FRANK PIASECKI Pioneer of the tandem-rotor helicopter.


Born Oct. 24, 1919, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Polish immigrants, Frank Piasecki was fascinated at an early age with aviation technology. His career started in high school, working for an autogyro manufacturer. He later studied mechanical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania before graduating with a bachelor’s degree from New York University’s Guggenheim School of Aeronautics in 1940. While still in college, Piasecki founded P-V


Engineering Forum with a former Penn classmate, Harold Venzie. Te company designed the PV-2, a single-seat, single-rotor helicopter that, on Apr. 11, 1943, became the second helicopter to fly in the United States (the first was the Igor Sikorsky– designed Vought-Sikorsky VS-300, which took flight in 1940). Piasecki was also the first person to obtain a US helicopter pilot’s license without already possessing an airplane rating. Te PV-2 impressed the US Navy enough to win


Piasecki a development contract in 1945 to design a large tandem-rotor helicopter capable of carrying heavy loads. Te result was the HRP-1, nicknamed the “Flying Banana,” the first tandem-rotor helicopter and the first helicopter designed for the US Navy. Piasecki’s tandem-rotor design was the basis of many present-day rotorcraft, including the CH-47 Chinook.


In 1946, P-V Engineering


Forum changed its name to Piasecki Helicopter Corp., which was bought by Boeing in 1960. Piasecki left the company in 1955 to form Piasecki Aircraft Corp. in Philadelphia. He continued to advance vertical aviation with the development of the Airgeep flying car in 1958, as well as the world’s first quadcopter drone, the Sea Bat. From 1961 to 1966, Piasecki designed the first


shaft-driven, high-speed compound helicopter, the 16H-1 Pathfinder. During the 1970s and 1980s, he developed and flew the world’s largest vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft, the PA-97 Helistat. In later years, Piasecki oversaw the resurgence of compound-helicopter technology with the successful test flight of the X-49A SpeedHawk, ushering in a period of VTOL innovation with the US Department of Defense’s Future Vertical Lift (FVL) program. Frank’s sons, John and Fred, are continuing their father’s legacy at Piasecki Aircraft by working to develop a hydrogen-powered compound helicopter, the PA-890. During his career, Piasecki obtained more than 20


Piasecki YH-21 Workhorse | Photo Courtesy Leonard LaVassar 142ROTOR SPECIAL COMMEMORATIVE ISSUE


patents and received numerous awards, honors, and memberships, including being named a fellow of the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences and an honorary fellow of the American Helicopter Society (now the Vertical Flight Society), of which he was a founding member. He also received the Helicopter Foundation International (HFI) Heritage Hall of Fame Award. In 1986, then–US President Ronald Reagan awarded Piasecki the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. Piasecki was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton, Ohio, in 2002. He died on Feb. 11, 2008, at age 88.


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