Description
First edition of The Birth of Aviation: Kitty Hawk, N.C. by Aycock Brown, inscribed to Igor Sikorsky.
Octavo, [unpaginated]. Original wrappers, black plastic comb binding. Numerous black and white illustrations, faint foxing to illustrations. Inscribed by the author on the title page: “To Igor Sikorsky, Who did with the helicopter what the Wrights did for powered flight. Sincerely, Aycock Brown. Dec-17-1953.” Provenance: From the estate of Susana and Nickolai Sikorsky, the son and daughter-in-law of Igor Sikorsky. Estate sale in West Hartford, CT, May 2021.
Igor Sikorsky (1889-1972) was a Russian-American aviation pioneer, best known for the development of the first viable helicopter. Early in his career in Russia, Sikorsky was successful in designing fixed-wing aircraft. Moving to the United States in 1919, he eventually founded the Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation. In the 1930s, the Sikorsky Corporation developed the first flying boats for Pan American Airways to allow for ocean-crossing flights. His most notable achievement came in 1939 with the development of the Vought-Sikorsky VS-300, the first viable helicopter.
