ANNCR:
Now, the VOA Special English program, EXPLORATIONS. Today ShirleyGriffith and Steve Ember tell about Igor Sikorsky. He was a leaderin designing and building new kinds of aircraft.
(THEME)
VOICE ONE:
Igor Sikorsky was born in the city of Kiev, Russia, on MayTwenty-Fifth, Eighteen-Eighty-Nine. His mother was a doctor. Hisfather was a professor of psychology.
Igor became interested in sciencewhen he was very young. He was especially interested in thepossibilities of human flight. As a ten-year-old boy, he startedbuilding toy flying machines out of paper and bamboo.
One was a helicopter. Igor turned the blades and held them inplace with a thin piece of rubber. When he let go of the rubber, theblades turned in the opposite direction. And the little helicopterflew around the room.
VOICE TWO:
Igor dreamed of building a real helicopter. But he had littlehope. Later he said: “I had read with great interest the stories ofFrench writer Jules Verne. In some of the stories, Verne described ahelicopter. Many intelligent people, however, said such a machinewould never fly. So I decided my dream would remain just that.”
Sikorsky entered the naval college in St. Petersburg. Then hestudied engineering at the Polytechnic Institute in Kiev. He did notknow that — a few years earlier — Americans Orville and WilburWright had succeeded in flying.
VOICE ONE:
In Nineteen-Oh-Eight, Sikorsky traveled to Germany with hisfather. He saw a picture in a newspaper of Orville Wright and hisairplane. “Within twenty-four hours,” he said, “I decided to changemy life’s work. I would study aviation.”
The next year, Sikorsky went to Paris. At that time, Paris wasthe center of aviation in Europe. Sikorsky met several Frenchpilots, including Louis Bleriot, the first person to fly across theEnglish Channel. The pilots gave him advice about buildingsuccessful airplanes.
VOICE TWO:
Sikorsky returned home to Kiev after learning all he could inParis. He decided to build a helicopter, even though many expertssaid it was not possible.
He tested his first helicopter in Nineteen-Oh-Nine. It weighedtoo much and had too little power. It could not get off the ground.He tested his second helicopter a year later. That one could liftitself off the ground. But it was not powerful enough to lift apilot, too. After these failures, Sikorsky decided to work onairplanes, instead.
VOICE ONE:
His technique was unusual. First, he drew pictures of a plane.Then he built it. Finally, he trained himself to fly it. In thisway, he quickly discovered any problems in the design and was ableto correct them.
The first plane Sikorsky designed and built was called the S-Two.He tested it in the summer of Nineteen-Ten. Just two years later,another Sikorsky plane — the S-Six — won the highest prize at anaviation show in Moscow.
VOICE TWO:
Sikorsky’s success helped win him a job as head of the airplanedivision of the Russian Baltic Railroad Car Works. That is where hedeveloped his first major new airplane design.
Planes at that time had only one engine. Sometimes, a plane’spropeller pulled masses of flying insects into the engine. Theengine stopped, and the plane crashed. Sikorsky thought planes wouldbe safer if they had more than one engine. So he designed a planewith four engines. He called it “The Grand.”
VOICE ONE:
Sikorsky’s plane was revolutionary. It was the first to have morethan one engine. It was the first to have a closed area for thepilot and passengers. And it was the first to have a toilet.
After designing “The Grand,” Sikorsky designed an even biggerairplane. He called it the “Ilia Mourometz,” the name of a famousRussian who lived in the Tenth century. He made a military versionof this plane. It became the most successful bomber used in WorldWar One.
VOICE TWO:
Igor Sikorsky left Russia at the start of the revolution inNineteen-Seventeen. He stayed for a while in Britain and France.Then he went to the United States.
He arrived with little money and no real chances for work.America’s aviation industry was new and very small. There were nojobs.
In Nineteen-Twenty-Three, however, he got help from a group ofRussian exiles in the United States. They gave him enough money tostart his own aviation company, Sikorsky Aero Engineering. It was onLong Island east of New York City.
VOICE ONE:
Sikorsky’s greatest success during this period was designingseaplanes. These planes could land on ground or on water. They couldfly long distances. The Pan American airline company used them tofly from North America to Central and South America.
In Nineteen-Twenty-Nine, the Sikorsky company became part of theUnited Aircraft Corporation. The re-organized company produced aseries of large planes known as flying boats.
These planes were big enough and powerful enough to fly acrossoceans. They made it possible to move people and goods quickly fromthe United States to Europe and Asia. Passengers on flying boatsrested in soft seats. They ate hot meals. Air travel had become fun,as well as safe.
VOICE TWO:
By Nineteen-Thirty-Eight, Igor Sikorsky decided to experimentwith helicopters again. It had been thirty years since his firstunsuccessful attempts. Through those years, he had written downideas for possible new designs.
The first helicopter Sikorsky built in America was theV-S-Three-Hundred. It was a skeleton of steel tubes. In its firsttest flight, it rose about a meter off the ground. Sikorsky thentested nineteen more designs.
VOICE ONE:
The final design had one main rotator, or rotor. The rotor wasconnected to three long blades on top. These blades turned aroundlike an album on a record player. They lifted the helicopter intothe air. A smaller rotor, with shorter blades, was at the back end.Those blades turned around like the wheel of a car. They kept thebody of the helicopter pointed forward.
This remained the basic design ofall Sikorsky helicopters.
VOICE TWO:
By Nineteen-Forty-One, the V-S-Three-Hundred had set all worldrecords for helicopter flight. Military versions were made and somewere used in the last years of World War Two. Most people, however,still did not accept the new flying machine. They said thehelicopter had to prove its worth.
It did that during the war in Korea in the earlyNineteen-Fifties.
Helicopters take off straight into the air. They can land justabout anywhere. They do not need long airport runways like planes.During the Korean War, helicopters flew into battle areas to rescuewounded soldiers. They flew the men quickly to medical centers setup away from the fighting. This greatly improved the men’s chancesof survival.
VOICE ONE:
Igor Sikorsky, the man most responsible for successfullydesigning and building helicopters, thought helicopters would be acommon form of transportation. People, he said, would use theminstead of automobiles. They would fly into a city, land on top of abuilding, go to work, then fly home again.
This has not happened. Privately-owned helicopters are notcommon. Yet helicopters have proved their value in other ways.
Companies use them to transport heavy equipment to hard-to-reachplaces. Farmers use them to put insect poisons on their crops. Andemergency teams use them to rescue people from fires and floods.
VOICE TWO:
Igor Sikorsky continued as an engineering adviser to his aircraftcompany until he died in Nineteen-Seventy-Two. He was one of thebest-known and most respected leaders in international aviation. Hereceived more than ninety major awards and honors from manycountries and organizations.
He always said, however, that his greatest satisfaction did notcome from receiving honors. It did not come from being the firstperson to design new kinds of aircraft. Igor Sikorsky said hisgreatest satisfaction came from knowing that his helicopters wereresponsible for saving lives.
(THEME)
ANNCR:
This Special English program was written by Marilyn RiceChristiano. Your narrators were Shirley Griffith and Steve Ember.I’m Ray Freeman. Join us again next week for another EXPLORATIONSprogram on the VOICE OF AMERICA.