Rotorcraft
Piasecki Enters Hydrogen Helicopter into eVTOL Race
Piasecki's new eVTOL and UAS designs build on legacy research vehicles.
The electric Piasecki PA-890 slowed-rotor compound helicopter will be powered by hydrogen and features conventional flight controls.
The electric Piasecki PA-890 slowed-rotor compound helicopter will be powered by hydrogen and features conventional flight controls.

Frank Piasecki is most frequently remembered as the father of the tandem-rotor helicopter. However, two new designs that borrow from his research vehicles of the 1950s and 1960s could soon see a new light in the emerging civil electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) and utility unmanned aerial systems military markets. 

Piasecki designed and flew the second successful helicopter in the U.S., the PV-2, in 1943 and then formed and ran Piasecki Helicopter from 1946 to 1955. During that time, it produced iconic aircraft, including the tandem-rotor H-21 “flying banana,” used by militaries around the world. The mission of that company soldiers on today as Boeing Rotorcraft Systems, builder of the ubiquitous CH-47 “Chinook” series of helicopters.