Frank Nicolas Piasecki ( ; ; October 24, 1919 – February 11, 2008) was an American engineer and

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which Lift (force), lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning Helicopter rotor, rotors. This allows the helicopter to VTOL, take off and land vertically, to hover (helicopter), hover, and ...

aviation pioneer. Piasecki pioneered

tandem rotor A tandem-rotor aircraft is an aircraft with two large helicopter rotor assemblies mounted one in front of the other in the horizontal plane. This configuration is mainly used for large cargo helicopters. Such aircraft are often informally referr ...

helicopter designs and created the compound helicopter concept of vectored thrust using a ducted propeller.

Early life and education

Born in

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

, to an immigrant

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Polish people, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken * Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin ...

tailor, Piasecki worked for

autogyro An autogyro (from Greek and , "self-turning"), gyroscope, gyrocopter or gyroplane, is a class of rotorcraft that uses an unpowered rotor in free autorotation to develop lift. A gyroplane "means a rotorcraft whose rotors are not engine-d ...

manufacturers while still attending Overbrook High School, then studied mechanical engineering at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

before graduating with a bachelor's degree from

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

. He was employed by the

Platt-LePage Aircraft Company The Platt-LePage Aircraft Company was a manufacturer of aircraft for the armed forces of the United States of America. Based in Eddystone, Pennsylvania, the company produced the first helicopter to be officially acquired by the United States Army A ...

as a control engineer on their XR-1 twin-rotor project. In 1940, he formed PV Engineering Forum with former Pennsylvania classmate Harold Venzie. He built a single-person, single-rotor helicopter designated the PV-2 and flew it on April 11, 1943. This helicopter impressed the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

sufficiently to win Piasecki a development contract.

Career

The name PV Engineering was changed to

Piasecki Helicopter The Piasecki Helicopter Corporation was an American designer and manufacturer of helicopters in Philadelphia and nearby Morton, Pennsylvania, in the late 1940s and the 1950s. Its founder, Frank Piasecki, was ousted in 1956 and started a new ...

Corporation in 1946. After a boardroom dispute, Piasecki was forced out of Piasecki Helicopter in 1955, and formed the

Piasecki Aircraft The Piasecki Aircraft Corporation (PiAC) is a manufacturing, manufacturer of aircraft, principally advanced rotorcraft. It was founded by American vertical flight pioneer Frank Piasecki to develop compound helicopters and other advanced rotorcr ...

Company. At Piasecki Aircraft, he participated in the development of the Piasecki 16H-1 the world's first shaft driven compound helicopter, the PA-59K/VZ-8P Flying Geep (also known as the AirGeep) the

Piasecki PA-97 Helistat The Piasecki PA-97 Helistat was an American experimental heavy-lift aircraft, built by Piasecki by fastening four H-34J helicopters to a framework beneath a helium-inflated blimp envelope. The sole prototype was lost during a test flight, killi ...

heavy vertical airlifter and the

Piasecki X-49 The Piasecki X-49 "SpeedHawk" is an American four-bladed, twin-engined experimental high-speed compound helicopter developed by Piasecki Aircraft. The X-49A is based on the airframe of a Sikorsky YSH-60F Seahawk, but utilizes Piasecki's propri ...

experimental compound helicopter.

Personal life

Piasecki married Vivian Weyerhaeuser on December 20, 1958. They had seven children: Nicole, Frederick, John, Lynn, Frank, Michael, and Gregory. His son John W. Piasecki is now President and CEO of Piasecki Aircraft. His son Fred W. Piasecki is Chairman of the Board and Chief Technology Officer of Piasecki Aircraft. His daughter Nicole Piasecki was the vice president and general manager of Propulsion Systems for

Boeing Commercial Airplanes Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA) is a division of the Boeing Company. It designs, assembles, markets, and sells commercial aircraft, including the 737, 767, 777, and 787, along with freighter and business jet variants of most. The divis ...

Later life and death

Piasecki died at his home on February 11, 2008, of a heart attack after a series of

stroke Stroke is a medical condition in which poor cerebral circulation, blood flow to a part of the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: brain ischemia, ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and intracranial hemorrhage, hemor ...

s. He was 88.

Awards

* Philip H. Ward, Jr. Medal from

The Franklin Institute The Franklin Institute is a science museum and a center of science education and research in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is named after the American scientist and wikt:statesman, statesman Benjamin Franklin. It houses the Benjamin Franklin ...

in 1979. *

National Medal of Technology The National Medal of Technology and Innovation (formerly the National Medal of Technology) is an honor granted by the president of the United States to American inventors and innovators who have made significant contributions to the development ...

President Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He was a member of the Republican Party and became an important figure in ...

presented Piasecki with the country's highest technical honor in 1986. * Smithsonian

National Air and Space Museum The National Air and Space Museum (NASM) of the Smithsonian Institution is a museum in Washington, D.C., in the United States, dedicated to history of aviation, human flight and space exploration. Established in 1946 as the National Air Museum, ...

Lifetime Achievement award - awarded in 2005 *

National Aviation Hall of Fame The National Aviation Hall of Fame (NAHF) is a museum, annual awards ceremony and learning and research center that was founded in 1962 as an Ohio non-profit corporation in Dayton, Ohio, United States, known as the "Birthplace of Aviation" with ...

Inducted 2002.

References

External links

Founder Origins: Frank Nicholas PiaseckiExclutive Biography of Frank N. Piasecki''The Boy Who Grew Flying Bananas'' by L.B. White
1951 article on Piasecki at age 31 and his early helicopters. Rare photos.
Frank Piasecki biography on National Aviation Hall of Fame site Summary of Frank's aviation legacy from AIN online
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Piasecki, Frank 1919 births 2008 deaths Businesspeople from Philadelphia American people of Polish descent American aerospace engineers American aviation pioneers Aviation inventors Businesspeople in aviation 20th-century American inventors National Medal of Technology recipients Commanders of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland 20th-century American businesspeople University of Pennsylvania alumni New York University alumni