Igor Pasternak

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Igor Pasternak
Born
Igor Pasternak

Template:Birth year and age[1][2]
USSR
NationalityAmerican
Alma materLviv Polytechnic National University
Occupation(s)Aviation entrepreneur, engineer, inventor
Years active1986 - Present[2]
Known forWorldwide Aeros Corp (also referred as Aeros)
Websiteaeroscraft.com

Igor Pasternak is an American aviation entrepreneur,[3][4] inventor and engineer[5] specializing in designing and building airships.[6][7][1][8] He is best known as the founder and CEO of Worldwide Aeros Corp, an American manufacturer of airships based in Montebello, California and for his research on variable buoyancy control for airships.[9][10][11][8] Igor Pasternak is an advocate of the cargo airship industry[12] and lighter-than-air flight.[13][3]

Biography[edit | edit source]

Igor Pasternak was born in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic,[14] one of the republics of the former Soviet Union, and is the eldest child in a family of Jewish descent. His parents, both civil engineers, later moved to Lviv, Ukraine, where he grew up. His younger sister, Marina, was also an engineer.[6][15] As a child, Pasternak took an early interest in airships.[6] According to The Seattle Times, Pasternak faced antisemitism in the USSR before Mikhail Gorbachev started Perestroika and couldn't study aeronautical engineering because both of his parents were Jewish.[3][16] He studied civil engineering in Lviv Polytechnic National University.[13] While an undergraduate student at university, Pasternak started an airship-design bureau in 1981,[17] and by 1986 he founded Aeros Ltd.,[14] his first company producing aerostats and blimps for various applications including advertising and meteorology in the USSR and abroad.[6][18] In 1994, Pasternak emigrated to the USA following his family.[6][18]

Entrepreneurship[edit | edit source]

Since 1994, Pasternak's entrepreneurial and engineering career in the US has been closely associated with Worldwide Aeros Corp

(alternatively known as Aeros),[12] the company he re-established in the US.[10] In 1994, Pasternak moved from New York to California and leased a hangar from the Castle Air Force Base (located two hours south of San Francisco) to build his first airship in the US - Aeros 50, a seventy-eight-foot long blimp. Aeros 50 was later sold for advertising during the 1996 Paralympic Games.[6][18] Since then, Aeros has released and launched into serial production a number of new airship models including the Sky Dragon, the cargo airship Dragon Dream (Aeroscraft) and Tethered Aerostat System (TAS) among others. Worldwide Aeros Corp received various certifications including from Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for some of its airships.[12][19] The company subsequently moved its building operation to Montebello, California, where it is located now.[17][6][2]

Joint projects with the US government[edit | edit source]

Pasternak's company R&D has been intensively funded by the US government. Aeros signed contracts with The Pentagon through DARPA's project Walrus HULA[3] and the Rapid Reaction Technology Office on building reconnaissance and cargo military airships,[10][20][21] including $50 million project for the development of the Pelican prototype.[22][23] In 2013, Pasternak led development and construction of Aeroscraft Dragon Dream, the first airship independent from ballast during cargo loading and able to conduct vertical take off and landing at fully load. In September 2013, after being cleared by the FAA, the Dragon Dream had its first tethered flight in Tustin, California.[9][24][25] In 2014, Pasternak and his company supplied Ukraine with the identification signal system in the Azov sea.[18][14]

Marina Pasternak Memorial Scholarship[edit | edit source]

In 2000, Pasternak's younger sister Marina and his friend Levon Sanamyan died in a tragic accident in a hangar of Aeros while working inside a blimp.[15][26] To honor Marina Pasternak's memory and her contributions to the company, Pasternak founded The Marina Pasternak Memorial Scholarship. The scholarship is provided to female students of the Department of Engineering at Santa Monica College.[27][28]

Inventions[edit | edit source]

Pasternak is the inventor of Cargo Airship With Variable Buoyancy Control (the Aeroscraft). The discriminating utility of this technology is to built-in internal ballast control which allows a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) and hover operation at max payload without the use of off-board ballasting, and off-loading stores while hovering. He also devised a method to compress helium, which allowed for the ship to be made heavier or lighter as necessary.[8][5][11]

  • Aerostructure for rigid body airship (US Patent 9,266,597)[29]
  • Flight system for a constant volume, variable buoyancy air vehicle (US Patent 9,016,622)[30]
  • Multi-chamber landing system for an air vehicle (US Patent 8,864,068)[31]
  • Rigid body airship (US Patent D663,255)[32]
  • Cockpit for hybrid air vehicle (United States Patent D631,817)[33]

Awards[edit | edit source]

Pasternak has earned multiple recognitions over the years based on his accomplishments in the airship and air mobility industries.

