Rudolf Fizir

Rudolf Fizir (born 13 January 1891 in Ludbreg, † November 11, 1960 in Zagreb) was a Yugoslavian engineer and aircraft designer. He designed and created in his time numerous land planes and seaplanes. Rudolf Fizir is considered the largest and most productive Croatian aircraft manufacturer.

Life

Fizir was born in Ludbreg, a small town on the river Drava in the north of Croatia, the second of four children of Mije and Valentine Fizir. After primary school in Ludbregu and visit the craft school in Zagreb he studied at the Technical University of Toulouse in France aeronautical engineering. His first aircraft he designed in 1913 while still a student. Fizir was a talented student and got his first job in September 1914 at Fokker Aeroplanbau GmbH, Schwerin. In 1915 he received his diploma as engineer. Anthony Fokker commissioned Fizir with the organization of Fokkerproduktion in Budapest.

After his return, he worked as a designer in Germany by the company Hansa Brandenburg and Flugzeugwerke GmbH in Brandenburg near Berlin. At the end of the First World War, he changed the industry for a short time and was a designer at the automobile company Hansa -Lloyd -Werke AG As of November 1918, he worked as a design engineer at the Steyr automobile plants in Szczecin.

In the 1920s, he returns to his hometown and is involved in the construction project of the Zagreb aircraft factory, it should be the center of the aviation of the state. Since Fizir did not agree with the political views of the government at that time, he started his own business and started at its own expense and without any understanding of the government in the backyard of an industrial plant in Petrovaradin, a district of Novi Sad, to build its own aircraft.

Rudolf Fizir died on 11 November 1960 in Zagreb from pneumonia. In the exhibition, the Technical Museum in Zagreb and in Belgrade some well-preserved and restored aircraft of Rudolf Fizir are seen. From Fizir submitted a total of 18 structures (2 amphibians, 3 water and 13 land planes ) that are designed in Petrovaradin and built their prototypes there and were later produced in Yugoslav aircraft factories.

1927 got Fizirs reconnaissance aircraft with 240 hp Maybach engine in an international competition the first prize. Alone of the two-seat biplane trainer aircraft with open cockpit Fizir FN that designed Fizir 1929, 210 pieces in the years 1931 to 1943 were built and were in different countries.

Posthumously

He was in the same year in which he died at the prestigious Paul Tissandier Diploma for his contribution to the world of aviation awarded by the International Air Transport Association International Aeronautical Federation (FIA ).