Igor Sikorsky

Born:  Kiev, Russia; May 25, 1889
Died:  Easton; October 26, 1972

Entry by Herbert F. Janick

Immigrants have left an indelible mark on Connecticut history. None of the hundreds of thousands of predominantly Southern and Eastern Europeans who sought opportunity in the state in the twentieth century made a greater contribution to American life than Igor Sikorsky. Already an accomplished inventor when he fled Bolshevik Russia in 1919 at the age of thirty to take up residence near Bridgeport among fellow exiles, Sikorsky revolutionized aviation by building and flying the first practical helicopter. The Sikorsky Aircraft Division of United Aircraft is today the world's major producer of helicopters.

The aviation pioneer, a formal and dignified man, was born to affluent, well-educated parents. He studied at the Naval War College in St. Petersburg before shifting his interest to aviation. In 1913, working as chief engineer of a Russian aircraft firm, he constructed the first four-motor planes which were used as bombers against the Germans by the Czar's government in World War I.

Although most of his wealth had been left behind when he arrived in the United States, Sikorsky soon raised a small amount of capital, much of it from Russian expatriates, and in 1923 organized the Sikorsky Aero Engineering Company which operated out of Roosevelt Field on Long Island. Five years later he constructed a large plant in Stratford, Connecticut, and shifted operations there. In 1929 Sikorsky Aircraft became a subsidiary of United Aircraft. During the 1930s the company manufactured four-engine, amphibious "clipper ships" used in trans-Atlantic service by Pan American Airways. In these years Sikorsky became a close friend of Charles A. Lindbergh (1902-1975).

The development of the helicopter was the culmination of a boyhood fantasy. Inspired by Jules Verne fiction, Sikorsky had experimented with this type of flying machine as a schoolboy and later as a young engineer in Russia. Once his company's reputation was secured by the success of the multi-passenger amphibians, the inventor returned to his first challenge. In 1939 he achieved success when he flew the Vought-Sikorsky 300, a superstructure of welded pipes carrying a 75-horsepower automobile engine linked to a three-blade rotor. Since that time the company has continued to produce improved and more sophisticated versions of this aircraft. Until his death in 1972, Igor Sikorsky was active in the affairs of his firm as a consulting engineer striving to develop the nonmilitary potential of the helicopter.

For Further Reading

Sikorsky's autobiography, The Story of the Winged S., originally published in 1938 has been updated in subsequent editions, the most recent in 1948. The only biography is Frank J. Delear, Igor Sikorsky: His Three Careers in Aviation (New York, 1969).

* Entry under revision.