Pavlecka, Vladimir H.

Citace - @ [The Thing That Destroyed the Bronx] :

Vladimir H. Pavlecek the "father" of modern American aircraft
A large number of people were involved in the form and arrangement of what we call the plane, so the statement in the title may seem a bit exaggerated. But if we focus on the word "modern" and ignore the canvas and wood planes, we are left with a few common features - a pressurized kite made of light metal alloys connected by flushing rivets, a jet engine and a three-wheeled landing gear with a controllable front wheel. And in the USA, all these parts of the aircraft have one common denominator - Vladimír Pavlečka.
Vladimír Pavlečka was born in 1901 in the village of Charvatce near Roudnice nad Labem. He became interested in aviation and technology from an early age due to his father's interest and the fact that the local owner of a farm machinery factory bought a Bleriot aircraft. "That's when my father took him to the factory to see how they put the plane together. That look affected my whole life. The machine was then damaged while trying to fly with it and shoved into the hangar. During the war, my friend and I climbed him and imagined how we piloted him. ”However, the First World War marked him the most in this regard. Young Vladimir saw several Zeppelins that caught his attention so much that airships became his lifelong passion. "I saw German airships several times during the First World War, because they flew through our territory to their bases in Bulgaria and Romania. With their economical and clean operation, airships are a good alternative. I believe that it is an efficient machine capable of solving the traffic problems of the future. "
In 1923, he and his brother decided to emigrate to the United States, where he enrolled at Union College in Chicago, after which he worked for the Buick car manufacturer, where he developed engines. In Buick, Vladimir was noticed by a recruiter from the General Motors airline, or rather from its subsidiary Aircraft Development Corporation, which at that time focused on the development of airships. In 1925, Vladimír began participating in the ZMC-2 project, the only functional airship with a metal body that was built. Pavlečka came up with his own welding and riveting procedures, thanks to which he quickly became the head of airship hull development. The ZMC-2 itself took off in 1929 and was used by the US Navy until 1941. "It was a completely original technology, no one before us had done anything like this. And, of course, we didn't even have computers on which to model everything today. ”Vladimír devoted himself to metal airships until 1933.
At the time, aircraft manufacturer Douglas Corporation was figuring out how to build on the commercial success of what was then the most successful DC-1 airliner. The DC-2 was supposed to be larger and accommodate more passengers, but the fuselage was too heavy and had to be modified to be used in normal operation. At that time, there were few experts in light metal structures used in the manufacture of aircraft, so the Douglas people had to help an expert who had at least experience in the manufacture of metal airships. After Pavlečka's arrival in Douglas, the team under his leadership managed to redesign the prototype DC-2 so that with the help of new riveting and welding techniques increased the wing area by 5% and the aircraft was able to carry 50% more passengers. This new aircraft bore the designation DC-3 and went down in history under the name "Dakota". After this success, Pavlečka was promoted to head of research and development, and in this position for Douglas he developed, for example, a wing folding system for US Navy aircraft, a three-wheeled landing gear, a patent for flushing rivets and the first pressurized cabin in the USA for DC-4. "Douglas previously had about 150 engineers, but no one in the entire United States had experience building all-metal aircraft. I got a group of 22 engineers for that. We also dealt with three-wheel chassis, integral tanks and mainly hull pressure. At the same time, they sought the same with Boeing. We have been working on these issues before DC-3 and many ZMC-2 procedures and experiences have been used in working on DC-3.In reality, however, this work was more difficult on airships than on airplanes, because they are much larger. But Douglas didn't hire me because of his ZMC-2 experience. Although he had orders from the Navy to make gondolas for airships, otherwise they were only involved in machines heavier than air. They didn't know my previous job and didn't care. "
At this time, Vladimir became again interested in turbines that could be used to power aircraft. In 1939, he created his gas turbine design, which Douglas showed to representatives of Pratt & Whitney, who swept him off the table as impractical. However, a certain Jack Northrop noticed the proposal and decided that he wanted Pavlečka as the head of development for his company Northrop Aircraft Corporation. For Northrop Pavlečka he developed the first light magnesium alloys usable in the aerospace industry, then welding with a non-melting electrode in a protective atmosphere of inert gas (Heliarc and Argonarc) and built the first jet engine in the USA (Northrop XT-37 Turboprop). He also participated in the Northrop P-61 Black Widow, Northrop XP-56 Black Bullet and Northrop EB-35 aircraft.
After his engagement with Northrop, Pavlečka participated in the development of the Douglas A-1 Skyraider and Douglas A2D-Skyshark aircraft and also worked for NASA on the Rocketdyne J-2, a liquid-fuel rocket engine used during the Apollo program on the second stage of the Saturn rocket. IB and on the second and third stage of the Saturn V rocket. His other inventions and patents include - Airplane, Internal Hexagonal Stop Nut, Airplane Having Folding Wings, Sealed Joint, Method of Riveting, Percussive Tool, Bucking Tool, Monocoque Structure, Electric Arc Welding Torch, Draw Press, Structural Joint, Airplane Structure, Centrifugal Impellers, Turbine Stator, Airplane Power Plant, Turbine Blade, Compressor, Hydraulic Turbine, Thermal Power Plant, Gas Turbine Power Plant # 1, Centripetal Subsonic Compressor, Gas Turbine Power Plant # 2 , Gas Turbine Power Plant # 3, Gas Turbine Power Plant # 4, Automatic Extracting Mechanism (Coffee Maker), Aerostatic Bearings, Dynamic Steam Cycle, Combustion Chambers, Supersonic Centripe tal Compressor, Sub-Atmospheric Gas Turbine Circuits, Supercharger, Bypass Jet Engines, Methods of Compressing Fluids, Gas Turbine Power Plant # 5, Radial Dynamic Machine, High Energy Conversion Turbines, Wind Motor Rotor (Wind Turbine), Air Transport and Lifting Vehicle , Gradation of Skin Thickness, Thrusters for Airship Control.
Pavlecka devoted himself to aircraft and turbines even after the war, which, through a number of other famous airlines (Lockheed, Hughes Aircraft and others), led him to the Apollo lunar program. In the 1960s, he employed him at Rocketdyne, where he focused mainly on turbopumps and compressors in the J2 rocket engine. It was a propulsion unit for liquid oxygen and hydrogen for the second stages of the Saturn IB and Saturn V rockets, which launched the lunar ships Apollo into space. Pavlecka-designed pumps were also in the lunar landing module LEM.


There are not many people in the world who would contribute so much to the development of aviation as Vladimír H. Pavlečka, and yet his name is completely unknown in the Czech Republic, where he was born and half-forgotten in the USA, where he died of heart failure on 28.6. 1980.