AVIATION: Triumph of the Egg Beater

"The helicopter is in its babyhood," said Igor Sikorsky last week. "It's not much beyond the airplane in the Kitty Hawk days." But even Sikorsky, who is the father of all U.S. helicopters, is amazed at how fast his baby is growing. Last week the Sikorsky Aircraft Division of United Aircraft Corp. announced it will increase its factory floor space by one-third to 500,000 sq. ft. The Civil Aeronautics Administration approved' Sikorsky's new, fast (111 m.p.h.), four-place YH-18; the armed services jammed his production lines with orders for the older and bigger S-55, which can carry eight soldiers plus a crew of two.

United is not the only one to feel the speedup. Some $300 million is being spent by the military for 600 helicopters (as many as were made in all of World War II), and for research and development of new models.

The boom in helicopters was set off by their breathtaking rescue work in Korea. In eight months, the "flying egg beaters" plucked 1,700 wounded and stranded men off the battlefield, saving them from death or capture. Commanding officers have found helicopters a smooth, swift substitute for the jolting jeep for front-line tours. Last week the helicopters found another customer. The Army, hitherto restricted to small craft (under 4,000 pounds), got permission to fly the big copters, will form transport companies with 23 helicopters each, specially equipped to carry troops in amphibious, mountain and jungle warfare.

Clippers & Copters. Igor Sikorsky, now 61, has been working 42 years to win such recognition for the egg beater. He designed his first helicopter in Russia in 1908, but it never got far off the ground. Sikorsky turned to plane design, turned out the first four-engine ship for the Czar's air force in World War I.

Later, he set up his own plane company in the U.S. After it was merged into United Aircraft, he designed Pan American Airways' famous "Flying Clippers" which established the first regular air routes across the Atlantic and Pacific. But Sikorsky kept on experimenting with helicopters; in 1939 he built the VS-3OO, the first successful rotary-winged craft in the Western Hemisphere. During World War II, United Aircraft's Sikorsky Division made all the helicopters produced for the military; almost all the 100-odd ships now seeing service in Korea are Sikorsky-built.

Young Wings. Other U.S. helicopters now in Korea are four different types made by Bell Aircraft Corp., which has been making copters since 1945, has sunk $12 million into research and development. Bell tried to tap the commercial market for helicopters as executive transports, crop-dusters, mail-carriers, etc., but lost money. At $23,500 a ship, there were not enough buyers. The company now has a $75 million military backlog, is developing the tandem-rotored experimental XHSL-i helicopter. The Navy wants to equip it with radar, use it to hunt submarines.

Aside from Sikorsky and Bell, most of the big work in helicopters is in the hands of young men and new companies: