LAWRENCE BELL, ARTHUR YOUNG, AND BARTRAM KELLEY Developers of the world’s first certificated civilian helicopter, the Bell 47.


Lawrence D. “Larry” Bell was among the first gen- eration of leaders of powered flight. In 1912, at the age of 18,


Lawrence Bell


he worked as an aircraft mechanic for a pair of barnstormers who included his 28-year-old brother Grover. Grover’s fatal crash in 1913


dimmed Bell’s early passion, but by the time Bell turned 20, he’d joined the Glenn L. Martin Co. (which later became Lockheed Martin), where he rose to become general manager. Along the way, he hired a young aeronautical engineer from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) named Donald Douglas to be his chief engineer. (Douglas would later establish Douglas Aircraft Co.) In 1928, at the age of 34, Bell joined Consolidated


Aircraft in Buffalo, New York. When the company relocated to San Diego, California, Bell remained in Buffalo, founding Bell Aircraft Corp. seven years later.


After the United States entered World War II, Bell


Aircraft helped build the air armada that supported the Allied victory. His company assembled nearly 13,000 P-39 Airacobra and P-63 Kingcobra fighters and more than 650 Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers. Prior to the start of World War II, Bell was sent on a mission to assess Germany’s technological prowess. Tere, he was intrigued by the advances in vertical avi- ation. He described the twin-rotor Focke-Wulf Fw 61 as the most impressive thing he saw on the trip.


Tree years later, Larry Bell met Arthur M. Young. Born in 1905, Young had


Arthur Young


spent 14 years investigating the design and develop- ment of the helicopter. He studied German engineer and inventor Anton Flettner’s work, patents, and other resources and built his own small, remote-controlled models in the barn of his family’s


suburban estate in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Tis research taught him, among other things, how to build precise components (including transmissions), calcu- late stresses, and develop tools to measure phenomena such as rotor lift and propeller efficiency. A Bell gear supplier shared Young’s work with Bell


Aircraft. Te company invited Young to Buffalo to demonstrate his technology. On Sep. 3, 1941, Young unpacked his one-sixth model from a suitcase, flying and hovering it indoors with complete control. He also showed a film on helicopter stability principles that illustrated his methodical, scientific research. A key breakthrough was Young’s inclusion of a sta-


In this undated photo, Larry Bell (right) escorts US President Harry Truman on a tour of the Bell factory. Bell Helicopter Textron Inc.


136ROTOR SPECIAL COMMEMORATIVE ISSUE


bilizer bar on the rotor mast, which greatly improved the control of his helicopter. (Tis would become a common Bell design feature that can still be seen on


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