The (Slightly Weird) History of the First Helicopter

Helicopters have a long and storied history as both medical and military vehicles. They help give us the traffic report on the daily news and help the police track suspects on the road.

How much do we really know about the helicopter, though? Who invented it, for instance? How long did it take? What should we know about the very first helicopter?

Read on to find out.

Inventor

It’s possible to credit any number of people with inventing the helicopter, from the Breguet brothers and Paul Cornu of France, to Juan de la Cierva, to the German Focke-Achgelis aviation company and finally Igor Sikorsky.

Much like the submarine or electricity, there were actually several attempts to create a functioning helicopter, some of which were more successful than others. The idea of the helicopter had been around for quite some time, with the most recognizable design being Da Vinci’s aerial corkscrew design.

For the next few hundred years, people attempted to design helicopters, but that’s all anything came to–designs. It wasn’t until the early 1900’s, 1907 in fact, that a functional model was tested.

1907

Two separate designs, created by the Breguet brothers and Paul Cornu, respectively, were built and tested in France. The first of these managed to get off the ground, but could only hover in place, and couldn’t stay up for very long, about two minutes, to be precise.

It was also difficult to control. There was no working steering mechanism yet, so the best anyone could do was weigh it down so it wouldn’t veer away and probably crash.

That same year, Paul Cornu built his own primitive helicopter, a device with a 24 horsepower engine and a rotor attached to the long ‘arms’ on either side. With this machine, Cornu claimed to have gotten his helicopter a foot off the ground and kept it hovering for twenty seconds.

The only problem is that, after studying the vehicle, many engineers claim that it would be impossible for the machine to even take off, let alone hover for 20 seconds.

1923

Several attempts took place after 1907, but until 1923, all of them basically sought to achieve what the Breguet brothers had achieved, hovering in the air for some time.

So, what changed in 1923? A man named Juan de la Cierva created an autogiro by attaching rotors to a plane and sawing off the wings. He also adjusted the plane controls so that they were more workable in this new vehicle.

So, what is an autogiro? An autogiro, unlike a helicopter, doesn’t have powered rotors. Instead, the engine is focused on moving forward, while the rotor generates lift from the wind hitting it at high speeds, causing it to turn.

With this autogiro, Juan de la Cierva made a great leap forward in helicopter technology. He created the first controllable flight in a hovering vehicle. It flew for 4 kilometers, a distance never before achieved by a hovering vehicle.

1937

Created in 1937 by a new company named Focke-Achgelis, the Fa-61 took a lot from de la Cierva’s model, except that they turned it back into a helicopter by powering the rotors.

It wouldn’t be out of line to call the Fa-61 the first fully-functioning helicopter. There are records of it having hovered 11,243 feet in the air and flown 143 miles.

Among its other achievements, the Fa-61 is also the first helicopter to ever be flown by a woman. Her name was Hanna Reitsch, and she flew the plane in a stadium in Berlin.

1939

The Germans in 1937 were proud of their helicopter superiority and boasted about it in their propaganda. Two years later, the Americans answered the challenge with the help of a Ukrainian (technically, part of Russia at the time) immigrant named Igor Sikorsky.

Sikorsky originally came to America in 1919 and set up his own aviation company. It was later bought out by United Aircraft.

In 1938, with his new company’s blessing, Sikorsky set out to create a working helicopter, and by September of 1939, had done so. Sikorsky’s helicopter, dubbed the VS-300, is what many consider the first real helicopter.

It wasn’t the first hovering flight, or the first manned flight, or the first controlled flight, but it was the first helicopter to utilize the design we know of today. Sikorsy used two rotors, one up top and one on the end of the tail, and sat the pilot at the front, rather than in the middle like an airplane. Both of these are designs that would be utilized in most helicopters from then on.

1940

Sikorsky’s VS-300 sets a record for the longest continuous helicopter flight by staying airborne for over an hour and a half. The US government contracted Sikorsky to create another helicopter of a similar design, which Sikorsky dubbed the XR-4.

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1947-1956

Sikorsky’s ideas are picked up and implemented by a man named Larry Bell, an aspiring aircraft designer who hopes to keep his business afloat by designing helicopters

The result is a great success. After a few failed tries, Bell creates the UH-47, which, after gaining popularity, is picked up by the military and used in the Korean War, though the military made a few adjustments and renamed it to the H-13.

Three years after the Korean War ends, Bell comes out with a new helicopter, the Bell UH-1H, which is also bought by the army and used extensively. However, many of the soldiers, and the general public, quickly give it a nickname that becomes far more well-known than the real one. They called it the Huey.

The rest, of course, is history.

The First Helicopter

The story of the first helicopter is very complex and raises a lot of questions, many of which are a matter of opinion. Even so, helicopters and even their initial creation have a long history that spans decades.

However, most historians seem to agree that the first real helicopter was the brainchild of a man named Igor Sikorsky because most modern designs take after his example.

If, on the other hand, you’re just really into strange facts, please visit our site. Maybe you want to know about some of the oddest military traditions we could find. Want a cool way to have fun in the Fall?

Check out our list of weird celebrations and festivals to look into.

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