Howard Head (July 31, 1914 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - March 3, 1991) was an aviation engineer who was credited with inventing the first commercially successful commercial aluminum laminate disk and a large tennis racket. The head of skiing (and later tennis racquet) made the Head of the company in 1950. Then he became chairman of Prince Manufacturing Inc. The United States patent for laminate skiing and large tennis racquets is on behalf of Howard Head.
Video Howard Head
Peralatan ski
In 1947, Howard Head was an aircraft engineer for Glenn L. Martin Company in Baltimore, and went skiing for the first time. The head is frustrated with the quality of clunky and heavy wooden skiing, which makes skiing very difficult for beginners. He decided to develop a lighter and more efficient ski that can make skiing easier for everyone. He left his job and devoted all his time and energy to develop skiing and support himself with income from poker.
The ski developed by the Chief is based on the structural principles he learned during his experience as an aircraft engineer. In a warehouse he rented from Albert Gunther Inc in an alley on Biddle Street in downtown Baltimore, he used a technique known as metal sandwich construction. His first skis made up of two thin layers of aluminum tied to the sidewall of thin plywood, with a honeycomb plastic filling center. Although the skis were very light, they all broke pretty quickly during the trial. The chief did not give up on his idea, and was encouraged by several professional skiers, including 1939 World Champion Emile Allais and ski instructors Clif Taylor and Neil Robinson, who assured the Head that he would be happy to use the skis if they did not break up. Throughout the winter, Head will make a pair of skis and send it to Robinson, who returns it to Head after it is broken. The chief found his design flaws, coming with modifications, sent a new pair of skis to Robinson, and the process repeated. At the end of winter of 1947, the Head came up with ski boots that were as strong as wooden boots but half of his weight.
To make the scale more efficient, the Head made several other changes, such as replacing plywood for honeycomb plastic, covering the bottom of the skis with polyethylene to avoid ice base problems and adopting a sustainable steel edges to harden the edges of the skis. Improved new skis are almost as heavy as conventional wood skiing, but are stronger and easier to control. The ski head helps popularize mountain skiing in the US; Innovative equipment made spinning much easier.
In 1950, Head founded Head Ski Company, which became very successful. In a few years, it is a major supplier of alpine skiing in the US and affecting ski designs worldwide. The company then diversified into tennis and other racket sports; his most famous product is the innovative Arthur Ashe racket, made from an aluminum honeycomb. Howard Head sold the company to AMF in 1969 and retired. After a number of takeovers and acquisitions, HEAD, N.V. currently based in Kennelbach, Austria (operational) and Amsterdam, Netherlands (corporate office).
Maps Howard Head
Tennis racket
After his retirement, the Chief decided to take tennis lessons and for this purpose he earned himself a tennis ball machine, produced by Prince Manufacturing Inc. Although Howard is not good at playing tennis, he knows that the equipment for the game needs a lot of improvement or he will need more practice. To begin with he becomes the majority shareholder and chairman of the Prince's council. While the Head greatly improved the design of the ball machine, he still could not get better at the game. He knew that it was because of the small spots of the tennis racket. To make tennis games easier, Head comes up with a large racket design. He filed for and obtained a patent covering tennis racket with a size of 95-135 square inches. He also pioneered the development of graphite rackets, which eventually became the industry standard, replacing wooden rackets.
Although Prince was the first company to patent an oversized racket, Bentley Fortissimo preceded the patent for two years, causing Germany to cancel it. Weed also introduced a large racket in 1975, before the first Prince of Greatness, Prince of the Classical Prince, was introduced.
External links
- Head of Section Howard
- Interview with Howard Broody. - Physics behind the Head Racket
- Discovery at play.org - inventor - Howard Head
- Head.com - timeline
- Prince Tennis.com - history
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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