Russell Colley invented aviation stuff

Piloting aircrafts can be a daunting task but Russell Colley invented aviation stuff that would make the aviators flight safer.

Who was Russell Colley ?

Alan B. Shepard Jr, the American astronaut should be able to tell you that Russell Colley invented the pressurized suit. But that was just one of the this American inventor's invention. Try gadgets like the Riv-nut, the rubberized pneumatic deicer and other such devices.

Russell Colley was born in 1899, in Stoneham, Massachusetts. Surprinsingly enough Colley had shown interest in becoming a fashion designer early on in life. He also was showing himself to be very mechanically inclined. Supposedly, peer pressure led him to the Wentworth Institute of Mechanical Engineering where he graduated in 1918.

image found on taxistrip.com

Wiley Post and Russell S. Colley testing a pressure suit in 1934.

In 1928 the mechanical engineer was working in Akron, Ohio, for BF Goodrich the rubber people.

Russell Colley witnessed the entire birth of the aircraft industry and the massive WW1 aircraft innovations and then more. By 1935 he was married and using his wife's craft kits to put together a flight suit for a pilot called Wiley Post.

Russell Colley invented aviation stuff but he also designed. How much better can one combine his skills.

Wiley Post on the other hand was more of a dare devil and broke altitude and distance records for a living.

After his work at BF Goodrich Russell Colley joined NASA where he continued to innovate on his designs and invent new ones. In 1994 he received the Distiguished Public Service Award from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

His love for form and design never left him. Until his death in Springfield, Ohio, in 1996 Colley continued to dabble in the creative process.

He left behind many artifacts of his existence including water colour paintings, unique jewelery which he'd designed, and a list of 65 patents accredited to Russell Colley who invented aviation stuff.




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Frederick Koolhoven F K Series

Invention by design.

Frederick Koolhoven and the F K series of airplanes, like so many other early airplane designs and inventions in aeronautics, offer great insight into the methods of war which have shaped our modern civilization.

Koolhoven started out by buying a Hanriot aircraft in 1910 at the age of 24. From here he would combine his engineering training which he learned while working as an automobile engineer for Minerva Automobile and later the automobile factory called Spyker with his design concepts for air ships.

The Frederick Koolhaven F K Series follows up on his initial design of the Dutch Heidevogel.

Anthony Fokker was another airplane enthusiast from the Netherlands where Kool Haven was operating. Fokker came up with his first airplane called the Spider in 1911. Fokker would go on to dominate in this field in later years but first he had to relocate to a better market and found it in Germany where he founded a factory in Berlin.

FK or Fritz was designing airplanes for a British company called Deperdussin in 1912. In 1914 he moved on to Armstrong Whitsworth Aircraft where his name gained momentous popularity. The Armstrong Withworth Sissit was a single engined biplane and it stands as the F K 1. This airplane never left the prototype stage but set up a series of innovations for fighter aircrafts that would be contributed to the first World War by Armstrong Withworth.

The FK series continued to be produced when Frits returned to the Netherlands from England in 1920. Here he met up with the Fokker who would send him back to work as an automobile engineer for a while.

However within a few years he was back in the aircraft business with some shareholders. By 1938 the Second World War was at the doorsteps of humanity and the Fokker's  operation continued to hold major market shares, the FK series was well received as a war plane.

Frederick Koolhoven died in 1946 and the N V Koolhoven Aeroplanes company became a holdings operation and 10 years later the Frederick Koolhaven FK series legacy ended as the company liquidated it's assets and closed.

Today the FK series lives on in replica models, in full size artifacts or museum pieces, and in pictures.

See Koolhoven Aeroplanes Foundation for an historical pictorial history of the Frederick Koolhaven F K Series.



Aviation expert competitors were putting out similar aircraft designs such as the Bristol Scout, the Martinsyde S1, and the Sopwith Tabloid which were proving to be superior in commerciability.

The FK 1 or single bay tractor biplane was a 1913 design in aviation. 

Armstrong Withworth were commissioned by the Royal Flying Corps and in 1914 WW1 commenced.