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Igor Sikorsky was born in Kiev, Ukraine and studied at the Naval War College in St. Petersburg. His early work included the construction, as chief engineer, of the first four-motor aircraft; he acted as the test pilot for its inaugural flight, on May 13, 1913. Sikorsky's planes were used by the Russian government as bombers in World War I (see Ilya Muromets).
Sikorsky emigrated from Russia to the United StatesThe United States of America also referred to as the United States U. America ¹ or the States is a federal republic in central North America, stretching from the Atlantic in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west. It shares land borders with Canada in in 1919, at the age of 30, fleeing the BolshevikA Bolshevik ("", derived from Russian word loosely translated as "majority") was a member of a faction of Bolsheviks of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) led by Vladimir Lenin. The other faction was known as the Mensheviks, derived from "m regime installed after the October RevolutionThis article is about the October Revolution in Russia. See October Revolution (disambiguation) for other meanings. The October Revolution also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was the second phase of the Russian Revolution, the first having been instig.
In 1923 he formed the Sikorsky Aero Engineering CompanySikorsky is an American helicopter manufacturer founded in 1923 by the Ukrainian/ Polish born American Igor Sikorsky, the inventor of the first successful helicopter design, upon which the majority of subsequent helicopters were based (though he did not i, which was purchased by and became a subsidiary of United Aircraft, itself now a part of United Technologies CorporationUnited Technologies Corporation (UTC is a major multinational corporation based in Hartford, Connecticut. George David is the CEO. Main businesses Pratt & Whitney World No. 3 aircraft engine manufacturer CarrierWorld leader in heating, ventilation, air-co. The company manufactured flying boatA flying boat is a aircraft that is designed to take off and land on water, in particular a type of seaplane which uses its fuselage as a floating hull (instead of pontoons mounted below the fuselage). Flying boats aircraft were among the largest aircrafts such as the S-42The Sikorsky S-42 was the first real transoceanic flying boat. Flying for Pan American World Airways, a total of ten aircraft were built, manufactured by the Vought-Sikorsky Aircraft Division of the United Aircraft Corporation in Stratford, Connecticut., used by Pan Am for trans-atlantic flights and known as Pan Am Clippers.
Sikorsky had experimented with helicopter type flying machines whilst in Russia; he brought his work to fruition on the 24th May 1940 when he performed the first successful helicopter flight, in the Vought-Sikorsky 300 , a machine with a single three-blade rotor powered by a 75 horsepower (56 kW) engine.
The Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation continues to the present day, as one of the world's leading helicopter manufacturers.