After thirty years of rotary-wing experimenting, Igor Ivanovitch Sikorsky produced a new aircraft, the VS-300. It made its first tethered flight in the United States September 14, 1939. The "VS" stood for Vought-Sikorsky the division of United Aircraft of which Mr. Sikorsky was engineering manager. According to Les Morris's book Pioneering the Helicopter, "The '300' was the company model number assigned to this elementary framework of exposed tubes and struts. The pilot perched on a tiny seat in the open air in front of the seventy-five-horsepower engine...a long boxlike structure of riveted sheet metal extended rearward and supported the single-bladed tail rotor." Mr. Morris noted that a few brief flights, totaling "perhaps ten seconds in the air, concluded the first day of life for the VS-300." On April 15, 1941, after eighteen variants of this experimental aircraft had been produced, the VS-300 beat the American endurance record with a flight of 1 hour, 5 minutes and 15 seconds. This configuration had a main rotor that provided lift and a smaller tail rotor for counteracting torque and acting as a rudder--common aspects of the Sikorsky helicopters.

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