Slavoljub Eduard Penkala

Slavoljub Eduard Penkala (1871 to 1922) was a Croatian engineer and inventor, born Eduard Penkala, who held around eighty patents across a wide range of mechanical fields during his career in Zagreb. In transport history he is remembered as the constructor of the Penkala 1910 Biplane, the first aircraft built and flown in Croatia, which was piloted by Dragutin Novak, also recorded as the first Croatian pilot to fly. The aircraft's construction and successful flight marked the beginning of aviation activity in Croatia and reflected Penkala's broader career pattern of applying original mechanical engineering to new and emerging technologies of his era. Outside aviation, he is most widely known for inventing the mechanical pencil in 1906 and the first solid ink fountain pen in 1907, commercialized through the Penkala Moster company he founded, but his biplane project stands as his direct contribution to the early history of powered flight in southeastern Europe.