Inventing things in his spare time

While Hartmut Mausolf has spent the majority of his professional life maintaining and flying airplanes but spends most of his free time working on his inventions.

ABU DHABI // Hartmut Mausolf has spent most of his professional life maintaining and flying aircraft, but his free time is devoted to his inventions.

Mr Mausolf started his career as an air force jet engine engineer in Germany, but shortly afterwards decided that his passion lay in flying commercial planes.

“I was flying to Bangkok, Phuket, Seychelles, Mauritius, Maldives, Anchorage and Cancun,” he said. “All these places are all very interesting. It was fun.

“Of course, during the years things changed. The job became more stressful, and that is why I came to Abu Dhabi and joined Etihad.”

As a captain of an Airbus A330 and A340 who mainly flies to Germany, Mr Mausolf does not get much time off.

But whenever he isn’t flying, he works on his inventions.

“I’m on a tight schedule. I usually don’t have any more than eight days off a month. I’m very limited with time,” he said.

“I am continuously doing something with my hands. For example, I invented a barbecue cleaner, but that is a something small.

“Wood is something I have spent years working on.”

Mr Mausolf came up with the idea for Wood shortly after moving into his apartment in The Greens in Dubai.

At this point, many residents were complaining that there was water leaking on to their cars in the underground car parks.

At first they thought the water was leaking from the swimming pool. But one day while relaxing by the pool, Mr Mausolf saw the gardeners watering the nearby palm trees and figured out that they were the cause of the leaks.

He deduced that the gardeners were using too much water, which seeped through the concrete pots and the concrete floor and into the car park.

As the water was acidic, it was damaging the cars underneath, said Mr Mausolf.

“I asked the gardeners how much water does a palm tree need, and they could not answer because they had no idea,” he said.

“Because of this I was interested in how much water they used and this is when I came up with the idea.”

After two years of development, he believed the project would soon yield results for him.

“The project is very successful, but people need to understand that it is important to save water, fuel and resources,” said Mr Mausolf.