Douglas Malewicki Explained

Douglas Malewicki
Birth Date:1939 3, df=yes[1]
Birth Place:Chicago, Illinois,[2]
Fields:Aeronautics, Mechanical engineering
Known For:
Awards:
  • Guinness world record for street-legal vehicles driven at freeway speeds
  • 2012 Orange County Register's Outdoor Sportsman of the Year

Douglas "Doug" Malewicki is an American aerospace engineer and inventor of Polish descent. Many of his inventions concern flying vehicles, but the range is quite diverse.[3] He is also the concept creator and inventor of Skytran PRT (personal rapid transit).[4]

Green vehicles

Malewicki spent 25 years advancing the Skytran concept of ultra-light computer-controlled cars hanging below aluminum maglev (magnetic levitation) tracks that could be supported above roads just by utility poles or the sides of buildings. Skytran basically combines maglev (which allows high speeds) and a hanging design (more stable and smaller tracks) with the 1960s' idea of personal rapid transit (PRT) -- cars that individual commuters take directly to their destination (hence "personal"), but computer-driven and available to others after they exit (hence "transit"). Another key PRT idea that Skytran follows is exiting the main track for boarding, so that the cars behind do not need to wait as they do with mass transit vehicles.[5] In 2019, Israeli media said that Skytran was being considered as a transportation solution for bringing baggage and passengers from the new Ramon Airport to the city of Eilat, away.[6] Skytran was advanced in Israel from 2002 and was proposed at the Knesset in 2011.[7] In 2011, it was revealed that a model of Skytran was being developed with Israel Aerospace Industries.[8]

Malewicki developed the 157 and 156-miles-per-gallon "California Commuter" cars that hold the Guinness fuel economy records for street-legal vehicles driven at freeway speeds — an example of green vehicles.[9]

He studied and developed various engineering solutions for highly-aerodynamic human-powered vehicles such as recumbent bicycles.[10]

Other vehicles

Malewicki developed the following vehicles and rides:

Other inventions and innovations

Malewicki was also involved in the development and invention of the following:

Malewicki designed the Nuclear War card game and has sold it independently from 1965. Rick Loomis of Flying Buffalo, for whom the game was one of the influences on his own Nuclear Destruction play-by-mail game, noticed that people were confusing the two games with each other, so after tracking Malewicki down, he added the game to his own catalogue and started publishing Nuclear War through Flying Buffalo in 1972.[16] Expansions included "Nuclear Proliferation", "Nuclear Escalation" and "Weapons of Mass Destruction".

An aeronautical engineer by training, Malewicki spent much of his career working for American aeronautics and space companies including the Apollo program Moon landing vehicles, the stealth bomber and Cessna aircraft including their first private jet airplane. He was a model rocket enthusiast, becoming famous early in his career for the Malewicki equations that predicted the altitude and coast time of a model rocket flight.

According to Malewicki's daughter, he was the inspiration for the original one-eyed monster, called Mike, on the Pee-wee's Playhouse TV show and was later the inspiration for Mike Wazowski drawn by Ricky Nierva in Monsters, Inc..[17] A copy of the game plans in which he drew the first image of this alien is distributed free.

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Doug M Malewicki . Irvine Public Records .
  2. Web site: Douglas Malewicki in the 1940 Census . .
  3. http://www.canosoarus.com/ www.canosoarus.com  - Douglas Malewicki's invention Web site
  4. https://web.archive.org/web/20120403065649/http://www.carbonangel.org/advisory_duglas_malewicki.php Biography page at CarbonAngel.
  5. Web site: About Doug Malewicki and the Skytran concept . BigThink. Includes a video interview with Malewicki.
  6. News: New innovation: Floating from Timna to Eilat . Ilan Getenu . May 2, 2019 . . he.
  7. Web site: Committee for Gasoline Replacements . . February 8, 2011 . he.
  8. Web site: If no light rail, give them an aerospace rail . Mako.
  9. Web site: The California Commuter . Canosoarus . March 21, 2011.
  10. Gross, AC . Kyle CR . Malewicki DJ . The aerodynamics of human-powered land vehicles . . 249 . 142-152 . 1983. This article appears in several patents.
  11. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAsspHx03WI Waking up in Reno Trailer
  12. Web site: Skycycle . Caosaurus . 2011-08-16 . 2011-07-16 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110716102758/http://www.canosoarus.com/10X1Skycycle/Skycycle01.htm . dead .
  13. Web site: About Malewicki and rocket belts . American Rocketmen . https://web.archive.org/web/20111002030447/http://www.rocketbelts.americanrocketman.com/malewicki.html . October 2, 2011 . . Includes images. This belt was later the cause for a murder between the stuntmen using it, with the belt disappearing (see Web site: Two stuntmen, one kidnap, one murder and a missing jetpack.. The Sunday Herald . Neil Mackay . October 13, 2002 . https://web.archive.org/web/20090228101125/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4156/is_20021013/ai_n12580444/ . February 28, 2009 . May 21, 2023.
  14. Web site: UMAAV (Unmanned Morphing Aerial Attack Vehicle) Morphing configurations . Canosoarus . 18 September 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210729130729/http://www.canosoarus.com/05UMAAV/UMAAV01.htm . 29 July 2021 . dead.
  15. Web site: MOTORCYCLE JUMPING WITH WINGS WORLD RECORDS . Winged.
    - Web site: The Malewicki patent . 1978 . Google Patents.
  16. Book: Shannon Appelcline . Designers & Dragons . Mongoose Publishing . 2011 . 978-1-907702-58-7 . 35.
  17. Web site: Michelle Malewicki on Mike the monster . Canosaurus.

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