Henry Berliner

Berlin Helicopter No. 5 (1924)

Three-wing propeller plane

Henry Adler Berliner (born December 13, 1895 in Washington, DC , † May 1, 1970 ) was an American aircraft and helicopter pioneer.

The sixth son of Emil Berliner worked briefly as an aerial photographer for the United States Army Air Service , which had existed since May 1918, and returned to Washington in 1919 to help his father with helicopter research.

With a Le Rhône aircraft engine with 80 hp, mounted on a test bench, he was able to hover and fly forward, but only as long as his assistants held the device and stabilized it. In 1922 he bought a double-decker Nieuport 17 , which he equipped with a 220 hp Bentley engine that drove two horizontal rotors on the wings. A third horizontal propeller at the stern served as a pitch control. He demonstrated this device to the Bureau of Aeronautics on June 16, 1922 in College Park, Maryland . In 1922 he founded his Berlin Aircraft Company in Alexandria (Virginia) .

In 1923 he added a third pair of wings in the event of an engine failure. These machines reached a speed of 40 mph but only an altitude of 15 feet. He made his last helicopter experiment in 1925 with a lighter biplane.

Then he devoted himself to the development of various fixed wing aircraft . In 1929 his company merged to form Berliner-Joyce Aircraft , which was taken over a few months later by North American Aviation . In 1930 he founded the Engineering and Research Corporation (ERCO), which he moved to Riverdale Park (Maryland) in 1937 , and in which he worked with Fred Weick et al. a. the Ercoupe built.