2021 VFS History Calendar

The VFS History Committee is proud to present the 2021 VTOL History Calendar, which salutes the support to the Society by its Platinum Members.

The 2021 VTOL History Calendar was mailed to all VFS members in December. Each month is provided here with more information about each of the featured photos. We hope you enjoy the calendar! VFS members can also download a complimentary pdf of the whole calendar by logging into My-VFS or the VFS Online Store.

Check out the historical descriptions in past VFS VTOL History Calendars as well:

The current calendar is always available at www.vtol.org/calendar.

Breguet-Dorand Gyroplane Laboratoire (1935)

The Gyroplane Laboratoire was an early French prototype helicopter. Its designer, Louis Breguet, created the Syndicat d'Etudes de Gyroplane (French for "Syndicate for Gyroplane Studies"), together with Rene Dorand as technical director. Their goal was the development of this experimental helicopter, the Gyroplane Laboratoire. The aircraft was completed in 1933. After a few ground tests and an accident, the first flight took place on June 26, 1935. Shortly thereafter, the test pilot, Maurice Claisse set many records, including a max speed of 65 kt (120 km/h). Breguet and Dorand continued to conduct further experiments to improve the design until the aircraft experienced a hard landing in June 1939. Development was abandoned with the outbreak of World War II. Today, Airbus is the dominant helicopter producer in France, Germany and Spain. Learn more about the Gyroplane Laboratoire, our 2019 calendar cover aircraft.

Bell Model 30 (1943)

Arthur Young began experimenting with rotary-wing models in 1931. In 1941, Young and his friend Bartram Kelley flew their model helicopter by tethered remote control. Later that year, they demonstrated the stability of the model with a teetering rotor and “stabilizer bar” to Bell Aircraft in Buffalo, New York. Inventing and flight demonstrating the Bell Model 30 between June 1942 and June 1945 resulted in the design of a production helicopter, the Bell Model 47, which on May 8, 1946 became the first in the world to receive civil certification. The signature rotor system design continued use into the 1980s. Bell Aerospace’s helicopter division was renamed Bell Helicopter in 1960 when the company was purchased by Textron; the name was shortened to just Bell in 2018. Learn more about the Bell 30, our June 2019 calendar aircraft of the month.

Piasecki-Venzie (P-V) Engineering Forum PV-2 (1943)

Frank Piasecki began his career as a young engineer at Kellett and Platt-LePage while he attended school at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. While still in college, he founded the P-V Engineering Forum with a classmate, Harold Venzie. In 1943, Piasecki’s group designed the PV-2, a single-seat, single rotor helicopter. Piasecki became the second person to design a successful helicopter in the US, and the first person to be issued a federal helicopter-specific license. The company’s next design, the PV-3, became the HRP Rescuer. The company became Piasecki Helicopter in 1946 and was renamed in 1956 to Vertol, which was acquired by Boeing in 1960. Learn more about the PV-2 in our Vertiflite Sept/Oct 2018 article on the Philadelphia region.

Weir W.6 (1939)

The Weir W.6 two-seater helicopter, like its smaller Weir W.5 single-seat predecessor, was a twin-boom outrigger construction but of a more sophisticated design. It was constructed at Thornliebank, Glasgow in the C&J Weir factory. The initial flight took place at Dalrymple, Ayrshire in Scotland in October 1939, but the United Kingdom’s entry into WWII caused all work to cease by the middle of 1940. It flew with two passengers, Air Vice Marshall Arthur William Tedder and Ken Watson, thus becoming the first helicopter to carry a passenger. Weir spun off its rotorcraft group as the revived Cierva Autogiro Company, which was acquired by Saunders-Roe in 1951; the company’s rotorcraft efforts were merged into Westland in 1960 — today, part of Leonardo S.p.A. Learn more about the W.6, our October 2020 calendar aircraft of the month.

Vought-Sikorsky VS-300 (1939)

The Vought-Sikorsky VS-300 was America’s first practical helicopter and the first in the world to successfully incorporate a single main lifting rotor and single tail rotor for both directional and anti-torque control. The first (tethered) flight was piloted by Igor Sikorsky himself on Sept. 14, 1939. The aircraft achieved its first untethered flight on May 13, 1940 and led to the successful R-4 helicopter. Sikorsky is now a Lockheed Martin Company. Learn more in our January 2020 calendar aircraft of the month.

Description: Mike Hirschberg

Photo credits (L-R): Ray Watkins, Bell, Piasecki Aircraft Corp., Royal Aeronautical Society, NASM

Go to the photo for January

2021 History Calendar Index