This year marks the 100th birthday of the helicopter, but it is actually difficult to be sure who deserves the title of “first to fly a manned rotorcraft.” Frenchmen Louis Breguet, Paul Cornu and Maurice Léger all achieved some sort of takeoff in 1907, but in reality this branch of aviation began more than a century before. In his book, Hélicoptères–La genèse, de Léonard de Vinci à Louis Breguet, journalist and historian Bernard Bombeau documents a story that started much earlier than many imagine.
When talking about helicopter forefathers, many think of Leonardo da Vinci. One of the Italian genius’s most famous sketches is that of a propeller that looks like a vertical helix and has a diameter measuring close to 65 feet. Da Vinci’s sketch appears closer to a screw than a rotor with blades, and you can see it on the homepage of Agusta Aerospace’s Web site, www.agusta.it. Eurocopter is also marking the helicopter’s centenary at its Web site, www.eurocopter.com.
