NOTE: The designation Fa-61 and Fw-61 seem to be interchangable and are one in the same.

1936- The German Focke Achgelis Fa 61 had two three-blade rotors driven by a 160 hp engine mounted on either side of an existing airframe. It established various world records between 1936 and 1939.

Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau AG, with works at Bremen, Flughafen and Johannisthal, was, by the mid1930s, openly constructing both well-armed and multi-engined warplanes, for possible adoption by the reformed Luftwaffe, and trainers. Additionally, in 1931, FockeWulf had received a licence to construct Cierva Autogiros.

Later Professor Heinrich Karl Johann Focke began work on a helicopter, no doubt having gained considerable experience of rotorcraft by way of the Autogiros. In 1934 he completed a model which flew well and thereafter set about organizing the fabrication of a full-size machine.

The result was the Fw 61. As the basic structure it used the fuselage and vertical tail of one of the company's Fw 44 Stieglitz biplane trainers (with the forward cockpit faired over). The 160-hp Bramo Sh 14A radial engine in the nose powered the rotors and a tractor cooling-fan. On each side of the fuselage was attached an inclined pyramidal outrigger constructed of chrome-molybdenum steel tubing, which could be covered with balsa and Elektron material but were generally not. From each outrigger tip was carried a three-blade rotor, each blade made up of a tubular spar with plywood and fabric covering. The most important feature of the opposite-turning rotors was that each blade was double-articulated, with tangential oscillations limited by elastic tension. In other words this helicopter featured all the blade movements for an entirely successful helicopter. The undercarriage was of nosewheel type and a braced tailplane was carried on top of the fin.

The first of two Fw 61s was civil registered D-EBVU and on its maiden flight remained airborne for 45 seconds. On 10 May 1937, having already achieved much longer flights, it became the first manned helicopter in aviation history to demonstrate an engine off landing using autorotation (with a ground roll of 6 feet). The second Fw 61 appeared in 1937 as D-EKRA. During 25-26 June 1937 Ewald Rohlfs flew the helicopters on separate occasions to establish new FAI-approved records: speed in a closed circuit of 76.151 mph, height of 8,002 feet, duration of 1 hour 20 minutes 49 seconds, and distance in a closed circuit of 50.08 miles.
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In 1937 Fraulein Hanna Reitsch, Germany's famous woman test pilot, became the first woman to pilot a helicopter when she took the controls. In February 1938 she flew an Fw 61 from Stendal to Berlin, a distance of 68 miles and then demonstrated the machine inside the Deutschland Halle, where the floor area of 25,000 square feet made possible fully controlled forward, backward and sideways flights without any assistance from wind. More about Hannah

Later the same year another pilot took the FAI-accredited world distance record in a straight line to 143.07 miles, while in early 1939 a height of 11,243 feet was reached. The Fw 61 demonstrated that it could turn through 360 degrees in just 2.5 seconds while hovering and could roach 20 mph in backward flight. It was estimated that, with the fairings fitted to the outriggers of the helicopter, a forward speed of 88 mph might have been possible.

Clearly the Fw 61 was the world's first entirely successful helicopter. The Fw 61's major shortcoming was its heavy weight, which was considerably higher than that of the Stieglitz biplane loaded for touring as a twoseater- and yet the Fw 61 was only a single-seater! In effect this meant that the Fw 61 was incapable of carrying a worthwhile payload, leaving only survey, observation or similar roles open to it.

However, by now the Fw 61 had been under the patronage of the FockeAchgelis company for some years, a company founded by Heinrich Focke with Gord Achgelis after leaving Focke-WuIf. It was, therefore, this company that continued the development of the Fw 61 and, using the experience, produced the first-ever helicopter to go into limited production, as the much larger Fa 223.

Ultimately, Allied bombing kept the Fa 223 out of major series production for wartime service with the Luftwaffe and only a handful were over used. Such action altered what might otherwise have been the course of history, allowing the first helicopter to enter full production and military service to be an American type.

Meanwhile back in Britain in 1937, G. and J. Weir, a Scottish company that had constructed Cierva-type Autogiros, decided to devote itself entirely to helicopters. Its two-seat W.5 (60-hp Weir engine) was influenced by the Focke-Wulf Fw 61. The W.5 first flew on 7 June 1938 at Dalrymple, making it the first partially successful British helicopter. Flown by Raymond Pullin, the company's chief engineer, it had cyclic pitch control but no collective pitch control, vertical flight being controlled by increasing or decreasing the engine's rpm.

This Fw 61 model was created by cardmodel artist, Aaron Murphy, Phoenix, Az. To date (5/06), he's designed the Bell Huey as well
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