OREM — Aviation students at Utah Valley State College received a history lesson Wednesday from a man who saw his father make some of the most important strides in the industry.
Sergei Sikorsky, son of the late helicopter inventor Igor Sikorsky, guided the Ragan Theater audience through the development of flight from his father's perspective.
"Mankind has been dreaming of flight for thousands of years," he said. "This is the story of how (Igor Sikorsky) and a number of others made that dream come true."
Sikorsky was an aviation pioneer who, aside from building the first successful helicopter, developed the world's first four-engine plane in 1913, and founded Sikorsky Aircraft, manufacturer of helicopters — including the Commanche and Black Hawk — and planes used by all five branches of the U.S. military and numerous others.
Sergei Sikorsky told students that his father was fascinated with the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci and writings of Jules Verne from an early age.
"One of the things that he read about Jules Verne that impressed itself on his mind, and he would quote (Verne) often, saying, 'Anything that one man can imagine, other men will later make true,' " he said. "It's a wonderful way to grow up as a child, listening to your father describe these words."
Sikorsky took the visions of men like Verne and made them a reality when his helicopter flew for the first time on Sept. 14, 1939.
Sergei Sikorsky said his father was always fascinated by flight, and traveled to Paris while in his late teens to watch the Wright brothers demonstrate their first aircraft.
"He watched all of these early flights, and he said he saw grown men and women weeping and sobbing with the emotion, the excitement and thrill of watching a human being fly," Sikorsky said. "He learned a great deal from the flying, and from the landings."
At age 20, Igor Sikorsky tried his hand at building helicopters, but after several failed attempts, decided to venture into fixed-wing endeavors instead.
"In three short, brilliant years, he taught himself how to design, build and fly aircraft," Sergei Sikorsky said. "There were no colleges in those days, so he had to learn by guess and by gosh — and by crash."
At the age of 24, Igor Sikorsky became the first man to design, build and successfully fly a multi-engine aircraft. This invention led to a meeting with Czar Nicholas of Russia, who gave Sikorsky a gold watch, now a family heirloom.
Sikorsky left Russia shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, and started his company with $800 in an open-air chicken farm. Sergei Sikorsky said that a well-known musician gave his father the means to build his next aircraft.
"This someone sits down and writes him a check for $5,000," he said. "This someone was pianist and composer Sergei Rachmaninov; it was he that started Sikorsky off on his second career in the United States."
Sergei Sikorsky said the plane his father developed was later purchased by Howard Hughes, who crashed it in the film "Hell's Angels."
But Igor Sikorsky received his greatest satisfaction from the helicopters he developed, Sergei Sikorsky said.
"Today the helicopter has established itself as one of the great rescue mechanisms for mankind," he said. "Were Igor Sikorsky here, I think he would say that his greatest source of satisfaction is the fact that the helicopter proved almost immediately to be a unique instrument for the saving of human lives, and to date, we conservatively estimate that it has directly saved 1.8 to 2 million human beings."
After his presentation, Sergei Sikorsky said he hoped that the aviation students in the audience would gain a renewed appreciation of the history and character of flight from his remarks.
"To have participated in the birth and development of aviation is to participate in one of the most dramatic, romantic and wonderful periods of human technological development," he said. "I would hope that they get an increased appreciation for the work of the early pioneers, also an appreciation for the fact that its not a cut and dried science; there's still a lot of love and romance and glamour connected with aviation, even today."
The UVSC aviation department has created a scholarship in Sergei Sikorsky's name, and presented him with a plaque designating him as a visiting professor.
E-mail: mdecker@desnews.com