Ludwig, Rudolf and Emil Rüb: Forgotten German Aeronautical and Rotating-Wing Pioneers

Ludwig Rudolf Rüb, a passionate inventor, lived in poverty most of his life and is virtually unknown in the rotorcraft community. His inventions covered combustion engines and motorcycles first. Around 1900 he built a paddle-wheel plane under contract by Count Zeppelin, next he designed and built a first version of a coaxial rotor helicopter in Munich, and then he moved to Augsburg for building a large fixed-wing aircraft. None of these were ever finished. At the begin of WW I, with support of the German army, he took up a refined version of his coaxial rotor helicopter concept as a highly agile and maneuverable replacement of the observation balloons used in those times, which also was intended to take an active part in warfare by installing a machine gun or dropping bombs. It included some astonishing advanced features and with the help of his sons the construction was finished; ground testing started in June 1918. The end of the war immediately stopped all works; the contract of Versailles demanded the destruction of that vehicle and thus formed the end of the Rüb aeronautical work. Ludwig Rüb died 1918, after months of illness, without having seen the rotors turning.