First Helicopters and Rotor Systems

Abstract

Until 1936 when the first helicopter Fw 61 of Focke Wulf came to fly, many inventers and designers tried to develop a practicable helicopter. But the designers failed due to the lack of scientific and technological knowledge so that their devices showed a very unstable flight behaviour and could hardly leave the vicinity of the airport. Henrich Focke and his colleagues constructed with the Fw 61 the first helicopter worldwide that was really operational. Further designers were in Germany Anton Flettner and Friedrich von Doblhoff, who developed pioneering propulsion and design principles.