Paul Cornu

Paul Cornu was a French engineer who built and flew an experimental helicopter in 1907. His brief free flight is often credited as the first by a piloted helicopter.

Cornu helicopter: An experimental twin-rotor helicopter built by Paul Cornu and flown in 1907. This was the machine behind Cornu’s reported free, piloted flight.
Helicopter: A rotorcraft whose powered rotors provide lift and control in flight. Cornu’s machine was an early attempt to achieve powered vertical flight.
Leonardo da Vinci's aerial screw: A Renaissance design for a helical rotor intended to rise by compressing air. It is an influential early sketch of vertical flight, centuries before Cornu’s powered machine.
History of the helicopter: The development of rotorcraft from early lift experiments to practical helicopters. Cornu’s flight occupies a disputed early milestone in this longer history.
First helicopter flight: The disputed milestone marking the first successful free flight by a piloted helicopter. Cornu’s brief 1907 flight is one leading claim to this milestone.
Rotorcraft: An aircraft that generates lift primarily through rotating wings or rotors. Cornu’s design belongs to this broader class of aircraft.
Cayley helicopter models: Nineteenth-century miniature rotorcraft experiments by aviation pioneer George Cayley. Cayley explored rotor lift long before Cornu attempted to carry a person.
Igor Sikorsky: An aviation engineer whose designs helped establish the modern single-main-rotor helicopter. Sikorsky’s later engineering made rotary flight far more controllable and useful.
Breguet-Richet Gyroplane: A French experimental helicopter built by Louis Breguet and Charles Richet in 1907. Its tethered lift tests preceded Cornu’s flight in the same year.
Coaxial rotor: A rotor arrangement with two rotors turning in opposite directions on the same axis. Cornu used counter-rotating rotors to reduce the reaction torque of powered flight.

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Étienne OehmichenRelated: Cornu’s experiment preceded Oehmichen’s and helped define the early French rotorcraft tradition.