A Chronicle of Early British Rotorcraft

This paper traces the contributions made in Britain to the development of the helicopter, chronologically covering the period up to the early 1950s. Early British thinking on the concept of a helicopter dates back to the early 1800s and to the “Father of Aeronautics” himself, Sir George Cayley. In the 1840s W. H. Phillips constructed the first British steam-driven helicopter model. By the beginning of the 20th century the better availability of internal combustion (gasoline) engines meant that the idea of a helicopter was again part of British aeronautical thinking. The first manned helicopters to fly in Britain were the Denny–Mumford machine of 1908 followed by the Brennan helicopter in 1919. The development of the helicopter was to some extent usurped by the amazing success of Cierva’s Autogiros in Spain during the early 1920s, although most of the later developments of the autogiro occurred in Britain. However, without the autogiro and the development of the flapping blade hinge by Cierva and the “spider” control system developed by Hafner, the helicopter would likely not have not come to practical fruition until much later than it actually did. Parallel theoretical work on rotating-wing aerodynamics by the eminent British aerodynamicists Glauert, Lock and Squire was to lay down the mathematical foundation for the analysis of the autogiro and the helicopter. The Weir W-5 helicopter was to fly in 1938, followed by the larger W-6 in 1939. However an early war-time moratorium on British helicopter developments was to hinder further progress. Only the Hafner Rotachute and Rotabuggy autogiro concepts were to see significant development during the war, although by 1943 helicopter development has restarted with the design of the W-9. The immediate post-war era saw many technical advances and innovative helicopter designs appear that were to provide a foundation for the establishment of the British helicopter industry.