Igor Sikorsky established a new life for himself in the U.S.A. and founded a company which became part of United Technologies then United Aircraft Corporation. Sikorsky had never lost interest in the helicopter and had, in 1931, taken out a patent to cover a helicopter with major innovations. Perhaps the most important of these innovations was the selection of a single main rotor and a small vertical anti-torque rotor, though this idea was not entirely new: Achenbach, in 1874, conceived a design using an anti-torque rotor and much later, in the 1920s, the Dutchman, von Baumhauer also hit upon the concept of a single main rotor and an anti-torque secondary rotor.

As the Engineering Manager of UAC's Sikorsky Aircraft division, Igor Sikorsky approached the management in the latter part of 1938 with the recommendation that design and development should begin of a direct-lift machine. With his early helicopter experiments behind him and nearly three decades of experience in the design of aeroplanes, it could not have been too much of a surprise to the Russian emigrant when approval was given for the project.

In April 1939 Sikorsky Aircraft merged with Chance Vought to become Vought-Sikorsky, still a division of UAC. Thus it was that Vought-Sikorsky began a courtship with helicopters that would eventually lead to the separation of Vought and Sikorsky and the emergence of one of the world's greatest helicopter producers.

The Vought-Sikorsky VS-300 appeared in 1939 and was very different from any helicopter to be seen in Europe. The fuselage comprised an open structure of steel tubes forward and a boom aft carrying both a ventral fin and the tail rotor. On the forward structure sat the pilot, with a 75-hp Lycoming four-cylinder engine to his rear under the main rotor pylon. The 28-foot diameter three-blade main rotor had cyclic pitch control. Sikorsky himself piloted the VS-300 on its first tethered lift-off, on 14 September 1939, and other brief tethered lifts followed in November with weights suspended from the airframe to assist stability. The lack of adequate control over flight was put down to the cyclic control system and so the VS-300 was taken away for modification.

In its revised form the VS-300 used its main rotor for lift only. The rear boom gave way to a new welded structure of steel tubes, the extreme tail of which supported a small vertical anti-torque rotor. However, slightly further forward on the open fuselage structure were attached outriggers on which two small horizontally mounted rotors provided longitudinal control (pitch in same direction) and lateral control (pitch in opposite direction). Flying resumed and on 13 May 1940 it made its first untethered free flight to become the most successful helicopter outside Germany. In the following year the Lycoming gave way to a 90-hp Franklin engine.

In April the VS300 donned two large rubber flotation bags to allow a trial ascent from water. Though not the first waterborne helicopter (Papin and Rouilly of 1915), in this form it became the first helicopter to achieve a successful take-off from water. On 6 May Igor Sikorsky flew the helicopter to a new world endurance record of a little over 1 hour 32 minutes, thereby eclipsing the German Fw 61's record.

From June 1941 the VS-300 underwent important modifications: the outriggers were removed, cyclic pitch for lateral control was adopted and a horizontal tail rotor was used for longitudinal control. In December of that year a new 30.7 foot diameter rotor with full cyclic pitch control was fitted, the horizontal tail rotor removed and a vertical anti-torque rotor substituted. Thus the classic helicopter configuration had come into existence. Further changes to the VS-300 involved the substitution of a 150-hp Franklin engine and the use of fabric to cover part of the airframe. The VS-300 continued to fly in 1942 and in the following year was eventually retired to the Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, MI..

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