Ferenc Pavlics

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The Lunar Roving Vehicle of the Apollo 15 mission

Ferenc Pavlics (born February 3, 1928 in Balozsameggyes , Hungary ) is a Hungarian engineer and key developer of the Lunar Roving Vehicle used in NASA's Apollo missions .

Life

Ferenc Pavlics was born in Balozsameggyes ( Vas County ) in 1928 . His father Károly Pavlics and his mother Rosina Perusich were teachers and taught at the elementary school in Balozsameggyes. A serious illness nearly killed him at the age of six, but he recovered after an operation. Pavlics attended the local elementary school and was tutored first by his mother, then by his father. He graduated from the Faludi Ferenc School in Szombathely in 1946 and studied at the Technical University of Budapest . He completed this in 1950 as an engineer for mechanics.

Pavlics initially worked at the Gépipari Tervező Intézet (Mechanical Engineering Institute). After the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, he and his future wife Klára Schwáb left the country together. The first stop was Austria, then the United States. Three of his siblings also left Hungary for Australia, Sweden and the USA.

Career as a developer

Since Pavlics did not speak English, he first worked as a street sweeper in New Jersey. Mieczysław Bekker , a General Motors employee , came across him while searching for engineers in the New Jersey refugee camp. He spoke to five Hungarian engineers at the camp and hired them all immediately.

Ferenc Pavlic and his wife came to Detroit that way . Bekker became his boss. Bekker was commissioned to set up a new laboratory to investigate the soil-tire relationship. Initially, Pavlics mainly created technical drawings, but after learning English he got into development and was transferred to Santa Barbara , California.

There he played a key role in the design of the tires for the Lunar Roving Vehicle manufactured by General Motors .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Márton Deák (translated into English by László Molnár): Interview with Ferenc Pavlics, lead developer of the Apollo Lunar Rovers. November 17, 2010, accessed December 25, 2015 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Pavlics, Ferenc
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Hungarian engineer
DATE OF BIRTH February 3, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Balozsameggyes , Hungary