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For centuries, inventors dreamed of creating a flying machine that could rise straight into the air, hover in place, and move in any direction.
While airplanes conquered the skies in the early twentieth century, achieving this seemingly simple feat proved far more difficult.
It required breakthroughs in aerodynamics, engineering, and flight control before the dream finally became reality.
The result was an aircraft that would revolutionize warfare, transportation, and emergency rescue.
Learn more about the history of the helicopter on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
The helicopter is one of the most remarkable inventions in aviation history. Unlike an airplane, which generally needs to move forward to generate enough lift to remain airborne, a helicopter can rise vertically, hover motionless in the air, fly sideways, and even move backward.
These abilities make helicopters uniquely useful, but also extraordinarily difficult to design and operate.
Believe it or not, the helicopter’s history is much older than the airplane’s. The dream of vertical flight dates back centuries, and inventors were experimenting with helicopter-like devices long before the Wright brothers made their first powered flight in 1903.
Some of the earliest known devices demonstrating rotary-wing flight appeared in China, where spinning bamboo toys could rise into the air. These toys consisted of a small rotor mounted on a stick. By rapidly spinning the stick between the hands, a person could propel the rotor upward.
The exact origin of these devices is uncertain, but descriptions of them appeared in European accounts by the Renaissance.
Although they were simple toys, they demonstrated the essential principle that rotating blades could create enough lift to overcome gravity.
The most famous early attempt to conceptualize a helicopter came from Leonardo da Vinci. Around the late 1480s, Leonardo sketched an apparatus now known as the aerial screw.
It consisted of a large helical surface wrapped around a central vertical shaft. Leonardo imagined that turning the screw rapidly would allow the machine to rise through the air.
The device was never successfully constructed or flown, and it almost certainly could not have worked as Leonardo envisioned it. Its structure was too heavy to be powered by a human, and its design did not adequately account for the aerodynamic problems of vertical flight.
Nevertheless, Leonardo’s drawing demonstrated that the concept of powered vertical flight had been seriously considered centuries before modern aviation.
During the eighteenth century, inventors began building more sophisticated experimental flying devices.
In 1754, the Russian scientist Mikhail Lomonosov reportedly demonstrated a small spring-powered apparatus with counterrotating rotors. It was intended partly to lift meteorological instruments.
In 1784, the French inventor Christian de Launoy demonstrated a small model using two rotors powered by the tension of a bent bow.
These experiments showed that powered rotating wings could create vertical lift, but they were still far from carrying people. The main obstacle was the lack of a sufficiently powerful, lightweight engine.
During the nineteenth century, experiments with vertical flight became increasingly sophisticated. Steam engines provided more power than human muscles or springs, and inventors began imagining full-sized flying machines.
The word helicopter itself emerged during this period. In 1861, the French inventor Gustave de Ponton d’Amécourt developed a small steam-powered rotary-wing model and popularized the term hélicoptère.The name combined the Greek words helix, meaning spiral, and pteron, meaning wing.
D’Amécourt’s models did not achieve sustained powered flight, but his work helped establish the helicopter as a distinct category of flying machine.
Other inventors made their own contributions. In 1878, the Italian engineer Enrico Forlanini demonstrated a small unmanned steam-powered helicopter in Milan. His experimental device reportedly climbed to about 12 meters and remained airborne for about 20 seconds.
This was a remarkable accomplishment for the period, even though the machine was unmanned and incapable of practical operation.
In the late nineteenth century, Thomas Edison also investigated helicopter designs.
Edison recognized that the critical problem was the relationship between an aircraft’s weight and the power required to lift it.
He experimented with rotor designs and lightweight engines but eventually concluded that the engines available at the time were not sufficiently capable.
By the end of the century, the underlying idea of the helicopter was well established. What remained missing was an effective combination of propulsion, lift, and controllability.
The first decade of the twentieth century saw enormous advances in aviation. In 1903, the Wright brothers demonstrated sustained, controlled, powered flight in an airplane.
Their success encouraged helicopter experimenters, who hoped that lightweight internal-combustion engines would finally make vertical flight practical.
In France, two competing efforts produced some of the earliest proto-helicopter flights.
The first took place in 1907. The French inventor Louis Breguet worked with his brother Jacques and physiologist Charles Richet to build the Gyroplane No. 1.
It featured four large rotor assemblies, each with multiple blades, driven by a gasoline engine. On September 29, 1907, the aircraft reportedly lifted itself approximately half a meter off the ground. However, the machine was extremely unstable, and assistants had to hold it steady during its brief ascent.
Nevertheless, it was an important proof that a gasoline engine could produce enough power to lift a human-carrying rotary-wing aircraft.
The second took place just weeks later, on November 13, 1907. Another French inventor, Paul Cornu, conducted an experiment with his own helicopter, which had two large rotors driven by a gasoline engine.
During its tests, it reportedly rose briefly off the ground without physical support from assistants. For this reason, Cornu is frequently credited with making the first free flight of a piloted helicopter.
However, aviation historians still dispute the extent to which his machine genuinely achieved unsupported flight. The aircraft was unstable, could not be controlled effectively, and never became a practical flying machine.
The challenge now was to make them controllable.
During the 1910s and 1920s, helicopter development continued in Europe and the United States. Among the important experimenters were Emile and Henry Berliner, a father-and-son team in the United States.
