Igor Sikorsky

Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky was a Russian-American aviation engineer who pioneered both large fixed-wing aircraft and the practical helicopter. While still in the Russian Empire he designed the Russky Vityaz, which first flew in 1913 as the first successful four-engine aircraft, and developed it into the Ilya Muromets series, later adapted into the world's first four-engine bomber. After emigrating to the United States, he founded the Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation in 1923 and designed long-range flying boats used by Pan American Airways in the 1930s. His most lasting achievement came in 1939 with the Vought-Sikorsky VS-300, the first viable American helicopter, which he developed into the R-4, the world's first mass-produced helicopter, in 1942. He received the Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy in 1966, the National Medal of Science in 1967, and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1987.