Flying Straight Up and Down
1907 AD
1907 1907
03.05E50.28N
SCI

DOUAI, FRANCE
	A climber lies bleeding high in the mountains.  He could be dead if he must wait for a regular rescue team, and there is no place for an airplane to land.
	It is in difficult situations like this that the helicopter shines.  It can fly over difficult terrain, pick up a victim and take him to a hospital in minutes.
	While the idea for the helicopter is an old one (Leonardo da Vinci sketched one in 1483), building one was far more difficult.
	In the 1800s inventors in the United States and Europe made successful model helicopters, but steam and gasoline engines were too heavy or weak for a full-sized model.
	Then in 1907, Louis Breguet, a Frenchman, built a four-rotor helicopter that lifted an assistant two feet off the ground during a test-flight in Bouai, France. In 1919 Igor Sikorsky, a Russian immigrant to the United States, built the first practical helicopter.
	Since the Korean War, helicopters have been more and more widely used for medical evacuations, agricultural spraying and military missions.
