Science & Tech Quote by Henri Coanda

Coanda is pitching heresy with the politeness of “in my opinion.” In an era when aviation was still a knife fight between fragile biplanes and human optimism, the default assumption was that progress meant incremental fixes: better wings, stronger engines, cleaner control surfaces. His line refuses that whole staircase. “Completely different” isn’t enthusiasm; it’s a declaration that the reigning mental model is tapped out.

The phrasing matters. He doesn’t say “a better airplane.” He says “a different flying machine,” widening the frame from aircraft-as-we-know-it to flight-as-a-physics-problem. That’s the inventor’s tell: when the industry is busy polishing solutions, he’s questioning the premise. The kicker is “based on other flying principles,” a subtle indictment of orthodoxy. Principles are the sacred layer underneath design choices; calling for new ones suggests that the accepted principles are not laws of nature but habits of thought.

Context sharpens the intent. Coanda is remembered for the Coanda effect and for early experiments that flirted with jet propulsion long before it was viable as a practical system. So the quote reads like a private manifesto made public: lift and propellers aren’t the only story; fluids can be persuaded, surfaces can bend airflow, thrust can come from something other than a spinning blade. It’s also a bid for permission to fail. By naming “other principles,” he pre-justifies prototypes that may look absurd next to conventional planes. That’s how breakthroughs often enter the room: not as answers, but as refusals to keep asking the same question.