The story of world first helicopter flight

Those who attempted a helicopter flight initially had many hiccups. Louis Brequet ,at Douai in France nearly became the first man to pilot a helicopter in free flight on September 29,1907. It rose lurchingly from the ground and had to be supported by many attendents to hold it steady. Another experimenter namely Paul Cornu, from Lisieux, started off another new chapter in aviation history by gaining vertical lift unaided. He was able to hover a few feet in the air. But before any substantial progress was made in this direction,many years passed. An Argentine nobleman named the Marquis de P.Pescara took a step forward when he built a biplane blade helicopter. It was capable of making a forward as well as vertical flight. It was tried in Spain in 1923 and achieved a straight run of 736 metres. But the machine proved to be unstable and hard to manoeuvre. The first fully-controllable helicopter- twin rotor F-A6B was a real breakthrough. It was made by German Professor Heinrich Fock. It made three initial free flight trials on June 26,1936 with a record of 80 minutes, a distance record of 143 miles and a special record of 76 miles per hour. In 1938, in the presence of curious spectators the famous women pilot Hanna Reitsch put this revolutionary machine through its paces at the Deutschland Halle, berlin, Probably this was the first time an aircraft was actually flown inside a building. During the World War 2, the United States Army and the Royal Navy made use of the first helicopter. Igor Sikorski, an American - built single rotor R.4. It was used for liaison duties, naval spotting and evacuation of the wounded.