The inventors have made a huge contribution to the life and history of mankind. They embodied their bold ideas and projects in brilliant creations, moving from theory to practice. Unfortunately, experiments did not always end successfully, and some inventions brought death to their creators.
Franz Reichelt and his parachute
Franz Reichelt was a French inventor of Austrian descent. In 1898 he moved from Vienna to Paris, where he received French citizenship. Reichelt was a tailor by trade. He became interested in the development of a parachute raincoat for airplane pilots. Reichelt wanted to create a practical and efficient suit that would help pilots survive in a plane crash.
He conducted his first tests using dummies that fell down from the fifth floor of his house. Not all of these experiments were successful, and Reichelt decided that a higher test platform was required. At the beginning of 1912, he received permission to conduct an experiment from the authorities of Paris. But now he decided to put on a parachute raincoat himself, without even using a rope for belay. He jumped from the lower platform of the Eiffel Tower, but the parachute did not open. Falling from a height of 57 meters to the frozen ground killed the inventor instantly.
Franz Reichelt as a parachute pioneer is almost forgotten. His dream did not come true, and the patent for the invention of the parachute was received by Gleb Kotelnikov in France in March 1912.
Henry Smolinski: Flying Car Crash
Inventor Henry Smolinski was an aeronautical engineer, a graduate of the Northrop Institute of Technology. He developed a versatile design combining two modes of transport: a car and an airplane. The device of this machine assumed, if necessary, the separation of the rear, aviation, part from the front, automobile.
Smolinski founded Advanced Vehicle Engineers in the United States of America. Its main goal was the production of flying machines and their promotion on the market. In 1973, the company produced two test cars. The bases for both main parts were taken from a Ford Pinto car and a Cessna Skymaster aircraft. In September 1973, during one of the test flights due to poor-quality welding of the seams, a wing came off the car. Henry Smolinski and company vice president Harold Blake were killed.
Valerian Abakovsky - the inventor of the air car
Valerian Abakovsky, born in Riga, designed a high-speed air car. This vehicle was an experimental high-speed car with an air propeller and an aircraft engine. Its original purpose was to transport Soviet officials to and from Moscow. During a test trip from Moscow to the Tula coal mines, the invention worked perfectly, but upon returning to the capital, the car derailed. Abakovsky and five other people were killed. The accident happened in 1921, when Abakovsky was 26 years old.
Valerian Ivanovich Abakovsky and five others were buried near the Kremlin wall in Moscow.
Maria Sklodowska-Curie: unsafe science
Maria Sklodowska-Curie made a great contribution to science. She received the Nobel Prize twice: in physics (together with her husband Pierre Curie and scientist Henri Becquerel) and in chemistry. She investigated radioactivity, magnetic properties of steel, took part in the discovery of the chemical elements radium and polonium.
Marie Curie applied her discoveries to the medical field. During the First World War, she was involved in the equipment and maintenance of X-ray machines. Long-term work with radioactive substances without protection led to chronic radiation sickness, and in July 1934 she died.
