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A 1480 design for a 'helical air screw,' a helicopter-type flying machine, from the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1452– 1519). The Italian polymath wrote in a shorthand of his own devising. The text was not intended for others to read (note the mirror writing).
In 1843, English engineer Sir George Cayley (1773–1857) proposed the convertiplane, or aerial carriage, an idea that was published in a paper written that same year. Cayley is one of the most important people in the history of aeronautics, and the first person to understand the underlying principles and forces of flight.
Alphonse Pénaud (1850–1880) was the originator of the use of twisted rubber bands to power model aircraft. One of these toys, given as a gift by their father, would inspire the Wright brothers to pursue the dream of flight.
The English word helicopter comes from the French hélicoptère, coined by Gustave Ponton d'Amécourt (1825–1888), from the Greek helikos (propeller) and pteron (wing). This term first appeared on August 3, 1861, in a patent application filed in England. Pictured: the chère hélice made up by d'Amécourt in 1863.
In July 1901, the maiden flight of German inventor Hermann Ganswindt's helicopter took place in Berlin. Unfortunately, a movie covering the historic event is believed lost.
French bicycle-maker Paul Cornu (1881–1944) is widely credited with the first free flight of a rotary-wing aircraft when his took to the air on November 13, 1907. He piloted the machine for 20 seconds to a height of nearly 1 m (3 ft) at Lisieux, France. It ultimately proved to be unstable and the project was abandoned.
An experimental aircraft built in Denmark by Jacob Ellehammer in 1912, the Ellehammer "helicopter" was famously captured hovering in a photograph taken in 1914 (pictured).
In 1924, French engineer Étienne Oehmichen set the first helicopter world record flying his quadrotor helicopter a distance of 360 m (1,180 ft). Modern quadcopter drones are based on his design.
Hungarian aviation engineer Oszkár Asboth is often credited with the invention of the first true helicopter. His prototype, built in 1928, took off and landed at least 182 times, with a maximum single flight duration of 53 minutes.
This early helicopter designed by Frenchman Louis Bréguet, who in 1909 had already experimented with rotorcraft, flew in 1935 with pilot Maurice Claisse at the controls. In 1936, he set a flight duration record of one hour, two minutes and 50 seconds over 44 km (27 mi). The world was on the cusp of commercial—and military—helicopter flight.
The prototype for the first commercial helicopter, the Bell 30 served as a test model for the highly successful Bell 47, which became the first helicopter certified for civilian use on March 8, 1946.
American Arthur M. Young was an American helicopter pioneer and designer of Bell Helicopter's first helicopter, the Model 30, which debuted in 1943. Pictured: Young controlling a model helicopter he built in 1941.
Designed by German aviation pioneer Henrich Focke, the Focke-Wulf Fw 61 (pictured) is often considered the first practical, functional helicopter, first flown in 1936. During World War II, Nazi Germany used helicopters in small numbers for observation, transport, and medical evacuation.
Russian-born engineer Igor Sikorsky designed the two-seat Sikorsky R-4, the world's first mass-produced helicopter. The R-4 was the only Allied helicopter to serve in World War II. Man and machine are pictured in 1944.
Scheduled flights operated by New York Airways to the top of the Pan Am Building (now MetLife Building) in New York City began in December 1965; they ended in 1968, then resumed for a few months in 1977. The helicopter used was a Boeing Vertol 107-II.
Operated by both military and civilian operators, the Mil Mi-26, a Russian heavy transport helicopter, is the largest and most powerful helicopter to have gone into series production. Pictured is an Mil Mi-26 flying over Moscow.
An American twin-engine heavy-lift helicopter, the Skycrane entered service in 1962.
In February 2020, a Mil Mi-171A2 medium twin-turbine transport helicopter (pictured) set Russia's speed record of 268.81 km/h (167 mph) at the minimum altitude of 20 m (65.5 ft) over Lake Baikal during the annual Baikal Mile Speed Festival. It reached this speed after flying just 1.6 km, or just under 1 mile.
The CH-47F Chinook, the fastest military helicopter in the world, has a maximum speed of 315 km/h (196 mph).
Helicopters today are regularly deployed to carry out search and rescue operations over land and sea. By the mid 1950s, helicopters began to replace fixed–wing aircraft in the search and rescue role, their ability to hover giving them an ability to recover survivors that fixed-wing aircraft did not have.
Quadcopters, often called drones, are commonplace today, nearly 450 years after da Vinci's visionary idea, and 85 years after Étienne Oehmichen introduced to the public the first quadrotor design. Quadcopters are used for an array of functions, including aerial photography, surveillance, and, increasingly, goods delivery.
See also: Take flight for a brief history of aviation.
A helicopter flies in front of the Annapurna mountain range near Kathmandu. Helicopters deployed on rescue and recovery missions operate in some of the remotest and most inhospitable places on Earth.
One of the most recognized helicopters in the world is Marine One, a US Marine Corps VH-92 helicopter manufactured by Sikorsky and Lockheed Martin, which serves as additional air transportation for the President of the United States.
This early experimental helicopter was designed in 1877 by Italian engineer Enrico Forlanini (1848–1930). Powered by a steam engine, it was the first of its type, and rose to a height of 13 m (42 ft), where it remained for some 20 seconds, after a vertical takeoff from a park in Milan.
The Gyroplane No. I was one of the earliest attempts to create a practical rotary-wing aircraft. It was developed in 1906 by two French brothers, Jacques and Louis Breguet.
In 1930, Corradino D'Ascanio, an Italian aeronautical engineer, built his D'AT3 (pictured). The aircraft featured technology that was later adopted by other helicopter designers. Incidentally, D'Ascanio went on to design the first motor scooter, and helped Enrico Piaggio produce the original Vespa.
Charles Kaman (1919–2011) designed the world's first turbine-powered helicopter, which took to the air on December 10, 1951 in Connecticut. Kaman is also known for musical instrument design, having founded the Ovation Guitar Company, famous for its round-backed acoustic guitars.
Helicopters can fly upside down for a short amount of time when they are performing a loop.
The idea of a machine that could fly from a vertical takeoff was first mooted by Leonardo da Vinci as far back as the early 1480s. Over the next four hundred years or so, inventors, engineers, and aviation pioneers developed the idea of a rotocraft, in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally-spinning rotors. The first modern helicopters appeared in the late 1930s, and today they are a familiar sight in skies around the world. More recently, the advent of the quadcopter, often referred to as a drone, has seen da Vinci's original concept come full circle.
Intrigued? Click through the following gallery for a brief look at the history of the helicopter.
Nicknamed "Huey," this iconic helicopter first saw service in combat operations during the Vietnam War, with around 7,000 helicopters deployed. Pictured: UH-1Ds airlift members of the 2nd Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment during a ground operation in 1966.
From da Vinci to the drone: a brief history of the helicopter
Turkish drones are successfully being used by Ukraine to fight Russia
LIFESTYLE Aircraft
The idea of a machine that could fly from a vertical takeoff was first mooted by Leonardo da Vinci as far back as the early 1480s. Over the next four hundred years or so, inventors, engineers, and aviation pioneers developed the idea of a rotocraft, in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally-spinning rotors. The first modern helicopters appeared in the late 1930s, and today they are a familiar sight in skies around the world. More recently, the advent of the quadcopter, often referred to as a drone, has seen da Vinci's original concept come full circle.
Intrigued? Click through the following gallery for a brief look at the history of the helicopter.