The life of an inventor is not an easy one. First you have to come up with a good idea that solves a problem in a way that no one has thought of before, and then you need to design and engineer your idea to take it from theory to reality.
The very nature of invention means that inventors are continuously pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. This drive to discover the next Big Thing has been a boon to humanity and has given us inventions like the steam engine, the automobile and the personal computer. It's the major reason why we're still not huddled in caves fighting off wolves and cowering at the crack of thunder.
But invention is a fickle mistress and has proved to be a dangerous undertaking for many a would-be Edison.
Things go wrong, inventions break or don't work as the designers intended, and sometimes inventors are killed by the very ideas they brought to life.
Such is the case with Henry Smolinski, a sad but fascinating story of an inventor who died at the hand of his invention.
Henry Smolinski was a Northrop-trained engineer who left his job to start Advanced Vehicle Engineers, a company focused on bringing a flying car to market. In 1973, the company built its first two prototypes made by fusing the rear end of a Cessna Skymaster airplane with a Ford Pinto. The tail section was designed to be attached and detached from the car.
Smolinski was set to begin production for the retail market the next year, but on Sept. 11, 1973, he went on a test flight with pilot Harold Blake and was killed, along with Blake, when a wing strut detached from the car. The National Transportation Safety Board ruled that bad welds were responsible for the crash.
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