Father of the helicopter industry finally recognized in native Russia
(Stratford-AP) _ More than 80 years after aviation pioneer Igor Sikorsky fled his native Russia and was erased from official Soviet history, he will finally be acknowledged in Moscow next week as the father of the helicopter industry.

Sikorsky died in 1972 at age 83. He never returned to Russia during his lifetime, fearing its communist rulers. But he will be featured in an exhibit at the Moscow Polytechnical Museum on Tuesday _ the 110th anniversary of his birth in Kiev.

The event will mark the first time information about Sikorsky's aeronautical achievements will be readily available to the average Russian. The exhibit will include photographs, large scale models, a copy of his original Russian pilot's license from 1911 and correspondence with his close friend, Russian composer and pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff.

"This is a chance for the Russian people to look at and review a piece of history that was forbidden to them until now," his son, Sergei, 74, of Surprise, Ariz., said this week. "It's a very nice step, possibly long overdue."

In 1912, prior to the Russian revolution, Sikorsky was chief engineer for the government's aircraft factory in Petrograd. He flew on May 13, 1913, in "The Grand," the world's first four-engine airplane. At the time, he and his invention were famous throughout Russia and he was honored by Czar Nicholas II.

But when the communists overthrew the government in 1917, the man known as "Mr. Aviation" fled the country.

"He was more or less on the hit list because of his friendship with the czar and the royal family," Sergei said. "His life was in very definite danger."

After spending time in France, Sikorsky arrived in New York on March 30, 1919. He took a job teaching math to other DemigrDes. Four years later, he started the Sikorsky Aero Engineering Corp. at a Long Island farm.

In 1929, Charles Lindbergh inaugurated airmail service between the United States and the Panama Canal Zone in one of Sikorsky's aircraft.

Later that year the company, renamed Sikorsky Aviation Corp., moved to Stratford, Conn. Sikorsky later became a subsidiary of what is today United Technologies Corp.

The company first built "flying boats," aircraft capable of water landings that were used in the early days of trans-Atlantic flights.

But in 1931, Sikorsky patented a design for the helicopter. His invention, with a single large main rotor and a small tail rotor, flew for the first time on Sept. 14, 1939.

By the following summer, the experimental helicopter could stay airborne for 15 minutes. There were eventually 19 prototypes, some of which crashed before Sikorsky got the design right. But his helicopters would go on to become a staple of U.S. military operations, used in all five branches of the armed forces.

In World War II, Sikorsky helicopters flew the first combat rescue and medical evacuation missions. Today, Sikorsky helicopters are used by military services and commercial operators in more than 40 countries.

Over the course of his American career, Sikorsky was feted by presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. Artifacts from his career are on permanent display at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

Yet in Russia, for years his name was only spoken in hushed tones, and mostly among aeronautical engineers.

"Officially, as far as the Soviet government was concerned, he did not exist," Sergei said.

Sikorsky, buried in a Russian cemetery in Stratford, always wanted to return to his homeland, his son said.

"If (the fall of communism) had happened 20 years earlier, I'm almost certain he would have been back, and I'm almost sure he would have been officially invited," Sergei said.

(Copyright 1999 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

Today's News Page.

WTNH Home Page.

©1999 WTNH/WTNH-DT
A LIN station.