Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky - inventor of helicopter.
Part 2
The first company created by emigrants and headed by Igor Sikorsky was named "Sikorsky Aeroengineering Corporation". The workshop and design office were located in... a henhouse in one farm on Long Island. When unfortunate Russian airplane engineers were completely desperate from the henhouse, lack of money, failures, and airplanes with worn out engines not taking off (they had no money to buy new engines), it became known that the company shares of 5 thousand dollars were bought by Sergey Vasilevich Rakhmaninov. For the advertising purposes the world famous composer and pianist agreed to become the company vice-president. Instead of the henhouse the company could rent a hangar now. By April 1924 the first American airplane Sikorsky S-29A was ready. Then a handsome S-37 regularly servicing the line Santiago-de-Chili to Buenos Aires was designed. And then the designers had a good luck with amphibian S-38. The orders, mostly from Pan American Company, became numerous. Igor Sikorsky became famous in America. The designs of "Russian firm" were appreciated extremely highly. The American aircraft factories literally demanded the half of personnel of the enterprises to be Russian by all means.
In 1934 Sikorsky's flying boat S-42 made the world records of carrying capacity and speed one after another. Then S-43 appeared. The tests of the first helicopter designs of Sikorsky were started in late 30s - early 40s. The first American experimental helicopter VS-300 created by Sikorsky took off on September 14, 1939. Actually it was a modernized version of his first Russian helicopter created in July, 1909.The order for the army communication and observation helicopter followed soon. Two-seated S-47 was ready in December, 1941 and became the first helicopter started in a large-lot production. It was a unique helicopter of the anti-Hitler coalition participating in the Second World War.