Russian-American aviation pioneer (1889–1972)
Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky (Russian: , , ; 25 May 1889 – 26 October 1972) was a Russian–American aviation pioneer in both helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. His first success came with the Sikorsky S-2, the second aircraft of his design and construction. His fifth airplane, the S-5, won him national recognition and F.A.I. pilot's license number 64. His S-6-A received the highest award at the 1912 Moscow Aviation Exhibition, and in the fall of that year the aircraft won first prize for its young designer, builder and pilot in the military competition at Saint Petersburg. In 1913, the Sikorsky-designed "Russky Vityaz" (S-21) became the first successful four-engine aircraft to take flight. He also designed and built the "Ilya Muromets" (S-22 – S-27) family of four-engine aircraft, an airliner which he redesigned to be the world's first four-engine bomber when World War I broke out.
After immigrating to the United States in 1919 because of the Russian Revolution, Sikorsky founded the Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation in 1923 and developed the first of Pan American Airways' ocean-crossing flying boats in the 1930s, including the Sikorsky S-42 "Flying Clipper".
In 1939, Sikorsky designed and flew the Vought-Sikorsky VS-300, the first viable American helicopter, which pioneered the single main rotor and a single antitorque tail rotor configuration used by most helicopters today. Sikorsky modified the design into the Sikorsky R-4, which became the world's first mass-produced helicopter in 1942.
Early life.
Igor Sikorsky was born in Kiev, Russian Empire (now Kyiv, Ukraine), on May 25, 1889. He was the youngest of five children. His father, Ivan Alexeevich Sikorsky, was a professor of psychology in Saint Vladimir University (now Taras Shevchenko National University), a psychiatrist with an international reputation, and an ardent Russian nationalist.
Igor Sikorsky was an Orthodox Christian. When questioned regarding his roots, he would answer: "My family is of Russian origin. My grandfather and other ancestors from the time of Peter the Great were Russian Orthodox priests."
Sikorsky's mother, Mariya Stefanovna Sikorskaya (née Temryuk-Cherkasova), was a physician who did not work professionally. She is sometimes called Zinaida Sikorsky. While homeschooling young Igor, she gave him a great love for art, especially in the life and work of Leonardo da Vinci, and the stories of Jules Verne. In 1900, at age 11, he accompanied his father to Germany and through conversations with his father became interested in natural sciences. After returning home, Sikorsky began to experiment with model flying machines, and by age 12, he had made a small rubber band-powered helicopter.
Sikorsky began studying at the Saint Petersburg Maritime Cadet Corps in 1903 at the age of 14. In 1906, he determined that his future lay in engineering, so he resigned from the academy, despite his satisfactory standing, and left the Russian Empire to study in Paris. He returned to the Russian Empire in 1907, enrolling at the Mechanical College of the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. After the academic year, Sikorsky again accompanied his father to Germany in the summer of 1908, where he learned of the accomplishments of the Wright brothers' "Flyer" and Ferdinand von Zeppelin's rigid airships. Sikorsky later said about this event: "Within twenty-four hours, I decided to change my life's work. I would study aviation."
By the start of World War I in 1914, Sikorsky's airplane research and production business in Kyiv was flourishing, and his factory made bombers during the war. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, Igor Sikorsky fled his homeland in early 1918, because the Bolsheviks threatened to shoot him for being "the Tsar's friend and a very popular person". He moved to France where he was offered a contract for the design of a new, more powerful Muromets-type plane. But in November 1918 the war ended, and the French government stopped subsidizing military orders, whereupon he decided to move to the United States. On March 24, 1919, he left France on the ocean liner "Lorraine", arriving in New York City on March 30, 1919.
Aircraft designer.
With financial backing from his sister Olga, Sikorsky returned to Paris, the center of the aviation world at the time, in 1909. Sikorsky met with aviation pioneers, to ask them questions about aircraft and flying. In May 1909, he returned to Russia and began designing his first helicopter, which he began testing in July 1909. Powered by a 25 horsepower Anzani engine, the helicopter used an upper and lower two-bladed lifting propeller that rotated in opposite directions at 160 rpm. The machine could only generate about of lift, not enough to lift the approximate weight. Despite his progress in solving technical problems of control, Sikorsky realized that the aircraft would never fly. He finally disassembled the aircraft in October 1909, after he determined that he could learn nothing more from the design. In February 1910, he undertook to build a second helicopter, and his first airplane. By the spring, helicopter No. 2 could lift its weight of , but not the additional weight of an operator.
I had learned enough to recognize that with the existing state of the art, engines, materials, and – most of all – the shortage of money and lack of experience... I would not be able to produce a successful helicopter at that time.
Sikorsky's first aircraft of his own design, the S-1, used a 15 hp Anzani 3-cylinder fan engine in a pusher configuration, that could not lift the aircraft. His second design, called the S-2, was powered by a 25 hp Anzani engine in a tractor configuration and first flew on June 3, 1910, at a height of a few feet. On June 30, after some modifications, Sikorsky reached an altitude of "sixty or eighty feet" before the S-2 stalled and was completely destroyed when it crashed in a ravine. Later, Sikorsky built the two-seat S-5, his first design not based on other European aircraft. Flying this original aircraft, Sikorsky earned his pilot license; Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) license No. 64 issued by the Imperial Aero Club of Russia in 1911. During a demonstration of the S-5, the engine quit and Sikorsky was forced to make a crash landing to avoid a wall. It was discovered that a mosquito in the gasoline had been drawn into the carburetor, starving the engine of fuel. The close call convinced Sikorsky of the need for an aircraft that could continue flying if it lost an engine. His next aircraft, the S-6 held three passengers and was selected as the winner of the Moscow aircraft exhibition held by the Russian Army in February 1912.
