1889–1972
Igor Sikorsky
Pioneer of aviation and helicopters
Kyiv-born aircraft designer who built the world’s first multi-engine heavy aircraft and the first mass-produced helicopter. Having lost everything after the revolution, he started over in the United States and changed world aviation.
Key accomplishments
- The world’s first multi-engine heavy aircraft, the Russky Vityaz (1913) and the Ilya Muromets
- S-42 flying boats that opened passenger routes across the Pacific and Atlantic
- The VS-300 helicopter (1939) and the R-4 (first flight 1942), the world’s first mass-produced helicopter
- Founded an aircraft company in the US in 1923 (today’s Sikorsky)
Who he was
Igor Sikorsky was born in Kyiv into the family of a professor of psychiatry. He studied at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute and was already building his own airplanes and helicopters as a young man. In 1913 he created the Russky Vityaz, one of the world’s first multi-engine heavy aircraft, and later the Ilya Muromets, which in the First World War became the world’s first four-engine bomber.
His story
After the revolution of 1917 Sikorsky emigrated: in 1918 to France, and in 1919 to the United States. There, in 1923, he founded an aircraft company and started almost from scratch. His S-42 flying boats opened passenger air routes across the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
But Sikorsky’s greatest dream was the helicopter. In 1939 he flew the VS-300, the prototype of modern helicopters with a single main rotor and a tail rotor. His R-4, which first flew in 1942, became the world’s first mass-produced helicopter. Sikorsky helicopters still save people around the world today.
Why it matters today
Sikorsky is an example of an engineer who did not stop, even after losing everything. The Kyiv Polytechnic Institute and Kyiv’s Zhuliany airport bear his name.
