Flying Early Helicopters
 

Does anyone have any stories about flying early helicopters?
Also, any stories about the training of pilots early in helicopter history and development?

Define "Early"....some old guys here certainly did....whether they can remember doing it is another question.

Maybe not if you flew through the 60s

Hannah Reitsch about flying the Fw 61:

http://youtu.be/QDZxXheJGnU?feature=shared​​​​​​​

I wonder how the first pilot managed to fly the first helicopter? Must have been a wild ride. Tethered perhaps?

I had an instructor some years ago (who many here may recognise) who had flown Corsairs in WW2 with the FAA in the Pacific who was taken off operational flying for reasons I don't need to explain here and was posted to a mysterious course (Lee on Solent maybe?) where he was introduced to a spidery contraption that the FAA had just acquired - the Sikorsky R4. His 'instructor' sent him solo after - iirc - 4hrs, at which time he (the instructor) had 7 hrs rotary time (so he'd commenced training his first stude with 3hrs total rotary time!). I was told this was the second RN helicopter course, the instructor having suffered the first. Autorotation was not a concept back then apparently. They just learned by doing.
How much of this was true and how much embellished I can't say but despite being a wonderful old-school aviator with a wealth of salty dits I rather tend to believe it. JJ was a wonderful instructor.
Perhaps someone has the records of those first R4 courses and could corroborate?

Years ago when I was a member of the Helicopter Museum at Weston Super Mare, I remember reading an account of flying the S51 Dragonfly. It did not have hydraulic boosting (that rotor head was off a Whirlwind…), and the writer described the poor ergonomics: when you lowered the collective, you would be ‘on instruments’ - your face would be pressed against the panel’.

Here is one, about Winkle Brown’s first attempt in 1944. Very similar to #6, meleagertoo’s story.

“Wings on My Sleeve”, is Winkle Brown’s autobiography. It’s an absorbing read!
.
Eric “Winkle” Brown’s first helicopter flight — how he learned (and taught himself) in wartime Britain

• When & where: February 1945 (not 1944), Liverpool (RAF Speke) to RAE Farnborough in a Sikorsky R-4B Hoverfly. Wikipedia
• Context: Brown and fellow test pilot A.F. “Tony” Martindale were told the Aerodynamics Flight was getting three Hoverfly helicopters—the UK’s first mass-service rotorcraft. Neither had flown a helicopter before. Wikipedia+1
• Training (such as it was): On arrival at Speke they asked the U.S. mechanics about instruction. The master sergeant handed them a “large orange-coloured booklet” with the line, “Here’s your instructor.” They studied the manual, tried some tentative hovers and basic control practice, then—by Brown’s account—fortified themselves with a stiff drink and set off. Wikipedia
• The first flight: Brown and Martindale self-launched the brand-new Hoverflys from Speke and flew in loose formation to Farnborough—“safely, if raggedly,” sometimes drifting miles apart as they learned on the job. Wikipedia
• Why this matters for early helicopter training:
  • Minimal formal instruction. Early UK rotary-wing pilots (including Brown) often received only a brief ground briefing or manual before soloing; practical skills (hover, pedal/collective coordination, translational lift, approach/landing) were mastered in flight. Wikipedia+2undiscoveredscotland.co.uk+2
  • Type: Sikorsky R-4/Hoverfly I. The R-4 was the first mass-produced helicopter and the first used by RAF/RN; with little local expertise, experience had to be built quickly by test pilots. Wikipedia
• Aftermath & influence: Brown went on to fly dozens of helicopter types and wrote about rotary-wing operations, but this seminal ferry—learned from a booklet—captures how wartime urgency forced self-directed learning for early helicopter pilots. HistoryNet

Primary source: Wings on My Sleeve (Brown). The episode above is drawn from the Speke-to-Farnborough Hoverfly ferry described around pp. 91–96 (various editions). The widely cited summary is consistent across reputable biographies and obituaries. Wikipedia+2HeliHub.com+2

Heres a link to some interesting background on the early Sikorsky model. There are other similar articles in the Archive and external sources if you dig deep enough.
VS300A

The rotor head looks very intriguing!

Hovering for the first time is a revelation to a fixed-wing pilot. The stick and rudder pedals are the same and change the attitude accordingly, so far so good. The collective stick by your side is new but its function intuitive (pull up, you go up and vice versa). The throttle is different: a twist grip like a motorcycle's on the end of the collective. The difference is that on a helicopter with a single main rotor and tail rotor, moving any control requires moving most if not all of the other controls simultaneously to maintain heading, altitude, and position (except for the throttle of a turbine-powered helicopter: the engine's fuel control keeps the rotor rpm constant). Increasing hover height begins with increasing the collective pitch; that requires more throttle and more pedal (which one depends on the direction of rotation of the rotor); the resulting increase in tail rotor thrust counters the increased torque of the main rotor so the heading remains the same but also creates a side force which causes the helicopter to translate sideways; that has to be countered with cyclic, which tilts the rotor disk but that decreases its lift vertically, which has to be countered with more collective, which requires more pedal, etc. Once you get everything back in balance, along comes a gust of wind...

Look at some of the photos of Igor with his trademark bowler hat flying the early VS 300.... was indeed tethered...

Point of Order!

Igor wore a Fedora not a Bowler.

Legend has it that anyone who sat in his chair and wore that Fedora never got hurt in a helicopter crash.

https://sikorskyarchives.com/igor-sikorskys-fedora/

I rather enjoyed Pat Malone's biography of Alan Bristow which covers his wartime conversion on to Sikorsky R-4s, test flying for Westland and early commercial ops selling Hillers, whaling, etc...

Is this our first AI response post?

Never sat in his chair or wore his Fedora but in early 1980 I did visit his office in Stratford which was very special. It was kept very much as he left it on his death. My first helicopter flight was in a S51 Dragonfly. The oldest helo I flew was a Bell 47 D1, G-ASJW, Manufacturer's Serial No. D12 - I think it was manufactured in the late 1940s although I didn't fly it until 1969.

I'm embarrassed
 

It wasn't but was it that bad? Most of my 3,000 hours is fixed wing but I got my commercial rotorcraft license in a Model 47 (twisting the throttle), which except for irreversible hydraulics wasn't all that different from the one certified in 1946. I have stick time in Hueys, Cobras, OH-58s, OH-6s, and a TH-13T (throttle-response lag due to the turbocharger is challenging at first) as an Army flight test engineer at the Army Aviation Test Board. I also have at least some stick time in the Bell 206 (various versions), 212, 222/230, 214ST, S-76, H-60, S-92, etc. and a Eurocopter (rotor turns the wrong way which takes some getting used to) and treated myself to a guest-pilot flight in the XV-15.

I stand corrected!!!! Thank you!!! :ok:

VH-3D Marine One - entered service in 1978

In 1957, Sikorsky was awarded a contract to produce an all-weather amphibious helicopter for the US Navy.

On 11 March 1959, the first prototype conducted its maiden flight.

That is quite a while ago - and very much closer to the first flight of US military helicopters than 2025

https://navalaviationnews.navy.mil/e...le-final-stop/

TT's control operation description fairly complete but excludes some interesting 'quirks' e.g.
the Sycamore throttle being transverse rather than longitudinal (muscle memory ?)
the Sioux rotor inertia allowing an e o l followed by a lift to low hover and a further e o l.
the Mil 8 throttle works in the opposite direction to Western types - Tern Hill QHI 'discovered' this when training a Jordanian student ... in a low level 'computer out' exercise ! :eek:
... as to John Dixson's description of the rear-facing control on the Skycrane :ooh: