New Flying Machine

Along the 761-mile airway between Stratford, Conn., and Dayton, Ohio, farmers in the fields last summer saw a strange craft skittering overhead. It had no wings. Its spraddle-legged landing gear hung gauntly from its snub-nosed body. Above the fuselage whirled a shimmering set of paddles, like a busy egg beater. On an open frame at the tail whirled another but smaller airscrew, in a vertical plane: even the tail surfaces of the what-is-it were busy.

But its designer, onetime big-plane builder Igor Sikorsky, knew that fellow airmen no longer regarded the helicopter as a product of aviation's lunatic fringe. This week his craft got formal recognition, when the Army Air Forces (which had tested it at Dayton) announced that it had ordered some helicopters for military use.

The Army, for obvious reasons, did not tell just how far its interest in the helicopter went. But Igor Sikorsky knew, and what he knew seemed to satisfy him. He had seen an airman's dream come true: the helicopter* (which irreverent Sikorsky disciples, in mock-Russian accent, call the helicopeter) could now do more than take off straight up in the air, land straight down and hover motionless. It could also carry a respectable load (two passengers), enough gasoline to make cross-country flights.

The helicopter had been simplified and made as comfortable as any small commercial aircraft. Two years ago, Sikorsky's dream-craft was an uncovered, bony collection of tubular steel and whirling props. Orthodox airmen eyed it askance as Sikorsky, with a too-small fedora perched sedately on his bald pate, dropped down into Connecticut sand pits and flew out again, or started to land on the hangar roof, skipped off it and landed on the apron in front.

The tail propellers were reduced to one, a seven-cylinder Warner radial engine was installed, the body was decently covered, slicked with windshield and windows. In tests, the Army found that it would do all that Igor Sikorsky had promised and more. It can hover so steadily that once an army man let down a ladder, got out on the ground, got back and pulled the ladder in after him before the pilot sent his craft aloft again.

The helicopter can land safely almost anywhere (newsmen at United Aircraft Corp.'s plant in Hartford recently saw one put down atop a mountainous snow pile). It can travel faster than a motorcycle, hover or land where no motorcycle could travel (e.g., a wooded mountaintop). It could also be used for rescuing injured men from plane crashes in inaccessible places, might also be handy for artillery spotting. With floats it can land and take off either from water or land. If its engine fails, the helicopter can land without power, unwinding earthward at leisurely speed. It can travel through murky weather at low speed, stop, back up or go sideways when it comes up to trees or buildings. It is easy to fly and, except for the danger of collisions in the air, close to foolproof.

Other air designers were thinking of aircraft as competitors to the train and the ocean liner. Sikorsky had some reason to believe that he had developed the competitor to the automobile.

*Not to be confused with the autogiro, which uses an airplane propeller for forward movement, can neither take off vertically, hover (except with the help of a good wind), nor travel sideways or backward.

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