“I made this choice because I knew that the helicopter could exist, that it could be done. And it would be able to do things that were unthinkable for an aeroplane,” he said in an interview sixty years later.
Igor Sikorsky was born into a wealthy family on 25 May 1889 in Kiev, today the capital of Ukraine. As a young adult, fascinated by the world of aviation that was still in its infancy, he spent several months in Paris gathering information and purchasing the material he needed to build his first aircraft. Thanks to his methodical and rational approach to vertical flight, he quickly realised that a technical solution, if it existed, would require far more than the means at his disposal and the technologies of the day. After much deliberation, in 1910 he decided to focus his attention on building aeroplanes.
The first four-engined aircraft in the world was the product of Igor Sikorsky’s work. He piloted it himself on its first flight on 13 May 1913. In the aftermath of World War I and the Russian Revolution, Sikorsky decided to emigrate to the United States, the land of free enterprise. He initially found work as a teacher, following this with a stint as an aeronautic engineer. In 1923, he founded the Sikorsky Aviation Corporation(1).
By 1938, Igor Sikorsky had become a wellknown hydroplane specialist. It was at this point that he decided to return to his first love: the helicopter. Engines, materials and theoretical knowledge had progressed enough to convince him that he would succeed. His first project, the VS300, was a stroke of genius. The aircraft accomplished its first tethered flight in September 1939. After two years spent refining its design, Sikorsky asserted that “all the parts can fly together”. His helicopter was ready to fly, and its aerodynamic configuration based on a main rotor compensated by a small anti-torque tail rotor became an established standard for many years to come. The demand for Sikorsky helicopters took a sudden upward turn at the outbreak of World War II and later the Korean War.
Igor Sikorsky died on 26 October 1972. He will always be remembered as one of the world’s first great helicopter designers.