The History of Helicopters

Gary Arndt (0:00)

For centuries, inventors dreamed of creating a flying machine that could rise straight into the air, hover in place, and move in any direction. While airplanes conquered the skies in the early 20th century, achieving the seemingly simple feat proved far more difficult. It required breakthroughs in aerodynamics, engineering, and flight control before the dream finally became a reality. The result was an aircraft that would revolutionize warfare, transportation, and emergency rescue. Learn more about the history of the helicopter on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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The helicopter is one of the most remarkable inventions in aviation history. Unlike an airplane which generally needs to move forward to generate enough lift to remain airborne, a helicopter can rise vertically, hover motionless in the air, ply sideways and even move backwards. These abilities make helicopters uniquely useful, but also extraordinarily difficult to design and operate. Believe it or not, the helicopter's history is much older than that of the airplane. The dream of vertical flight dates back centuries, and inventors were experimenting with helicopter-like devices long before the Wright brothers made their first powered flight in 1903

Some of the earliest known devices demonstrating rotary wing flight appeared in China, where spinning bamboo toys could rise into the air. These toys consisted of a small rotor mounted on a stick. By rapidly spinning the stick between your hands, a person could propel the rotor upward. The exact origin of these devices is uncertain, but descriptions of them appear in European accounts by the Renaissance. Although they were simple toys, they demonstrated the essential principle that rotating blades could create enough lift to overcome gravity. The most famous early attempt to conceptualize a helicopter came from Leonardo da Vinci. Around the late 1480s, Leonardo sketched an apparatus now known as the aerial screw. It consisted of a large helical surface wrapped around a central vertical shaft. Leonardo imagined that turning the screw rapidly would allow the machine to rise through the air. The device was never successfully constructed or flown, and it almost certainly would not have worked as Leonardo envisioned it. The structure was too heavy to be powered by a human, and its design did not adequately account for the aerodynamic problems of vertical flight. Nevertheless, Leonardo's drawing demonstrated that the concept of powered vertical flight had been seriously considered centuries before modern aviation.

During the 18th century, inventors began building more sophisticated experimental flying devices. In 1754, the Russian scientist Mikhail Lomonosov reportedly demonstrated a small spring-powered apparatus with counter-rotating rotors. It was intended to partially lift meteorological instruments. In 1784, the French inventor Christian de Lernois demonstrated a small model using two rotors powered by the tension of a bent bow.

These experiments showed that powered rotating wings could create vertical lift, but they were a long ways away from carrying people. The main obstacle was the lack of a sufficiently powerful, lightweight engine. During the 19th century, experiments with vertical flight became increasingly sophisticated. Steam engines provided more power than human muscles or springs, and inventors began imagining full-sized flying machines. The word helicopter itself emerged during this period. In 1861, the French inventor Gustave de Ponton d'Amacore developed a small steam-powered rotary wing model and popularized the term helicoptere. The name combined the Greek words helix meaning spiral and terron meaning wing. D'Amacore's models did not achieve sustained powered flight, but his work helped establish the helicopter as a distinct category of flying machine. Other inventors made their own contributions. In 1778, the Italian engineer Enrico Foralini demonstrated a small unmanned steam-powered helicopter in Milan. His experimental device reportedly climbed to a height of approximately 12 meters and remained airborne for about 20 seconds. This was a remarkable accomplishment for the period, even though the machine was unmanned and incapable of practical operation. In the late 19th century, Thomas Edison also investigated the helicopter. Edison recognized that the critical problem was the relationship between an aircraft's weight and the power required to lift it. He experimented with rotor designs and lightweight engines, but eventually concluded that engines available at the time were not sufficiently capable. By the end of the century, the underlying idea of the helicopter was well established. What remained missing was an effective combination of propulsion, lift and controllability.