Engineers jetpack: Alexander Fedorovich Andreev

In 2019, it will be 100 years from the date of the filing of the patent patent for a jetpack by our compatriot. Today, September 11, the inventor has a birthday.

"At the position with the help of the device, you can do aerial reconnaissance with more security than on an airplane ... whole military units being equipped with these devices (the cost of which at factory production will be several times more expensive than a rifle) during offensive in general and the siege of fortresses bypassing all earth obstacles can fly over freely to the rear of the enemy. "
- Alexander Andreev

The weight of the device is 42 kg + 8 kg of fuel (methane and oxygen).
The weight of the pilot is 50 kg.
Range - 20 km.
The speed is 200 km / h.

Alexander Fedorovich Andreev (September 11, 1893, Kolpino - December 15, 1941, Leningrad) was a Soviet inventor who developed the world's first knapsack rocket device on a liquid-propellant jet engine.

Andreev received secondary technical education. Since the beginning of the 1920s he lives in Leningrad. In 1919, he developed the world's first knapsack rocket apparatus on a liquid jet engine. The project was sent to the Council of People's Commissars, and from there to the Committee for Inventions. The patent application, having received a critical review, was rejected. In 1925, the inventor submitted a new, revised version of the application. After a positive expert opinion and further alteration of the text, in 1928 a patent was granted for an invention. ( Wikipedia )

1919

In the Leningrad Oblast State Archive in the city of Vyborg (LOGAV) there is a typewritten text (LOGAV. F. R-4476, op. 6, d. 3809.) of the project with two registration marks on the first page. The first of these marks is as follows:

“MANAGEMENT OF THE CASES
Krestyansk. and working. Government
of the Republic of Russia 14 / XII 1919
Incoming. No. 19644. "

The second mark:

"The Committee
on Inventions
at the Scientific-Technical. Ed.
V.S.N. X.
December 19, 1919
Bx. No. 3648. "

The document with these notes was, as follows from the application written on 10 February 1921 by the hand of the inventor, one of three copies of the draft text filed with the CDI along with the application (the other two are stored in the same archive file).

So, the draft of the backpack aircraft was ready by mid-December 1919 and managed to visit the two highest state institutions of the country during December.

It can be assumed that the events developed as follows.

The inventor sent the project to Sovnarkom in an attempt to obtain materials for the implementation of his plan, rather than hoping to patent it. The tempting prospects for military use of the device (in the “Assignment” section, Andreev wrote: “You can do aerial reconnaissance with the help of the apparatus with greater security than on an airplane ... whole military units being equipped with these apparatuses (the cost of which will be several times more expensive than a rifle in factory production) ) at offensive in general and the siege of the fortresses, bypassing all earthly obstacles can fly completely free to the rear of the enemy "), it would seem, allowed to hope for a favorable attitude of the government to the invention.

However, in the Council of People's Commissars, the project, as it can be assumed on the basis of a small difference between the specified dates of its registration, was not considered, but was immediately redirected to a more appropriate address - to the Scientific and Technical Department of the High Council of the National Economy, or even directly to the CDI. Moreover, it was apparently done in a big hurry: in the register of the incoming documents of the Council of People's Commissars for 1919, the line of the incoming number 19644 (from whom the document came in, what was sent) was not filled at all, just like the lines of three more the numbers adjacent to it (19640, 19643, 19645). It can be seen that the staff of the Council of People's Commissars was not up to processing mail in December 1919.

No other traces of the Andreev project in 1919 on the Council of People's Commissars — as, indeed, in the organs of the Supreme Council of the National Economy — could be found. It is unclear how long the project was in the CDI and how soon it returned to the author. [ Source ]

1921

In February 1921, Andreev wrote a statement to the CDI with a request for “legal rights” and scarce materials for the project, and, unfortunately, does not mention in a single word in this statement what preceded it.

Chronicle of further events in brief is as follows. On the basis of the devastating review of E.N. Smirnov, one of the two experts whom the KDU turned to (the second review was very restrained, although generally positive, was given by N.R.nin), the application was rejected. [ Source ]

1925

In July 1925, the inventor submitted a new, seriously revised version of the application to CDI. However, as noted above, the processing touched mainly the presentation of the material and did not bring in fundamentally new details to the project; in fact, it was almost completely reduced to the textual description of assemblies and units, which in 1919-1921. were presented only in the drawing. After the positive review of the expert N. G. Baratov and the further alteration of the text, on March 31, 1928, the “Patent of the invention patent” was signed. [ Source ]

Patent number 4818

1928

"Upon receipt of the patent on August 23, 1928, I proceeded to its implementation, since most of the work on implementation takes place in the apartment where I live, then I ask for help about not applying a forced resettlement to my area of ​​10 sq. m. such contributes to successful work. "
- Andreev

TsBRIZ (Central Bureau for the Implementation of Inventions and the Promotion of Invention) - on the basis of a negative opinion from an expert engineer of the Selection Board dated January 9, 1929 - refused the assistance requested by Andreev.

The technical content of the project Andreeva for 10 years in fact, has not changed from the original version to the final known. The latter differs from the first one mainly in the textual description of some devices, which, although, as can be seen from the first version of the drawing, were from the very beginning in the author’s intention, however, the text of 1919 was either not considered at all or described in less detail than in the text of the patent description published in 1928, such as, for example, a pilot device, pumps, a vessel for liquid gases. Another difference of the patent description from the original project consists in a wider formulation of the scope of application of the device: not only (in the form of a knapsack) for a man’s flight, but also for moving small loads, for example, a projectile with asphyxiating gas, an explosive.

On the results of the desire of Andreev to carry out his project in practice, nothing is known. [ Source ]

N. A. Rynin. Rockets And engines of direct reaction.

The book, thanks to which the world knows about Andreev.



Table of Contents



Drawing from the patent. FIG. 1 and 2 - “satchel” with tanks and fuel pumps, FIG. 3 and 4 - the central box, trusses and engines. Figure from the book by N.A. Rynina

Sources

• Wikipedia: Andreev, Alexander Fedorovich (inventor)
• Patent: Aircraft with jet propulsion
• Pikabu: Fighting Gravity
• Military Review: The project of jetpack AF Andreeva
• Russian heroic calendar: Andreeva jetpack
• Cosmonautics episodes: DECEMBER 14 - 70 YEARS FROM THE TIME OF THE FIRST SUBMISSION BY AFANDREEV TO THE CONSIDERATION OF GOVERNMENTAL ESTABLISHMENTS OF THE PROJECT OF THE RETAIL ROCKET AIRCRAFT (1919)
• Cosmonautics episodes: N. A. Rynin interplanetary communications. Rockets And engines of direct reaction. Jet engine Melo and others
  

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