11-09-2010, 03:36 AM
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Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 1,172
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i think the German Focke-Wulf Fw 61 might technically be labled a helicopter and not gyrocopter (and made its initial flight in June 1936) , but somebody with more factual knowledge might want to comment
Quote:
As a class of vehicle the helicopter had no single inventor, any more than the fixed-wing aeroplane did. Much of the credit for the modern helicopter goes, deservedly, to Igor Sikorsky; but in Britain, France, Italy, Germany and the U.S.S.R. contemporaries of Sikorsky all produced significant designs well before the historic VS-300 had left the ground.
High on the short list of helicopter pioneers must come the name of Doktor Heinrich Karl Johann Focke, whose Fw 61 made its first free flight, lasting 28 seconds, on 26 June 1936. This was, coincidentally, exactly one year after the less-publicised flight of the Breguet-Dorand machine, which can thus claim to have been the first really practical helicopter to have flown in Europe. But the Fw 61, once it had begun to fly, rapidly proved itself a much superior machine to the Breguet, not only as regards performance but as a practical basic design capable of much further development.
The Focke-Achgelis GmbH was an offshoot of the Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau, established after Focke had been dismissed from the latter company by the Nazis as a political embarrassment. Focke's first experience of rotorcraft construction and operation was gained from building the Cierva C.19 and C.30 autogiros under licence, and then in 1934 he built and flew successfully a scale model helicopter that rose to a height of some 18m. There followed a period of research into, and testing of, rotor and transmission systems before, in 1936, the Fw 61 prototype made its appearance.
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from http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/fw-61.php
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