Articles for category Human Interest
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Dec
08
2010
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Posted by Admin
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One name more than any other is synonymous with helicopter development, Igor Sikorsky. Often regarded as the father of the helicopter, Sikorsky was actually an incredibly talented aeronautical engineer who twice established himself as one of the world’s greatest designers of fixed wing aircraft before he built a successful helicopter. After designing, building and flying the first successful North American helicopter, Igor Sikorsky led the company which still bears his name through over forty years of helicopter innovation.
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Categories:
Human Interest
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Nov
23
2010
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Posted by Admin
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By Brad McNally - In 1957, Columbia Helicopters started with one helicopter flying primarily in Oregon. That first year the company grossed $20,000. Forty years later the company grossed $100 million (Bernstein, 2009). Today Columbia Helicopters employs 700 people and has over 20 helicopters operating around the world. The story of how Columbia Helicopters grew to be one of the premier heavy lift and heli-logging companies, operating the world’s only commercial tandem rotor helicopter fleet starts with its founder Wes Lematta.
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Categories:
Human Interest
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Oct
19
2010
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Posted by Admin
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By Brad McNally - In the 1920’s the Autogiro was the cutting edge of aviation technology. A Spanish engineer by the name of Juan de la Cierva got the Autogiro into the air by solving several fundamental rotary wing flight problems. An American businessman by the name of Harold Pitcairn partnered with Cierva to bring the Autogiro to the United States and further developed it. Their work was sometimes collaboration and sometimes competition but it directly led to the development and rapid advance of the helicopter in the late 1930’s and 1940’s.
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Categories:
Human Interest
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Oct
05
2010
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Posted by Admin
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By Brad McNally - Hollingsworth Franklin Gregory was born in Rockwell, TX in 1906. Frank Gregory as most people knew him, graduated from high school in Shelby, MS in 1923. After receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Mississippi in 1926, Gregory worked for several years as a Mississippi high school principal (Official Air Force Biography, 1956).
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Categories:
Human Interest
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Sep
08
2010
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Posted by Admin
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By Brad McNally - As you read this article it is almost a certainty that somewhere on the high seas there is a helicopter belonging to one of the U.S. naval services conducting naval operations. For the past 60 years these operations have been commonplace. That was not the case in the early 1940s when helicopters were in their infancy. No one tried to apply the helicopter’s unique capabilities to the naval environment until mid World War II. This all changed thanks to a group of dedicated individuals who saw the significant contributions that helicopters could add to the Coast Guard, Navy and Marine Corps. This article showcases three true Naval Rotorcraft Pioneers.
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Categories:
Human Interest
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Jul
27
2010
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Posted by Admin
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By Brad McNally, Contributing Editor - An essential characteristic of anyone starting out in a new venture is determination and no one in the rotorcraft industry better exemplifies this than Charles Kaman. In the mid 1940s, working in the emerging helicopter industry with an unproven idea and little financial support, he was able to persevere despite many challenges and establish a successful helicopter company. The hard work of the team that he assembled led to major advancements in helicopter design and the development of several successful production helicopter models. Largely due to his determination, the company he founded still exists today with a long list of impressive accomplishments.
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Categories:
Human Interest
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Jun
15
2010
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Posted by Admin
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By Brad McNally, Contributing Editor - Arthur Young grew up outside of Philadelphia, PA. His father was a landscape painter and his mother was also an artist. As a child he was very interested in science and understanding how things worked but had no specific interest in aviation. After graduating with a mathematics degree from Princeton in 1927, his curiosity led him in search of a complex problem that he could apply science and math to in the hope of developing a better understanding of the world around him. He traveled to several large cities and visited their libraries looking for problems that he could use for his endeavor. On one such visit to Washington, D.C. he found his challenge. While doing research in the Library of Congress, he came across a book by Anton Flettner called, “The Story of the Rotor.”
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Categories:
Human Interest
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Jun
08
2010
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Posted by Admin
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By Brad McNally, Contributing Editor - In the early 1940s the American Helicopter Industry was emerging in the northeastern United States. Igor Sikorsky was building helicopters in New England, Frank Piasecki was closing in on the second successful American helicopter in Philadelphia and in upstate New York Arthur Young and Larry Bell were laying the frame work for the first commercially produced helicopter. On the west coast a young man by the name of Stanley Hiller Jr. was also beginning to develop an aircraft capable of vertical flight. Like all of these men Stanley Hiller’s quest to develop a helicopter was full of challenges. He overcame these challenges to design several successful helicopter models along with creating one of the most innovative research and development programs of its time. To see how someone so young and so far away from the epicenter of the emerging American helicopter industry was able to become so successful you need to go back to the start.
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Categories:
Human Interest
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Mar
30
2010
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Posted by Admin
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By Brad McNally - Frank Nicolas Piasecki was born in Philadelphia on October 24, 1919.From a young age he was fascinated with aviation and spent his spare time building models and reading aviation magazines.When he was seven years old his father paid for him to go flying with a barnstormer and he got his first ride in an airplane.In high school he was president of his school’s aero club and was able to gain an introduction into the Philadelphia aviation industry that few people his age could acquire.
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Categories:
Human Interest
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Mar
23
2010
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Posted by Admin
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By Ron Whitney - Have you ever witnessed something so extraordinary, so surprising, and so incredible that you just had to sit back and ask yourself, “Did I really just see that?”Have you ever been around when a normal, routine flight operation went bad, nearly tragically bad?Have you ever had the opportunity to see a side of a coworker that you really did not expect to?Well, I have.The subject of this Pilot Profile piece, somewhat reluctantly, is a man I met many, many years ago while we were Instructor Pilots at Ft. Rucker, Paul Richtmyer.
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Categories:
Human Interest