The Russian-American aeronautical engineer, aircraft manufacturer, and inventor Igor Sikorsky (1889-1972) designed such famous aircraft as the flying clipper and was the major developer of the helicopter.

Igor Sikorsky was born in Kiev, Ukraine, where his father was a professor of psychology at St. Vladimir University. Following his graduation from the Naval Academy at St. Petersburg, he studied in Paris and at the Polytechnic Institute in Kiev. While in Germany in 1908, he heard of the dirigible flights of Count Zeppelin and returned to Paris to study aviation. At the age of 20 he built his first helicopter. He then turned to more conventional planes, and in 1910 his S-2 achieved some success. In 1913 he built the world's first four-engine plane, the Grand, which was adopted by the Russian army and used during World War I.

Sikorsky was not sympathetic with the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and in 1918 left for Paris, where...