Who was the first to fly a helicopter?

Library of Congress, Wright Papers, Manuscript Division (51)

The Spark
In 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright, two brothers from Dayton, OH, became the first people to fly a heavier than air, power controlled machine, known as the Wright Flyer. This did not simply happen overnight. The brothers had been tinkering with the idea of flight off and on since childhood. They were mechanically inclined young men who were inspired by the efforts of others.

In 1878, the brothers’ father, Milton Wright, brought home a rubber band powered toy helicopter. Designed by French aeronautical experimenter Alphonse Pénaud, this toy did not simply fall to the ground as expected. Rather it "flew across the room till it struck the ceiling, where it fluttered awhile, and finally sank to the floor." Though the fragile toy soon broke, Wilbur and Orville never forgot it. They even attempted to build their own toy helicopters. In later years, Orville accredited this childhood toy as being the object that sparked their interest in flight.

Although fixed-wing aircraft receive all the attention by most historians, helicopter flight was the first flight envisioned by man. In fact, the ancient Chinese were playing with a hand-spun toy that rose upward when revolved rapidly and as early as the mid 1500’s, the great Italian Leonardo Da Vinci had used his fertile mind to make drawings of a machine that we now know as the helicopter. His design, like many others to follow, would work theoretically but would have been impractical in full-sized form.

Many extraordinary models were developed by an ever increasing number of great thinkers, but all the pioneers were missing two essentials:

• a true understanding of the nature of lift; and
• an adequate engine.

The great breakthrough came at the end of the nineteenth century. The internal combustion engine made it possible for the pioneers to develop full-sized models with an adequate power source. It was then they found the first of many great problems: torque, the effect produced by the rotor to force the fuselage to rotate in the opposite direction as the engine.

The beginning of the 20th century saw the pioneers experimenting and resolving many of the problems that appeared with each advancement. The old saying, “One step forward and two steps back,” was the order of the day for the early pioneers. Dissymmetry of lift, the action that tended to cause the early helicopters to flip over, confounded the early pioneers until the invention of the swashplate. The swashplate, with cyclic pitch control allowed the rotor blade angles to be altered so that lift would be equal on each side of the central shaft.

However, there were many problems that had not been worked out on any one individual helicopter. Then on November 13, 1907, the French pioneer Paul Cornu lifted a twin- rotored helicopter into the air entirely without assistance from the ground for a few seconds.

After that, several models were produced by many designs but there were no more great advances until another French pioneer, Etienne Oehmichen, became the first to fly a helicopter a kilometer in a closed circuit in 1924. It was a historic flight taking 7 minutes and 40 seconds.

Advances began to come fast and furious. One of the more important advances in the development of vertical flight was made by the Spaniard Juan de la Cierva. His design, called the autogyro, was not a true helicopter but his contribution was very important.

By 1936, many of the problems had solutions and with the introduction of the German Focke-Wulf Fw 61, the first practical helicopter was a reality. Vertical flight was not a dream anymore.

This historical evolution of rotary wing aircraft is dedicated to all those that were involved in the development of the most versatile vehicle known by man and exists due the enormous help of so many people from all around the world. Thanks to all!

Without these individuals, Atlas Helicopters would not exist as it is today!

During the mid-1500s, Italian inventor and artist Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) made drawings of an ornithopter flying machine, a fantastical machine that might have flapped its wings like a bird and that some experts say inspired the modern helicopter. In 1784, French inventors named Launoy and Bienvenue demonstrated a toy to the French Academy that had a rotary-wing that could lift and fly. The toy proved the principle of helicopter flight.

In 1863, the French writer Gustave de Ponton d'Amécourt (1825–1888) was the first person to coin the term "helicopter" from the Greek words "helix" for spiral and "pter" for wings.

The very first piloted helicopter was invented by French engineer Paul Cornu (1881–1944) in 1907. However, his design did not work, and French inventor Etienne Oehmichen (1884–1955) was more successful. He built and flew a helicopter one kilometer in 1924. Another early helicopter that flew for a decent distance was the German Focke-Wulf Fw 61, invented by an unknown designer.

The Russian-American aviation pioneer Igor Sikorsky (1889–1972) is considered to be the "father" of helicopters, not because he was the first to invent it, but because he invented the first successful helicopter upon which further designs were based.

One of aviation's greatest designers, Sikorsky began work on helicopters as early as 1910. By 1940, Sikorsky's successful VS-300 had become the model for all modern single-rotor helicopters. He also designed and built the first military helicopter, the XR-4, which he delivered to the U.S. Army in 1941.

Sikorsky's helicopters had the control capabilities to fly safely forwards and backward, up and down and sideways. In 1958, Sikorsky's rotorcraft company made the world's first helicopter that had a boat hull. It could land and take off from the water; and floated on water as well.

In 1944, U.S. inventor Stanley Hiller, Jr. (1924–2006) made the first helicopter with all-metal rotor blades that were very stiff. They allowed the helicopter to fly at speeds much faster than before. In 1949, Stanley Hiller piloted the first helicopter flight across the United States, piloting a helicopter that he invented called the Hiller 360.

In 1946, U.S. pilot and pioneer Arthur M. Young (1905–1995) of the Bell Aircraft company designed the Bell Model 47 helicopter, the first helicopter to have a full bubble canopy and the first certified for commercial use.

SH-60 Seahawk
The UH-60 Black Hawk was fielded by the Army in 1979. The Navy received the SH-60B Seahawk in 1983 and the SH-60F in 1988.

HH-60G Pave Hawk
The Pave Hawk is a highly-modified version of the Army Black Hawk helicopter and features an upgraded communication and navigation suite. The design includes an integrated inertial navigation/global positioning/Doppler navigation system, satellite communications, secure voice, and Have Quick frequency-hopping communications.

CH-53E Super Stallion
The Sikorsky CH-53E Super Stallion is the largest helicopter in the western world.

CH-46D/E Sea Knight
The CH-46 Sea Knight was first procured in 1964.

AH-64D Longbow Apache
The AH-64D Longbow Apache is the most advanced, versatile, survivable, deployable, and maintainable multi-role combat helicopter in the world.

Paul E. Williams (U.S. patent #3,065,933)
On November 26, 1962, African-American inventor Paul E. Williams patented a helicopter named the Lockheed Model 186 (XH-51). It was a compound experimental helicopter, and only 3 units were built.

• Fay, John Foster. "The Helicopter: History, Piloting, and How it Flies." Sterling Book House, 2007. 
• Leishman, J. Gordon. "Principles of Helicopter Aerodynamics." Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
• Prouty, Raymond W., and H. C. Curtiss, "Helicopter Control Systems: A History." Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics 26.1 (2003): 12–18.