Vornado Plane Material Ralph K. Odor

Ralph K. Odor (1895-1987) was an inventor who conceived an aircraft design in the 1920s in which the air was pushed from a propeller into a tube, later named the Vornado Plane. This collection consists of approximately 0.54 cubic feet of material relating to Ralph K. Odor and the Vornado Plane.

Ralph K. Odor (1895-1987) was an inventor who conceived an aircraft design in the 1920s in which the air was pushed from a propeller into a tube. A small model of the aircraft was tested in 1929. In 1932, Odor was invited to work with the Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College, Oklahoma Engineering Experiment Station (Project No. 26), to further develop his propeller assembly concept and it was there that the name "Vornado Plane" was born. Odor filed a patent on his propeller assembly in 1934, which was approved in 1938. The Vornado Trust was formed in 1935 to handle all legal and financial aspects of the Vornado Plane and Vornado principle. In 1936, Odor began to work with Kern Dodge, a mechanical engineer and member of the Vornado Trust. Additional testing was conducted on using the Vornado principle for air circulation and by 1938, the concept of the Vornado Plane was put aside to focus on using the technology for fans. Additional patents were granted to this end in the late 1930s and early 1940s. In 1939, the Vornado Trust contracted with the Propellair company to produce fans using Odor's principles, however these plans were derailed by World War II.