page_title: Helicopter
section_title: Birth of an industry
hierarchical_section_title: Helicopter / History / Birth of an industry
caption_attribution_description: English: Original Caption: "Comdr. Frank A. Erickson, USCG &amp; Dr. Igor Sikorsky, Sikorsky Helicopter HNS-1 C.G. #39040."
context_page_description: A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally-spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes allow helicopters to be used in congested or isolated areas where fixed-wing aircraft and many forms of VTOL aircraft cannot perform.
  The English word helicopter is adapted from the French word hélicoptère, coined by Gustave Ponton d'Amécourt in 1861, which originates from the Greek helix "helix, spiral, whirl, convolution" and pteron "wing". English language nicknames for “helicopter” include "chopper", "copter", "heli", and "whirlybird". In the United States military, the common slang is “helo” pronounced with a long "e".
  Helicopters were developed and built during the first half-century of flight, with the Focke-Wulf Fw 61 being the first operational helicopter in 1936. Some helicopters reached limited production, but it was not until 1942 that a helicopter designed by Igor Sikorsky reached full-scale production, with 131 aircraft built.
context_section_description: Heinrich Focke at Focke-Wulf was licensed to produce the Cierva C.30 autogyro in 1933. Focke designed the world's first practical transverse twin-rotor helicopter, the Focke-Wulf Fw 61, which first flew on 26 June 1936. The Fw 61 broke all of the helicopter world records in 1937, demonstrating a flight envelope that had only previously been achieved by the autogyro.
  During World War II, Nazi Germany used helicopters in small numbers for observation, transport, and medical evacuation. The Flettner Fl 282 Kolibri synchropter—using the same basic configuration as Anton Flettner's own pioneering Fl 265—was used in the Mediterranean, while the Focke Achgelis Fa 223 Drache twin-rotor helicopter was used in Europe.  Extensive bombing by the Allied forces prevented Germany from producing any helicopters in large quantities during the war.
  In the United States, Russian-born engineer Igor Sikorsky and Wynn Laurence LePage competed to produce the U.S. military's first helicopter. LePage received the patent rights to develop helicopters patterned after the Fw 61, and built the XR-1. Meanwhile, Sikorsky settled on a simpler, single rotor design, the VS-300, which turned out to be the first practical single lifting-rotor helicopter design. After experimenting with configurations to counteract the torque produced by the single main rotor, Sikorsky settled on a single, smaller rotor mounted on the tail boom.
  Developed from the VS-300, Sikorsky's R-4 was the first large-scale mass-produced helicopter, with a production order for 100 aircraft. The R-4 was the only Allied helicopter to serve in World War II, when it was used primarily for search and rescue (by the USAAF 1st Air Commando Group) in Burma; in Alaska; and in other areas with harsh terrain. Total production reached 131 helicopters before the R-4 was replaced by other Sikorsky helicopters such as the R-5 and the R-6. In all, Sikorsky produced over 400 helicopters before the end of World War II.
  While LePage and Sikorsky built their helicopters for the military, Bell Aircraft hired Arthur Young to help build a helicopter using Young's two-blade teetering rotor design, which used a weighted stabilizer bar placed at a 90° angle to the rotor blades. The subsequent Model 30 helicopter showed the design's simplicity and ease of use. The Model 30 was developed into the Bell 47, which became the first helicopter certified for civilian use in the United States. Produced in several countries, the Bell 47 was the most popular helicopter model for nearly 30 years.
caption: Igor Sikorsky and the world's first mass-produced helicopter, the Sikorsky R-4, 1944
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