György Jendrassik

György Jendrassik (1898 to 1954) was a Hungarian physicist and mechanical engineer who worked at the Ganz company in Budapest from 1927 and rose to be its chief executive in 1942. He first became known for the Ganz-Jendrassik engines, small and medium power high-speed diesel engines with pre-chamber combustion, which helped bring the diesel to railcars, boats and road vehicles; his patents were bought by makers such as Hispano-Suiza and Vickers. From the mid 1930s he also worked on gas turbines. He published a turboprop idea in 1928 and patented it in 1929, and his Cs-1 engine, which first ran on a bench in 1940, is described as the first turboprop engine to run, although combustion problems held its output to about 400 horsepower and work stopped in 1941. He was elected a corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1943 and later lived in exile in London.