Image from: Missed (2013)
Born in Kiev, Russia, Igor Sikorsky displayed an early interest in aviation, experimenting with model aircraft and helicopters as a schoolboy. His professional career began in earnest in 1910, with the successful flight of his first airplane, the S-2.
By 1910, the 21-year-old Sikorsky had built his first helicopter. It was a monstrous, skeletal thing—two counter-rotating rotors bolted to a flimsy frame. He called it the H-1. It had no tail rotor, no cyclic control, and absolutely no chance.
Sikorsky's interest in VTOL aircraft began in 1908, when he designed and built the S-2, a primitive helicopter with a single rotor. Over the next several years, he continued to refine his designs, experimenting with different rotor configurations, control systems, and propulsion methods. In 1931, Sikorsky filed a patent for his design of a single-rotor helicopter with a tail rotor, which would become the standard configuration for most modern helicopters.