George de Bothezat George de Bothezat ( , , June 7 , 1882 – February 1 , 1940 ) was a Russian American engineer , businessman and pioneer of helicopter flight . Biography . George Bothezat was born into a family of Bessarabia n landlords in 1882 in Saint Petersburg , Russia . After graduating from a school located in Chisinau in 1902 , he attended the Electrotechnical Institute in Belgium between 1905 and 1907 , graduated from Kharkiv Polytechnical in 1908 , continued his graduate studies in the Göttingen and Berlin and received his Ph . D . from the University of Paris for a study of aircraft stability . In 1911 , he joined the faculty of Saint Petersburg Polytechnical University and continued theoretical studies of flight along with Stephen Timoshenko , Alexey Lebedev and Alexander Vanderfleet . His scientific interests gradually moved from general aerodynamic theory to applied studies of propellers . In 1914 , Bothezat accepted the position of director at the Polytechnical Institute in Novocherkassk , but the outbreak of World War I compelled him to return to Saint Petersburg and join the Technical Commission of the Imperial Russian Air Force . In 1915 , Bothezat published standard bombing tables for the Air Forces , and in 1916 he was appointed chief of the " Main Airfield " in Saint Petersburg – Russia ' s first flight research facility . He managed the design team of the DEKA aircraft plant in Saint Petersburg , and was credited with the design of a single - engined aircraft that was tested in 1917 . In May 1918 , with his homeland in the throes of the Russian Revolution , Bothezat fled from the Bolsheviks to the United States , where he styled himself " De " Bothezat . In June 1918 , he was hired by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics . He lectured at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Columbia University . In 1921 the US Army Air Service hired de Bothezat to build a prototype helicopter . The quadrotor helicopter , known simply as the de Bothezat helicopter , was built by de Bothezat and Ivan Jerome in the hangars of Wright Field near Dayton , Ohio . The first flight turned out to be surprisingly successful for a machine that had been built without prototyping . In 1922 , their " flying octopus " flew many times , although slowly and at low altitudes . In fact , its horizontal motion was induced by wind more than by the pilot ' s controls . The Army , now more interested in autogyro s , cancelled the underperforming project . De Bothezat returned to New York City and started his own business in making industrial fans , which was incorporated in 1926 as " de Bothezat Impeller Company , Inc . " The company ' s axial fans were installed on US Navy cruisers , but this was as far as de Bothezat would go in dealing with the government . He continued publishing essays on topics ranging from flight dynamics to economics of the Great Depression . His 1936 book " Back to Newton " attacked Albert Einstein ' s theory of relativity and the whole world of contemporary academics " who are utterly unable to acquaint themselves with the subject " . Einstein personally refuted de Bothezat ' s claim at a public lecture given by de Bothezat at Princeton on 15 June 1935 . He worked for the film industry , designing mechanical special effect s props for Dudley Murphy ' s " The Love of Sunya " ( 1927 ) . De Bothezat returned to helicopters in 1938 . His new company was incorporated as " Air - Screw Research Syndicate " and later renamed " Helicopter Corporation of America " . Boris Sergievsky , former test pilot of Sikorsky Aircraft , became de Bothezat ' s partner and test pilot . De Bothezat ' s new helicopter was a coaxial design , with the engine mounted " between " two rotors . The first machine , SV - 2 , was built and tested on Roosevelt Field in 1938 ; after the tests de Bothezat and Sergievsky rebuilt it into a heavier SV - 5 . However de Bothezat , who was also designing a one - man " personal helicopter " for infantrymen , died before the SV - 5 could be properly tested . The new machine proved to be unstable and crashed ; Sergievsky escaped unharmed .