A doctor of aerodynamics

Enoch Thulin was not a mechanic who learned theory; he was a theorist who learned to fly. He took a doctorate at Lund University in 1912 for work on aerodynamics, made his first successful flights the same year, and in November 1913 went into partnership with Oscar Ask, who had started an aircraft firm in Landskrona in 1912. By August 1914 Thulin was running it, and in 1915 it became AB Enoch Thulins Aeroplanfabrik — Sweden’s first aircraft manufacturer.

Engines with Swedish bearings

The works grew fast: 12 to 15 people in 1914, 200 in 1917, 900 by 1919. There was a materials-testing laboratory and a wind tunnel hall with four fans 3.7 metres across. From 1916 Thulin built his own engines, derived from the Le Rhône rotary and improved with Swedish ball bearings. Aircraft went to the Swedish forces, Denmark, Norway and Finland, and the Dutch Navy took most of the 17 Thulin K fighters built from 1917.

Death over Landskrona

Thulin stood down as head of the company in January 1919. On 14 May that year, practising in a Thulin K over Södra Fäladen, south-east of Landskrona harbour, he lost an aileron in a steep dive and was killed. He was 37. With export markets collapsing after the war, the company tried building cars from 1919 but went bankrupt on 20 August 1920. Reconstructed as AB Thulinverken in 1922, it made cars until 1928 and then railway brakes.

Továrny

• Landskrona works · Landskrona, Skåne — Three-storey assembly hall from 1917; wind tunnel with four 3.7 m fans

Lidé

• Enoch Thulin · founder, designer, pilot — 1881–1919; PhD Lund 1912; killed in a Thulin K
• Oscar Ask · aircraft builder — Founded the Landskrona firm Thulin joined in 1913

Rekordy a prvenství

• Enoch Thulin set a Swedish altitude record in the Thulin K in 1919