In early 1912, Igor Sikorsky became Chief Engineer of the aircraft division for the Russian Baltic Railroad Car Works ("Russko-Baltiisky Vagonny Zavod" or "R-BVZ") in Saint Petersburg. His work at R-BVZ included the construction of the first four-cylinder aircraft, the S-21 "Russky Vityaz", which he initially called "Le Grand" when fitted with just two engines, then the "Bolshoi Baltisky" (The Great Baltic) when fitted with four engines in two "push-pull" pairs, and finally "Russki Vityaz" in its four engine all tractor-engined configuration. He also served as the test pilot for its first flight on May 13, 1913. In recognition of his accomplishment, he was awarded an honorary degree in engineering from Saint Petersburg Polytechnical Institute in 1914. Sikorsky took the experience from building the Russky Vityaz to develop the S-22 "Ilya Muromets" airliner. Due to the outbreak of World War I, he redesigned it as the world's first four-engined bomber, for which he was decorated with the Order of St. Vladimir.
After World War I, Igor Sikorsky briefly became an engineer for the French forces in Russia, during the Russian Civil War. Seeing little opportunity for himself as an aircraft designer in war-torn Europe, and particularly Russia, ravaged by the Bolshevik Revolution and Russian Civil War, he emigrated to the United States, arriving in New York on March 30, 1919.
Life in the United States.
In the U.S., Sikorsky first worked as a school teacher and a lecturer, while looking for an opportunity to work in the aviation industry. In 1932, he joined the faculty of the University of Rhode Island to form an aeronautical engineering program and remained with the university until 1948. He also lectured at the University of Bridgeport.
In 1923, Sikorsky formed the Sikorsky Manufacturing Company in Roosevelt, New York. He was helped by several former Russian military officers. Among Sikorsky's chief supporters was composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, who introduced himself by writing a check for US$5,000 (). Although his prototype was damaged in its first test flight, Sikorsky persuaded his reluctant backers to invest another $2,500. With the additional funds, he produced the S-29, one of the first twin-engine aircraft in the U.S., with a capacity for 14 passengers and a speed of 115 mph. The performance of the S-29, slow when compared to military aircraft of 1918, proved to be a "make or break" moment for Sikorsky's funding.
In 1928, Sikorsky became a naturalized citizen of the United States. The Sikorsky Manufacturing Company moved to Stratford, Connecticut in 1929. It became a part of the United Aircraft and Transport Corporation (now United Technologies Corporation) in July of that year. The company manufactured flying boats, such as the S-42 "Clipper", used by Pan Am for transatlantic flights.
Meanwhile, Sikorsky also continued his earlier work on vertical flight while living in Nichols, Connecticut. On February 14, 1929, he filed an application to patent a "direct lift" amphibian aircraft which used compressed air to power a direct lift "propeller" and two smaller propellers for thrust. On June 27, 1931, Sikorsky filed for a patent for another "direct lift aircraft", and was awarded patent No. 1,994,488 on March 19, 1935. His design plans eventually culminated in the first (tethered) flight of the Vought-Sikorsky VS-300 on September 14, 1939, with the first free flight occurring eight months later on May 24, 1940. Sikorsky's success with the VS-300 led to the R-4, which became the world's first mass-produced helicopter, in 1942. Sikorsky's final VS-300 rotor configuration, comprising a single main rotor and a single antitorque tail rotor, has proven to be one of the most popular helicopter configurations, being used in most helicopters produced today.
Personal life.
Sikorsky was married to Olga Fyodorovna Simkovitch in the Russian Empire. They were divorced and Olga remained in Russia with their daughter, Tania, as Sikorsky departed following the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. In 1923, Sikorsky's sisters immigrated to the U.S., bringing six-year-old Tania with them. Sikorsky married Elisabeth Semion (1903–1995) in 1924, in New York. Sikorsky and Elisabeth had four sons; Sergei, Nikolai, Igor Jr. and George.
Sikorsky died at his home in Easton, Connecticut, on October 26, 1972, and is buried in Saint John the Baptist Russian Orthodox Cemetery, located on Nichols Avenue in Stratford.
Legacy.
In 1966, Sikorsky was inducted into the International Air &amp; Space Hall of Fame.
Sikorsky's and Andrei Tupolev's professional careers were covered in the 1979 Soviet biopic "The Poem of Wings" (), where Sikorsky was portrayed by Yury Yakovlev. A working model of Sikorsky Ilya Muromets was recreated for filming.
The Sikorsky Memorial Bridge, which carries the Merritt Parkway across the Housatonic River next to the Sikorsky corporate headquarters, is named for him. Sikorsky has been designated a Connecticut Aviation Pioneer by the Connecticut State Legislature. The Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation in Stratford, Connecticut, continues to the present day as one of the world's leading helicopter manufacturers, and a nearby small airport has been named Sikorsky Memorial Airport.
Sikorsky was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame and the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1987.
In October 2011, one of the streets in Kyiv was renamed for Sikorsky. The decision was made by the City Council at the request of the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, which opened its new office on that street. The Sikorsky's family house in the city's historical center is preserved to this day but is in a neglected condition pending restoration.
In November 2012, one of the Russian supersonic heavy strategic bomber Tu-160, based at the Engels-2 Air Force Base, was named for Igor Sikorsky, which caused controversy among air base crew members. One of the officers said that Igor Sikorsky does not deserve it because he laid the foundations of the U.S., rather than Russian aviation. However, the Long Range Aviation command officer said that Igor Sikorsky is not responsible for the activities of his military aircraft, noted that Sikorsky had also designed the first heavy bomber for Russia. In 2013,