The exact date is unclear, but sometime between August 14th and September 29th of , Gyroplane No. It was, however, an extremely unsteady aircraft, and required a man to hold it steady at each corner of the airframe. For this reason, the flights of Gyroplane No. That would happen very soon after that same year, on the 13th of November.
French inventor Paul Cornu had built a helicopter that used two 20 foot 6 meters counter rotating rotors driven by 24 hp engine. The Cornu helicopter lifted the inventor 1 foot. Though this was not as high or long as Gyroplane No. The Wrights had achieved manned flight with the first fixed wing aircraft in December , and in , the Breguet brothers and Cornu had achieved the same with helicopter flight.
The doors to the world of aviation were thrown wide open, and inventors, scientists, and enthusiasts poured in. By the s, Argentine Raul Pateras-Pescara de Castelluccio had successfully demonstrated cyclic pitch, or the ability to tilt the rotor hub forward a few degrees and allow the helicopter to move forward without the need for a separate propeller for pushing or pulling.
He also was the first to successfully demonstrate the principle of autorotation, which was key to the safe landing of damaged helicopters. He flew 1, feet meters. This record was beaten a mere four days later by Pescara, who flew 2, feet meters in 4 minutes and 11 seconds, at a height of roughly 6 feet 1. In the US, Denmark, Hungary, Italy, and Russia, countless models were tested, flown, abandoned or improved on at an incredible rate.
Then, in , another first. In , German Heinrich Focke was brought into the world of helicopter research. Inspired by autogyro designs, he set to work. The Focke-Wulf Fw 61 then broke all the previously established helicopter world records in and pushed the flight envelope for helicopters to new heights. The world was paying attention.
Lawrence LePage to produce the first helicopter for use in the US military. LePage was successful in acquiring the patent rights to design a helicopter in the same style of the Fw 61, so Sikorsky went with a more simple, single rotor design. LePage was also awarded a contract from the military after winning a military sponsored contest in early , which also included designs by Sikorsky, and others.
However, they were unable to meet the prototype deadline, and due to this delay, Sikorsky was also able to receive funding for his model. Finally, three months late, the XR-1 arrived. It resembled the Fw 61, with its two, three-bladed rotors, and was powered by a hp Pratt and Whitney engine.
Even then, it was flown within a few feet of the ground. This was because the XR-1 showed a variety of design and stability problems. He did though invent the first really successful helicopter and this design has continued to be used to the present day. A true aviation pioneer in terms not only of helicopters, but fixed-wing aircraft as well, Sikorsky immigrated to the USA in and founded his own Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation in At the age of 12, Sikorsky made his first model flying machine, a helicopter powered by rubber bands.
Sikorsky decided when he was about 17 that he wanted to study engineering, after spending three years at the Imperial Russian Naval Academy. About two years later, he learnt about the Wright brothers and other aeronautical pioneers, and backed financially by his sister, went off to Paris to study aviation. He began his helicopter design career in in Russia, but quickly realized that various factors counted against him, not least of which was his lack of experience and shortage of money.
There are at least two more inventors that definitely deserve a mention in the history of the helicopter, Stanley Hiller, Jnr and Arthur Young. He was also the pilot of the first helicopter to be successfully flown across the USA in — the Hiller Young, who worked for the Bell Aircraft Company designed a helicopter that was the first to have a full bubble canopy — the Bell Model He did this shortly after winning a prize of 90 for flying his helicopter following a triangular circuit of 1 Kilometer in length.
In , toy helicopters were made and were powered with rubber bands, which some of us are old enough to remember playing with. Nine years earlier, a small steam-powered helicopter was invented, but it was made out of new metal and aluminum and never got off the ground.
In , an unmanned steam-powered vehicle rose to 39 feet then hovered for a few seconds in the air. It even took off vertically like helicopters of today do. In , an inventor in Paris built and then flew an electric version of a helicopter with success.
In July of in Germany, the maiden voyage of a helicopter took place and even carried humans from one place to another. The event was later depicted in a movie, although it has since been lost to time. Even Thomas Edison had an interest in helicopters.
In the late s he was given money to experiment with the helicopter, but the aircraft he invented exploded and even caused serious burns to one of the workers. Later, a Slovak inventor took what Edison had learned and applied it to his own invention. Edison attempted to improve on his helicopter in , but the one he invented that time never flew.
As you can see, the history of the helicopter includes a lot of different people, but the first actual flights are attributed mostly to a group of Frenchmen. As a result, the Gyroplane No.
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