Sergei Sergeevich Nezhdanovskii

Born Sept. 9 (21), 1850, in Moscow; died there Oct. 24, 1940. Soviet inventor, designer, and scientist in the area of heavier-than-air craft.

Nezhdanovskii graduated from the physicomathematical department of Moscow University in 1873. Beginning in the 1880’s he worked under the guidance of N. E. Zhukovskii (until 1920) on the development and testing of gliders, kites, flying models of airplanes, hydroplanes, and aerosleighs and the study of the conditions required for their longitudinal and transverse stability. In 1894 he became engaged in the construction of an original type of aircraft, the kite-glider (the prototype of the biplane). In 1904 he began working at the Aerodynamics Institute (in Kuchino, near Moscow), and from 1919 to 1929 he worked at the Central Aerohydrodynamics Institute. He was the author of a number of inventions, such as a motorized sleigh (1924) and a screw propeller for motor ships (1926).