Emile Berliner was already famous for his work on sound recording and the gramophone. He became interested in helicopters partly because he envisioned aircraft that could operate without dedicated airfields.
The Berliners built several helicopter prototypes and investigated a variety of rotor arrangements.
In 1924, Henry Berliner demonstrated a machine that could hover briefly and fly at modest speeds, although it could not achieve the performance or control needed for regular operation.
Another important pioneer was the Spanish engineer Raúl Pateras Pescara, who conducted helicopter experiments in France. Pescara developed aircraft with coaxial, counterrotating rotors and experimented with mechanisms for varying blade pitch.
His machines demonstrated increasingly sophisticated control systems, but they remained limited by insufficient engine power and aerodynamic difficulties.
The most important breakthrough during this period, however, came from an inventor who was not actually trying to build a conventional helicopter.
The Spanish engineer Juan de la Cierva developed a different form of rotary-wing aircraft called the autogyro, a topic that I covered in a previous episode.
Unlike a helicopter, an autogyro generally does not power its main rotor in flight. Instead, a conventional propeller pushes the aircraft forward, and airflow through the rotor keeps the blades turning through autorotation.
The rotating blades generate lift, enabling the aircraft to fly at much lower speeds than many conventional airplanes.
Cierva’s early autogyros encountered a serious problem. As the aircraft moved forward, the rotor blades on one side experienced a higher relative airspeed than those on the other. This produced unequal lift and caused the aircraft to roll.
Cierva solved the problem by introducing flapping hinges, which allowed rotor blades to move up and down independently as they rotated.
His successful experiments in 1923 demonstrated how a rotary-wing aircraft could maintain stability in forward flight.
Throughout the 1920s and 30s there were continual advancements. Louis Breguet returned to helicopter development and worked with engineer René Dorand on their Gyroplane Laboratoire made its first flight in 1935.
Unlike earlier experimental helicopters, it incorporated a workable combination of rotor control, stability, and engine power. The aircraft featured two counterrotating rotors mounted, one above the other.
In Germany, engineer Heinrich Focke was developing the Focke-Wulf Fw 61, which made its first flight on June 26, 1936.
It used two large rotors mounted on outriggers extending from either side of the fuselage. The rotors turned in opposite directions, eliminating the need for a tail rotor to counteract torque.
The creation of the aircraft which is considered the first true helicopter was the Sikorsky VS-300.
It was developed by Igor Sikorsky, a immigrant to the United States who fled Russia after the 1917 revolution.
The machine was relatively simple in appearance, consisting of an exposed metal framework, a seat for the pilot, an engine, and a large main rotor.
Its most important innovation was the arrangement of its rotors.
Instead of using two large counterrotating lifting rotors, Sikorsky concentrated most of the aircraft’s lifting capability into a single main rotor.
A small tail rotor counteracted the resulting torque, which would otherwise cause the body of the aircraft to rotate in the opposite direction of the main rotor.
The VS-300 made its first tethered flight on September 14, 1939, with Sikorsky himself at the controls. Its first untethered flight followed on May 13, 1940.
Sikorsky spent the next several years refining the design. In May 1941, Sikorsky flew the VS-300 for more than an hour and a half, establishing a new helicopter endurance record.
The Second World War spurred the demand for helicopters. The Sikorsky R-4 was developed from the VS-300 and became the world’s first helicopter produced in substantial numbers.
The U.S. military adopted the helicopter for training and rescue missions. In April 1944, U.S. Army Lieutenant Carter Harman used an R-4 to rescue personnel from behind Japanese lines in Burma, the first use of a helicopter in a rescue mission.
Following World War II, helicopter manufacturers began developing aircraft for the civilian market. One of the most important was the Bell 47.
Designed under the leadership of Arthur M. Young and developed from the experimental Bell Model 30, the Bell 47 made its first flight in December 1945.
On March 8, 1946, it became the first helicopter to receive civilian certification in the United States.
The Korean War, which began in 1950, was the first major conflict in which helicopters played a substantial operational role. Korea’s mountainous terrain and frequently poor roads created enormous problems for military transportation.
Wounded soldiers often needed to be carried considerable distances before reaching medical treatment. Helicopters offered a new solution. American forces began using Bell H-13 Sioux helicopters to evacuate wounded soldiers directly to Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals, or MASH units.
The next great technological leap came with the introduction of gas turbine engines. Early helicopters had been powered by conventional piston engines, which were heavy relative to the power they produced.
A gas turbine engine offered a much better power-to-weight ratio. In 1951, an experimental Kaman K-225 became the first helicopter to fly with a gas turbine driving its rotor through a mechanical transmission.
As helicopters became more powerful, their use in warfare changed dramatically. It was no longer used just for rescue and evacuation; during the Vietnam War, it began to be used offensively.
There’s much more to say about helicopters, some of which I’ll cover in future episodes.
The helicopter was one of the most difficult challenges in aviation history. Although the basic concept of vertical flight had existed for centuries, it took generations of inventors to solve the problems of lift, stability, and control.
Even after the first airplanes took to the skies, it took another four decades for practical helicopters to become a reality.
Today, helicopters perform tasks that no other aircraft can easily accomplish, from rescuing people in remote locations to transporting heavy equipment and operating in the middle of cities.
What began as a centuries-old dream of flying straight up has become one of the most versatile forms of transportation ever invented.