Jetrader - March/April 2011 - 41

aviation history

Sikorsky and His Airplanes
By Bill Bath

The Sikorsky S-21 Russky Vityaz was the ﬁrst four-engined aircraft in the world built by Igor Sikorsky in 1913.

How many of you at the age of 22 designed your ﬁrst airplane, built it and gained your pilot’s license test ﬂying it? It was in 1911 that Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky did just that. His Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) license No. 64 was issued by the Imperial Aero Club of Russia that year. On one occasion he made a forced landing when an insect in the fuel line partially blocked the carburetor, leading to an engine shutdown. Born in Kiev, Ukraine, in 1889 when it was part of the Russian Empire, he became interested in the natural sciences when he accompanied his father in a trip to Germany at age 11. Attending the Naval Academy in St. Petersburg, he resigned in 1906 and went to Paris for a year to study engineering. Returning to Russia in 1907, he studied for a year at the Kiev Polytechnic Institute; once more after a year, another visit to Germany and seeing Count Zeppelin’s rigid airships, decided aviation would be his future career. Early in 1909 Sikorsky returned to Paris to study aeronautical engineering at the Ecole des Techniques Aeronautiques. There he met Louis Blériot, Henri Farman and other famous pioneers; he also learned to ﬂy. Returning to Russia with a 25-hp Anzani engine, he started to design his ﬁrst helicopter—an iron bird cage affair with two pairs of coaxially mounted paddle blade wings set at their collective pitch. It lacked sufﬁcient power for its weight to lift it off the ground; the 357 pounds of lift was about 100 pounds less than its empty weight. The next attempt was in 1910 with a more powerful engine, which managed to generate enough lift to get a couple of feet off the ground with lots of vibration and no pilot. It was not the ﬁrst to do so, and Sikorsky turned his attention to ﬁxed-wing

aircraft—these he built and flew himself. In May 1911 his f if th model, the S-5, took part in the Russian Army maneuvers near Kiev and out-performed the foreign aircraft taking part. The follow on design, S-6A was even Sikorsky in his standard ﬂight test suit more successful; gaining ﬁrst prize at the 1912 Moscow air show and again in ﬁrst place at the St. Petersburg Military competition later that year. After those achievements, Sikorsky was hired as chief engineer at the aeronautical subsidiary of the RussoBaltic Railroad Car Works and started to build a large 9,000 pounds gross weight, multi-engine aircraft with two 100 hp Argus tractor engines and a span of 89 feet. Clearly underpowered, two pusher engines were added, making it the world’s ﬁrst multi-engine aircraft. It was named the Bolshoi Baltiskiy, and contrary to the doomsayers, it had a successful ﬁrst ﬂight on 13 May 1913, making Sikorsky the world’s ﬁrst four-engine pilot (he always made the ﬁrst ﬂight in his designs). It had upholstered chairs in the enclosed cabin, a washroom and an extended balcony in front of the cockpit so passengers could enjoy the fresh air. One must presume there was a height limitation in order to avoid blocking the pilot’s forward view. A quick follow-up in December 1913 was the S-21 Russky Vityaz. This time the aircraft had four 100 hp tractor engines Jetrader 41

Jetrader - March/April 2011

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Jetrader - March/April 2011