Louis Brennan

Louis Brennan

Louis Brennan (born January 28, 1852 in Castlebar , County Mayo , Ireland, † January 17, 1932 in Montreux , Switzerland) was an Irish-Australian designer and inventor.

life and work

Born in Ireland, he emigrated with his family to Australia as a child in 1861 and began his professional career as a watchmaker. Soon he switched to weapon construction; he is considered the first innovative weapons designer in Australia. Advised by the professor of mechanical engineering WC Kernot, he developed the “ Brennan torpedo ”, the first wire-controlled torpedo , in 1874 ; In 1877 he applied for a patent. Upon acceptance of his torpedo design by the British War Department, he was paid £ 110,000. He then built a state-owned factory in Gillingham (Kent) to produce the torpedo. Since the torpedo was difficult to steer from a moving ship, the project was eventually abandoned.

Brennan's monorail

In 1903, Brennan patented a monorail that was stabilized by a gyro system . On November 10, 1909, he successfully demonstrated this train in Gillingham, in 1910 at an exhibition in the White City in what is now the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham . However, despite initial approval, his system was never used outside of test drives for fear of the gyroscopes failing. In Germany it was mainly promoted by the major publisher August Scherl , who, however, passed it off as a "simultaneous" invention of his son Richard. Scherl's project for a monorail on the edge of the Taunus, however, never got beyond the planning phase.

During World War I , Brennan worked in the British Munitions Ministry, and from 1919 to 1926 in the Royal Aircraft Establishment in Farnborough . There he developed a helicopter , the model of which was destroyed in an aircraft accident.

Brennan was a founding member of the National Academy of Ireland in 1922 .

The library at Gillingham keeps his estate.

literature

• Alfred George Edward Joyce: The Brennan Helicopter, its invention, design, development, testing and denouement . Thesis in support of application for fellowship. Royal Aeronautical Society, 1970.
• Norman Tomlinson: Louis Brennan. Inventor Extrordinaire . Hallwell, Chatham 1980. ISBN 0905540182
• Alec Beanse: The Brennan torpedo. The history and operation of the world's first practicable guided weapon . Palmerston Forts Society, Fareham 1997. ISBN 0952363445

Web links

• The Brennan Torpedo (English)
• Brennan monorail (English)