Brennan
L. Brennan
Contents
History
Louis Philip Brennan was born on 28 January 1852 at Main Street, Castlebar, Co. Mayo, the son of a hardware merchant, Thomas Brennan and his wife Bridget Brennan (née McDonnell). Thomas and Bridget Brennan sold their business in Castlebar in 1861, and emigrated with nine year old Louis to Melbourne, Australia. After his primary education he went to Joel Ease's Technical College, in Collingwood, Melbourne.
Brennan started his career as a watchmaker and a few years later was articled to Alexander Kennedy Smith, a renowned civil and mechanica! engineer of the period. Brennan invented the idea of a steerable torpedo in 1874, and spent some years working out his invention, receiving a grant of £700 from the Victorian government towards his expenses. He patented the Brennan Torpedo in 1877.
In 1880 he accepted an offer of £110,000 from the British Government for the “exclusive rights” to his invention and an invitation to go to England. Brennan became manager of the Government Torpedo Manufacturing Plant, at Gillingham, Kent, which manufactured his torpedo, from 1880 to 1896. Created a Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1892, he became a consulting engineer from 1896-1907, and did much work on a monorail locomotive which was kept upright by a gyrostat and in 1903 he patented a gyroscopically-balanced monorail system that he designed for military use; he successfully demonstrated the system in November 1909 at Gillingham, but fears that the gyroscopes might fail prevented adoption of the system for widespread use.
Brennan now turned to his helicopter, which he had first described in 1884. He approached the War Office in 1915 and the following year the Munitions Inventions Department of the Ministry of Munitions advised the Government to take an active interest in it and to take out a Secret Patent on the invention. It was 1919, however, before the project was handed over to the Air Ministry and they, upon Winston Churchill's recommendation, decided upon the construction of a prototype. Arrangements were then made for a section to be set up with main offices in Brennan's home at Farnborough, having workshops and other facilities at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough. From 1919 to 1926 he was engaged by the air ministry in aircraft research, and gave much time to the invention of a helicopter. The government spent a large sum of money on it, but in 1926 the air ministry gave up working on it, much to Brennan's disappointment.
In retirement, Brennan designed and built a gyroscopically balanced two-wheeled motor-car. The car was completed by 1929 and performed perfectly, but it proved impossible to interest the motor industry in it.
While on holiday in Montreux, Switzerland, Louis Brennan was knocked down by a car on 26 December 1931, and died as a result of the injuries received on 17 January 1932 in Montreux.
Company References
- Brennan—his helicopter and other inventions, Robert Graham (The Aeronautical Journal February 1973)
- https://oldmachinepress.wordpress.com/2015/01/08/brennan-helicopter//
- Aeromilitaria, 2015/2 (Air-Britain Publications)
Project Data
| Project No | Type No | Name | Alternative Name(s) | Year | Spec (Requirement) | Status | Qty | Description | References |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Helicopter | 1919 | Proto | 1 | Helicopter | 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 |
Project References
- Brennan—his helicopter and other inventions, Robert Graham (The Aeronautical Journal February 1973)
- https://oldmachinepress.wordpress.com/2015/01/08/brennan-helicopter//
- Aeromilitaria, 2015/2 (Air-Britain Publications)
- Cierva Autogyros, Peter W. Brooks (Airlife Publishing, 1988)
- Air Pictorial Aug 1971
- British Research and Development Aircraft, Ray Sturtivant (Haynes, 1990)
- The Evolution of the British Rotorcraft Industry 1842-2012 David Gibbings (The Journal of Aeronautical History, Royal Aeronautical Society, 2012, available at https://www.aerosociety.com/media/4854/the-evolution-of-the-british-rotorcraft-industry-1842-2012.pdf)
- https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,25142.0.html
Production Details and Type Description
The machine consisted of a rotary structure carrying blades driven by airscrews at the blade tips, which were powered through right-angle gear boxes and shafting inside the main spars or booms, by a rotary engine at the centre. The engine, first a Bentley B.R.I and then a B.R.2, rotated in a horizontal plane in the same direction as the blades which, were wire-braced to the apex and base joints of the central tubular pyramidal structure. The pilot's car was attached to the rotating structure by a universal joint, situated as near below the centre of gravity of the rotor as possible. This joint was of hollow construction and two flying controls plus the fuel for the engine passed through it. The carburetter was in the pilot's car and the fuel tank was under the pilot's seat.
The blades had a front spar consisting of steel tube in a number of lengths with bolted flanged joints. They had a light wooden rear spar and wooden ribs attached by brackets to the main spars, the covering being doped fabric. The flying controls were pneumatic and enabled the incidence of the blades to be varied collectively from full climb to auto rotation and the equivalent of a swash-plate control was used to feather the blades in order to tilt the plane of rotation and so obtain stability and control for lateral flight. Flaps or ailerons were fitted as an alternative to feathering the blades and functioned in the same manner. The collective incidence operation was by means of a pneumatic cylinder controlled by a lever in the car, as was the feathering. The pilot's car had four outrigged tubular pyramidal structures and at the apex of each was fitted a landing pad consisting of an inflated rubber hemisphere covered in thick leather with a rubber bungee suspension system and so was able to land in any direction.
| Specification | |||||
| Rotor Dia | Length | Height | Rotor Area | Empty Wt | Max AUW |
| 61 ft | 240 sq ft | 2764 lb | |||
| 18.59 m | 22.3 m2 | 1254 kg | |||
One aircraft only : no c/n or registration.
Total Brennan Production1
Page Revision History
Revised at Version 2.0.0- Improved biography.
- Added Type Description.