The VFS History Committee is proud to present the 2020 VTOL History Calendar, sponsored by Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin Company. Each month is provided here with more information about each of the featured photos. We hope you enjoy the calendar!
The Calendar was mailed to all Vertical Flight Society members with the Jan/Feb 2020 issue of Vertiflite. Members can also download a complimentary pdf of the whole calendar by logging into the VFS Online Store.
Check out the historical descriptions in past VFS VTOL History Calendars as well:
2021 History Calendar | 2019 History Calendar | 2018 History Calendar | 2017 History Calendar | 2016 History Calendar | 2015 History Calendar | 2014 History Calendar | 2013 History Calendar | 2012 History Calendar
Cover Story
Igor Sikorsky's Pursuit of Flight
Helicopter pioneer Igor Sikorsky commands his Vought-Sikorsky VS-300 in the skies over Stratford, Connecticut in 1941. Igor was born in Kiev, Russia on May 25, 1889 and as a young man became interested in mechanics, astronomy and especially flight. He attended the Naval Academy at Petrograd and the Polytechnic Institute in Kiev but his inspiration came from Count Zeppelin’s dirigibles in Germany and the Wright brothers in the US. By age 19, he chose to pursue aeronautics, a subject that would occupy him for the remainder of his life.
Igor Sikorsky was one of mankind’s greatest aviation pioneers. He designed and flew the world's first multi-engine fixed-wing aircraft, the Russky Vityaz in 1913, and the first airliner, Ilya Muromets, in 1914. After immigrating to the US in 1919, he founded the Sikorsky Aero Engineering Corporation near Roosevelt Field in New York. A few years later the company moved to Stratford, Connecticut, and became part of United Aircraft and Transport Corporation (now United Technologies) in 1929. Sikorsky developed large amphibious aircraft for Pan American Airways and the US Army; in 1930 the company was merged with Vought Aircraft. It was then that Igor was able to focus on his life’s ambition to build a rotary wing aircraft capable of vertical flight.
In 1939, he designed and successfully flew America’s first helicopter, the VS-300. The VS-300 was an experimental helicopter that evolved through a series of four major configurations and many minor variations. Each iteration addressed unique stability and control challenges produced by the craft’s rotating wings. The second configuration of the aircraft (pictured on the cover) shows the horizontal tail rotors which proceeded the single anti-torque rotor that Sikorsky ultimately perfected in 1941.
Notable in this historic photograph is Igor wearing his signature fedora. He wore it throughout his career and on many of his VS-300 flights. Legend has it that if a pilot wore the Sikorsky fedora for just a few seconds, he could never be hurt while flying a helicopter. As a result, helicopter pilots would find reasons to visit Igor Sikorsky and ask if they might wear his hat for even a moment.
Text by Robert Beggs
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2020 History Calendar Index