  • Small Business Person of the Year for L.A. 2006[34]
  • Small Business Person of the Year for L.A. 2010[35]
  • Top USA Entrepreneur with Ukrainian Origin 2023[36]

See also[edit | edit source]

Sources[edit | edit source]

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Airship producer Igor Pasternak building blimps for whole world (GRAPHICS).  Kyiv Post.  Retrieved from link
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Immigrant engineer ready for zeppelins to take off.  (15 September 2013)  The Seattle Times.  Retrieved from link
  4. ↑ Documentary short: "Inventing a Lighter-Than-Air Aircraft".  The New Yorker Channel on YouTube.  Retrieved from link
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6
  7. ↑
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 This Huge Zeppelin Could Revolutionize The Shipping Industry.  Business Insider.  Retrieved from link
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Aeros gains airworthiness certificate for new hybrid airship.  Flight Global.  Retrieved from link
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Miracle airship tech sustained by DARPA pork trickle.  The Register.  Retrieved from link
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 A behind the scenes look at the project to build a radical new airship that could soon criscross our skies.  BBC.  Retrieved from link
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Aeros patents cargo airship technology.  Intelligent Aerospace.  Retrieved from link
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Blim Taking Flight.  (7 May 2000)  Los Angeles Business Journal.  Retrieved from link
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Replacing Kalashnikov Rifles Hits a Snag in Ukraine.  (15 January 2017)  The Newsweek.  Retrieved from link
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Burbank man one of two killed in blimp accident.  (2 February 2000)  Retrieved from link
  16. ↑ Little America: Igor Pasternak.  Epic Magazine.  Retrieved from link
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 AerosCraft History.  Company Website - History Section.  Retrieved from link
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 18.3 Igor Pasternak, a native-born Ukrainian, is building airships in the U.S. and is doing quite well for himself.  AIN.UA.  Retrieved from link
  19. ↑ FAA and Aeros Reach Agreement on Plan for Certification of 40E Sky Dragon.  (21 September 2015)  UAS Vision.  Retrieved from link
  20. ↑ A Plan For Airships That Might Finally Take Off.  Josh Bearman.  (July 2, 2012)  Popular Science.  Retrieved 17 February 2021 from popsci.com
  21. ↑ Pelican Demonstrator Aimed At Airlift.  Bill Sweetman.  (October 15, 2012)  Aviation Week.  Retrieved 17 February 2021 from aviationweek.com
  22. ↑
  23. ↑
  24. ↑ Aeroscraft's Project Pelican Demonstrator moves outside hangar.  The lighter than air society.  Retrieved from link
  25. ↑ Dragon Dream airship first flight.  YouTube.  Retrieved from link
  26. ↑ Air Supply Cut in Blimp Accident.  The Associated Press.  Retrieved from link
  27. ↑ Scholarships by Major: The Marina Pasternak Memorial Scholarship.  Santa Monica College: Admission & Aid Department.  Retrieved from link
  28. ↑ Marina Pasternak Memorial Scholarship.  Basic Scholarship Database.  Retrieved from link
  29. ↑ Aerostructure for rigid body airship.  USPTO.  Retrieved from link
  30. ↑ Flight system for a constant volume, variable buoyancy air vehicle.  Google Patents.  Retrieved from link
  31. ↑ Multi-chamber landing system for an air vehicle.  Google Patents.  Retrieved from link
  32. ↑ Rigid body airship.  USPTO.  Retrieved from link
  33. ↑ Cockpit for hybrid air vehicle.  USPTO.  Retrieved from link
  34. ↑ Blimp Designer Is SBA's Person of the Year for L.A..   staff-author.  (2006-06-04)  Retrieved 2023-07-25 from Los Angeles Business Journal
  35. ↑ Small-business awards and some musical chairs.  (2010-06-16)  Retrieved 2023-07-25 from Los Angeles Times
  36. ↑ AEROS' CEO IGOR PASTERNAK HAS BEEN NOMINATED FOR THE "TOP 100 USA ENTREPRENEURS WITH UKRAINIAN ORIGINS" – AerosCraft.  (2023-06-22)  Retrieved 2023-07-25 from link
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