Eugene Michael Gluhareff (April 5, 1916 – July 15, 1994) was born in

Petrograd Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

(now known as St. Petersburg),

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

and moved to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

in 1924. Gluhareff was an

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

, the son of Michael Gluhareff of

Sikorsky Aircraft Sikorsky Aircraft is an American aircraft manufacturer based in Stratford, Connecticut. It was established by aviation pioneer Igor Sikorsky in 1923 and was among the first companies to manufacture helicopters for civilian and military use. Pre ...

. He is much acclaimed for his pioneering work on

tip jet A tip jet is a jet nozzle at the tip of some helicopter rotor blades, used to spin the rotor, much like a Catherine wheel firework. Tip jets replace the normal shaft drive and have the advantage of placing no torque on the airframe, thus not r ...

s, inventor of the

Gluhareff Pressure Jet The Gluhareff Pressure Jet (or tip jet) is a type of jet engine that, like a valveless pulse jet, has no moving parts. It was invented by Eugene Michael Gluhareff, a Russian-American engineer who envisioned it as a power plant for personal hel ...

and was a contributor to the

American Helicopter American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

XH-26 Jet Jeep The American Helicopter XH-26 Jet Jeep (known as the XA-8 by its manufacturer) was an experimental tip jet helicopter developed in 1951 by the American Helicopter Company to meet a United States Army and Air Force (USAF) request for a collapsibl ...

Early life

Eugene M. Gluhareff was born in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1916, was the oldest of two children, born to Michael E. Gluhareff and Antonina Gluhareff. His father, Michael E. Gluhareff was an aircraft engineer who was a former Chief engineer at the

division of the

United Aircraft Corporation The PJSC United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) () is a Russian Aerospace manufacturer, aerospace and Arms industry, defense corporation. With a majority stake belonging to the Russian government, it consolidates Russian private and state-owned Russian ...

, who graduated from the Russian Imperial Military Engineering College (now known as the Saint Petersburg Military Engineering-Technical University). Gluhareff graduated from the

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute () (RPI) is a private research university in Troy, New York, with an additional campus in Hartford, Connecticut. A third campus in Groton, Connecticut closed in 2018. RPI was established in 1824 by Stephen Van ...

in 1944 with a Bachelor of Sciences in Aeronautical Engineering. Immediately after his graduation, Gluhareff went to work at Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation in

Bridgeport Bridgeport is the most populous city and a major port in the U.S. state of Connecticut. With a population of 148,654 in 2020, it is also the fifth-most populous in New England. Located in eastern Fairfield County at the mouth of the Pequonnoc ...

, Connecticut; where he worked under Igor A. Sikorsky.

Career

Gluhareff began his career at the Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation in 1944, one of the initial projects he worked on included the

VS-300 The Vought-Sikorsky VS-300 (or S-46) is an American single-engine helicopter designed by Igor Sikorsky. It had a single three-blade rotor originally powered by a 75 horsepower (56 kW) engine. The first "free" flight of the VS-300 was on 13 ...

and the R-4 helicopters. Gluhareff began working on the Pulse Jet Engine in 1947 for Sikorsky. In 1950, Gluhareff moved to California in order to work with the company, American Helicopter. One of the helicopters he worked on during the early 1950s was the XA-5 "Top Sergeant", a valved pulse-jet powered helicopter. In 1953, after working on several other projects, Gluhareff founded the Gluhareff Helicopters Corporation. Gluhareff began working with the

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...

in order to develop Rotary Drones in 1960. In 1964, Gluhareff joined the

Douglas Aircraft Company The Douglas Aircraft Company was an American aerospace manufacturer based in Southern California. It was founded in 1921 by Donald Wills Douglas Sr. and later merged with McDonnell Aircraft in 1967 to form McDonnell Douglas; it then operated as ...

, where he worked as a Design Engineer Scientist in the development of the S-4 stage of the

Saturn Rocket The Saturn family of American rockets was developed by a team of mostly German rocket engineers and scientists led by Wernher von Braun to launch heavy payloads to Earth orbit and beyond. The Saturn family used liquid hydrogen as fuel in the u ...

which was part of the Apollo program. Gluhareff continued to work with the company, as it became the

McDonnell Douglas McDonnell Douglas was a major American aerospace manufacturing corporation and defense contractor, formed by the merger of McDonnell Aircraft and the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1967. Between then and its own merger with Boeing in 1997, it produ ...

company, where he eventually became a specialist in rocket stabilization system designing used for ejection seats and capsules. Gluhareff returned to EMG Engineering, his own company in 1972, where he continued working until his death, one of the last projects he worked on was the EMG-300, also known as the "Flying Motorcycle", which was designed in the early 1990s.

Death

Gluhareff died due to illness whilst he was working on the production and marketing stage of the EMG-300 helicopter in 1994.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gluhareff, Eugene Michael American aerospace engineers Soviet emigrants to the United States 1916 births 1994 deaths 20th-century American engineers 20th-century American inventors

Early life

Career

Death

See also

References