7 The 100 Most Influential Inventors of All Time 7stimulated her son’s early interest in experimenting with
model flying machines; when he was 12 years old he made a
small rubber-powered helicopter that could rise in the air.
In 1903 Sikorsky entered the Naval Academy in St.
Petersburg, with the intention of becoming a career officer,
but his interest in engineering led to his resignation from
the service in 1906. After a brief period of engineering
study in Paris, he entered the Kiev Polytechnic Institute.
Following a reasonably successful academic year, however,
he concluded that the abstract sciences and the higher
mathematics as then taught had little relationship to the
solution of practical problems, and he left the school, pre-
ferring to spend his time in his own shop and laboratory.
A trip through Europe in the summer of 1908 brought
him into contact with the accomplishments of the Wright
brothers and the group of European inventors who were
trying to match their progress in flight. Returning to Kiev,
Sikorsky came to the conclusion that the way to fly was
“straight up,” as Leonardo had proposed, a concept that
called for a horizontal rotor. Assisted financially by his sister
Olga, he returned to Paris in January 1909 for further study
and to purchase a lightweight engine.
Back in Kiev in May of 1909 he began construction of
a helicopter. Its failure revealed some of the practical
obstacles. A second machine with a larger engine was
tested in 1910, but it also failed to fly. He then made a major
decision: “I had learned enough to recognize that with the
existing state of the art, engines, materials, and—most
of all—the shortage of money and lack of experience...
I would not be able to produce a successful helicopter
at that time.” In fact, he had to wait 30 years before all
conditions could be met.
For the time being Sikorsky decided to enter the field
of fixed-wing design and began construction of his first
airplane. Sikorsky’s S-1 biplane was tested early in 1910,