the smaller rear lift propeller was mounted vertically, while the larger front one was inclined slightly forwards at 17 degrees to the vertical.According to later claims, Coand? tested the aircraft at Cassel, witnessed by the Chancellor of the German Empire Bernhard von Bülow. It was around this time that Coanda's interest in jet propulsion began, and according to him the aircraft and a jet-propelled model were displayed in December 1907 at the Sporthalle (indoor sports arena) in Berlin.Coanda continued his studies at Liege, Belgium, where together with his room-mate and friend Giovanni Battista Caproni, he built the Coand?-Caproni box glider, based on the plans of gliders designed by Otto Lilienthal and Octave Chanute which he previously studied at Charlottenburg and Spandau.In 1909 he was employed as technical director of the Liège-Spa Aeroclub, and at the end of that year, with the help of car manufacturer Joachim he built the Coand?-Joachim glider.Caproni was present when the glider was flown at Spa-Malchamps, Belgium.
