Word: piasecki
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...Frank Nicholas Piasecki was a fast-rising genius. The Philadelphia-born son of a Polish immigrant tailor and graduate of New York University's Guggenheim School of Aeronautics, he developed and in 1943 test-flew the second successful helicopter made in the U.S. (Igor Sikorsky flew the first in 1939.) The same year, Piasecki incorporated his own company to build helicopters and landed a Navy contract...
...when his war baby needed funds to keep going, Laurance Rockefeller and Felix du Pont Jr. quickly came forward, exchanging some $500,000 for 51% of the stock. Flatteringly, they decided to change the company's name from P-V Engineering Forum to Piasecki Helicopter, kept Piasecki on as president...
...soon the Rockefeller group decided that Piasecki's genius lay in design, not administration, and Piasecki was moved upstairs to board chairman, while Production Expert Hart Miller was made president. At the beginning of 1953 the Rockefeller group made another change: it brought in veteran aircraft engineer-executive Don R. Berlin, 57, as president, gave him a mandate to cut costs and payrolls. Berlin lifted so many scalps that his first months were called "the Berlin Hairlift...
...stumbling block to cheaper service is both the quantity and quality of the helicopters available for commercial use. The Armed Forces have reserved more than 90% of all production, and are boosting their requirements every month. As a result, few of the six leading companies in the field (Piasecki, Bell, Kaman, Killer, Sikorsky, Doman) have given much time to either commercial design or production, are currently grossing $500 million annually without catering to the civilian market. Of the eleven types of helicopters certificated for civilian use, all are modified, single-engined military craft with high costs, low payload, speed...
Giant Copter. At Philadelphia's International Airport, the Air Force took the wraps off the world's largest helicopter, the YH-16 Transporter, built by the Piasecki Helicopter Corp. of Morton, Pa. Weighing more than 15 tons, the 134-ft. copter, powered by 1,650-h.p. Pratt & Whitney engines fore & aft, can carry 40 troops, 32 litter patients, or three jeeps, has a top speed of more than 146 m.p.h. and a fuselage, almost 78 ft. long, about as big as that of a Convair...