Bell 30

The Bell 30 was the prototype for the first commercial helicopter and the first helicopter built by the Bell Aircraft Company. Designer Arthur M. Young, who had experimented with scale models, approached Bell in 1941, and he and his team built full-scale prototypes at Gardenville, near Buffalo, New York. Ship No.1, an open-frame machine with a 160 horsepower Franklin six-cylinder piston engine, first flew on 29 December 1942, and a serious crash in September 1943 ended its first test series. It was rebuilt with a strutted tricycle undercarriage and a semi-enclosed cockpit. The program served as the demonstration testbed for the production Bell 47, whose plexiglas bubble canopy became iconic, and the rebuilt Ship 1A, Genevieve, is displayed at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.