PISTOLESI

ITALY (see also List of Individuals)

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2.12.1889 Firenze/I - 28.2.1968 Pisa/I

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Enrico Pistolesi graduated as a mathematician from the University of Pisa in 1912. He continued as an assistant in the mathematics department of Torino University, where he submitted a PhD thesis in 1915. After a short stay at the Torino aeronautical school, Pistolesi was transferred in 1919 to the Experimental Direction of Military Aviation in Rome where he was appointed major in 1923, and in parallel associate professor at Pisa University; he was promoted to full professor in 1926 and stayed there all through his career until being retired in 1965. Pistolesi was president of the Associazione Italiana di Aerotecnica from 1945 to 1961, and editor of its journal L'Aerotecnica from 1921 to his death. He had detailed knowledge in aerodynamics combined with a sharp analytical mind: Papers reviewed by him seldom would contain an error.

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After World War I, aviation left the state of infancy and developed as an independent science. In Italy, this was to a large extent due to Tullio Levi-Civita (1873-1941), the mentor of applied mechanics. Wilhelm Kutta (1867-1944) developed the theorem of circulation and proved that a wing is subjected to a lift force even in ideal fluid flow. Pistolesi refined in 1911 the vorticity concept proposed by Ludwig Prandtl (1875-1953). Pistolesi investigated in 1922 the velocity distribution across an infinite wing and described the corresponding vorticity field. He generalized the Kutta-Zhukovsky theorem. Pistolesi completed his wing theory in the 1930s by considering an isolated wing, and the influence of propulsion on the wing performance. Pistolesi is also known for "substitute vortices" by which a wing is induced by a vorticity field.

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_{Anonymous (1936). Associazione Italiana di Aerotecnica. L'Aerotecnica 16: 989. P Anonymous (1949). L'VIII Convegno Nazionale di Aerotecnica. L'Aerotecnica 29: 267-272. P Ferrari, C. (1968). In memoria del nostro direttore Enrico Pistolesi. L'Aerotecnica 48: 47-50. P Gabrielli, G. (1968). Enrico Pistolesi. Jahrbuch der DGLR: 399-400.}

_{Pistolesi, E. (1931). Il calcolo approssimato del biplane indefinite. L'Aerotecnica 11(12): 1506-1517.}

_{Pistolesi, E. (1932). Aerodinamica. UTET: Torino.}

_{Pistolesi, E. (1933). Il problema dell'ala in vicinanza del suolo. L'Aerotecnica 13(4): 351-360. Pistolesi, E., Nerli, N. (1945). Macchine termiche ed idrauliche. Vallerini: Pisa.}

_{Pistolesi, E., Marini, M. (1960). Alcuni problemi dell'aerodinamica di profile in correnti non uniformi. L'Aerotecnica 40: 178-193.}