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It was actually Leonardo da Vinci
who had the dream of a flying machine that could rise straight up.
He even made rough drawings which looked like a gigantic screw like
helicopter, around A.D. 1500. He could not build one since there was
no motor that could be attached. Therefore, for some centuries this
dream remained just an idea, till a toy helicopter called the
'Chinese top' was seen in France, around 1783.
Later on, Sir George Cayley experimented on the Chinese tops in
1796, and created the steam driven helicopter.
This inspired a number of people to make
and improve on the previous types of helicopters for the next 100
years - some ingenious, others practical, while some never
ever took off! None of them could be classified as
powerful, lightweight engines and it was only during the World War I
that such a helicopter was created, which could lift off the ground
with a person aboard.
Igor Sikorsky was a
pioneer in designing good helicopters and began by designing two in
1909 and 1910 respectively. By 1917, a special helicopter was built
by two Austro-Hungarian officers that could be used instead of
observation balloons. During the next few decades, lot of research
was done to improve and refine the helicopters but not to much
satisfaction. In 1936, the German Focke Wulf Company made a
breakthrough with a helicopter that could fly cross-country at
around 70 miles per hour and at a maximum height of 335
meters, on its flight in 1937. In 1940,
Sikorsky built his first practical helicopter which had no
comparison and gave it to the United States Army in 1942, to be used
in the first World War. Today of course, technology has
moved so far ahead that helicopters seem quite common, but learning
about how it was developed and created makes us appreciate all the
hard work and effort gone into the making. |
