Libélula española

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The Libélula española (spanish dragonfly) was one of the first helicopters invented. It was developed in the twenties by Federico Cantero Villamil, a spanish civil engineer also known for the dams he constructed and planed along river Duero.

1 The project
2 Patents
3 Sources
4 References
5 See also

[edit] The project

Federico Cantero Villamil founded a workshop with precision machinery, purchased in 1900 at the Universal Exposition in [Paris]. He began his experiments on "rotating wings" (a kind of propellers invented by him) in Zamora in 1908, and two years later he was patenting a

"...procedure or idea in order to obtain the lift of a body or apparatus on the air, as well as the propulsion if wanted, both things simultaneous or not, by means of special wheels of one or more blades, jointed, moveable, gradually leaning, depending on the variation and form explained in the body of the current Memory."

Several patents on propellers were developed between 1912 and 1936. As a consequence, Cantero began to construct his helicopter in 1935, being helped by Pedro Blanco Pedraza, a young student of aeronautical engineering, and Antonio Díaz, the owner of a precision mechanic workshop. The names of these three people form que achronym VIBLANDI which was the definitive name of the helicopter. In July 1936 the spanish civil war began, and the construction of the helicopter was interrupted until 1940. In September 1941 the helicopter was finished, and in October 1941 it was tested. The results were lost, but it seems that they were fruitless. During the next years Cantero improved the helicopter, registered more patents about these improvements, and continued trying out the machine. At the moment there are no sources about the success of these trials.

[edit] Patents

The helicopter was patented under the name Libélula Viblandi in 1940 with registration number 149788 at the Spanish Office of Patents and Trademarks. This and other patents on propellers by Federico Cantero that led to the Libélula española may be found at Oficina española de patentes y marcas.

[edit] Sources

The works of Cantero were forgotten during years, and they have been recently rediscovered by Isabel Díaz de Aguilar and Federico Suárez Caballero. Basic sources are the patents he registered and two books by Cantero about the Libélula española.