Who was the first person to fly a helicopter?

Answer 1

The very first piloted helicopter was invented by Paul Cornu in 1907, however, this design was not successful. Another Frenchman, EtienneOehmichen built and flew a helicopter 1 kilometer in 1924. Russian born Igor Sikorsky began work on helicopters as early as 1910. By 1940, Igor Sikorsky's successful VS-300 had become the model for all modern single-rotor helicopters. He also designed and built the first military helicopter, XR-4. Captivated by the drawings of Leonardo da vinci and the stories of Jules Verne, Igor Sikorsky built a rubber-band powered model helicopter when he was 12. The VS-300 was first flown (tethered) on September 14, 1939 and the first untethered flight was on May 13, 1940. Testing continued and on May 6, 1941. Sikorsky piloted the VS-300 to a new world helicopter endurance record of 1 hour,32 minutes and 26 seconds. Link to Website of SIkorsky Helicopter company's history page. http://www.sikorsky.com/details/0,3036,CLI1_DIV69_ETI683,00.html Link to Igor Sikorsky's Historical archives. Maybe it will list WHO was first to fly his helicopter. http://www.sikorskyarchives.com/index.html Bell Aerospace became involved in helicopter design immediately after the United States entered the Second World War. Impressed by aremote-controlled flying model built by Arthur Young, Larry Bell set aside a facility in Gardenville, NYfor development of the model into a full-size helicopter. After two years of tests and trials as a private venture of its ownwithout any government support, the Model 30was ready for tethered flights. It made its first flight on 26 June 1943. Who was the pilot? One of the pilots who worked at Gardenville and flew some test flights(not sure if it was the first) was Bart Kelley. Bartram Kelley continued to work at the new facility in Hurst, TX, known as Bell Helicopter and rose to Vice President. He retired in 1974. Arthur Young changed his career and went into studies of philosophy. Another of the pilots was Floyd Carlson. Floyd continued with the new Bell Helicopter company as a test pilot. I believe he was the test pilot who broke his back in the crash of one of the earlier tilt rotor aircraft, but retained a position at Bell Helicopter. A second model was built with an enclosed cockpit and this eventually evolved into the Bell Model 47---the first helicopter to be FAA-approved for commericial sale. Link with photo of early Model 30 helicopter. http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/AC/aircraft/Bell-Model30/model-30.php Link to journal of Bart Kelley http://cellmath.med.utoronto.ca/B47/history/Bart/DayBooks.html More notes by Bart Kelley with photo of those who worked at Gardenville on the Model 30. http://cellmath.med.utoronto.ca/B47/history/Bart/FwllGdvll.html In 1936, Professor Heinrich Focke and another German named Achgelis joined forces to conduct helicopter research. The result was the production of the FW-61, based on the fuselage of a small biplane trainer with two outriggerssupporting the 2 contra-rotating rotors. The cut-down propellor mounted on the front of the radial engine was used only for cooling. The first prototype, the V 1 D-EBVU, had its first free flight on 26 June 1936 with Ewald Rohlfs at the controls. But the most famous flight was by a woman test pilot named Hannah Reitschwho flew it in an enclosed stadium, the first person to fly an aircraft inside a building.In February 1938 it was demonstrated by Hanna Reitsch indoors at the Deutschlandhalle sports stadium in Berlin. She later became a personal pilot for Hitler and flewa light 2-man aircraft, the Fiesler Storch, and landed nextto his Berlin bunker only hours before the fall of Berlin and Hitler killed himself. Link to website about Hannah Reitsch http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/reitsch.html

Answer 2

The first person to fly a helicopter was Igor Sikorsky, a Russian-American aviation pioneer. He successfully piloted his helicopter, the VS-300, on its first tethered flight in 1939. This marked a significant milestone in the development of helicopter technology.