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Biography of Igor SikorskyName: Igor SikorskyBirth Date: May 25, 1889 Death Date: October 26, 1972 Place of Birth: Kiev, Russia Nationality: American Gender: Male Occupations: inventor, aeronautical engineer Igor Sikorsky The Russian-American aeronautical engineer, aircraft manufacturer, and inventor Igor Sikorsky (1889-1972) designed such famous aircraft as the flying clipper and was the major developer of the helicopter.Igor Sikorsky was born in Kiev, Russia, where his father was a professor of psychology at St. Vladimir University. Following his graduation from the Naval Academy at St. Petersburg, he studied in Paris and at the Polytechnic Institute in Kiev. While in Germany in 1908, he heard of the dirigible flights of Count Zeppelin and returned to Paris to study aviation. At the age of 20 he built his first helicopter. He then turned to more conventional planes, and in 1910 his S-2 achieved some success. In 1913 he built the world's first four-engine plane, the Grand, which was adopted by the Russian army and used during World War I.Sikorsky was not sympathetic with the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and in 1918 left for Paris, where he lost money …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…United States and abroad, experimented with its design. In 1939 Sikorsky tested his VS-300, the first truly practical helicopter. His success lay partly in his use of propeller blades the pitch of which could be controlled so as to change the direction of flight. During World War II helicopters were not used until 1944, and their real contributions to both war and peace came only in the 1950s, when Sikorsky was one of the leading manufacturers in the field. Further Reading Sikorsky's autobiography is entitled The Story of the Winged S (1939). A full-length account of Sikorsky is Frank J. Delear, Igor Sikorsky: His Three Careers in Aviation (1969). A biographical chapter on him is in Robert M. Bartlett, They Work for Tomorrow (1943). His work is placed in context by John B. Rae in Climb to Greatness: The American Aircraft Industry, 1920-1960 (1968). Charles Lester Morris, Pioneering the Helicopter (1945), is an account by Sikorsky's test pilot. |