The Kopacka – Warzycki Airship – 1910

The Kopacka – Warzycki Airship – 1910

Hartford, Connecticut

 

     In November of 1910, Joseph J. Kopacka, and August Warzycki , both of Hartford, Connecticut, announced that they’d secured two government patents for an airship of their own invention.  Their airship would include a triple compartment, triangular shaped air bag, with the center compartment being filled with buoyant gas, and the other two with hot air.  The airbag would include two horizontal wings running the length of the bag, one on either side. The wings would be operated by a series of wires and levers connected to a passenger car suspended beneath the balloon.  The airship would be powered by a high-powered engine of French design that would spin two large propellers.

     The men also announced that they would form the Aerial Construction Company, which would be incorporated under the laws of Massachusetts, with a capital investment of $50,000.  The company would be located on Asylum Street in Hartford.  At this time no airship had been built, but the inventors were working with John Twardoz, a former professor at the Vienna Technical School, who was calculating how large the balloon would have to be to achieve the required lifting power.  Construction and testing of the airship would take place in the Poquonock section of the town of Windsor, Connecticut. 

     As a point of fact, the Aerial Construction Company was established in September, 1911, at 212 Asylum Street in Hartford.  (For more information see “Aerial Construction Company of Hartford” under “Airships & Flying Machines” on this website.)

     Source: The Hartford Courant, “Hartford Men Have Invented Airship”, November 19, 1910.    

 

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