Polish Genius : Adam Ostaszewski

He was the first in the world to build a flying helicopter. This forgotten Polish inventor best fits the stereotype of a slightly crazy, versatile genius. It is difficult to find a field that this landowner born in Wzdowo, Podkarpacie, would not be involved in. Adam Ostaszewski was interested in everything - he graduated in law from the Jagiellonian University, studied mathematics with the greatest celebrities of that era, dealt with optics, physics, hydrostatics, magnetism, zoology, archeology, architecture, drew and painted, and also practiced fencing, cycling and horse riding. . He was the creator of a universal language similar to Esperanto and constructed a chess playing machine. In addition, he spoke over twenty languages, including exotic ones such as Persian, Arabic and Chinese.

However, all this is not enough to merit mention here. So what did Ostaszewski do to deserve this? His greatest achievements concern aviation - he was not only probably the first Pole to construct a working plane, but also the designer of the world's first helicopter. Although an American of Russian origin, Igor Sikorsky, is considered the forerunner of the construction of these machines, the Polish designer built a model in 1892 that rose to a height of about 100 meters, in 1889 he carried out successful tests of a jet engine in Korsno, and in 1908 obtained a patent for the concept of a helicopter prototype called Stibor - 2.