Hiller Aircraft Company
| Hiller Aircraft Company | |
|---|---|
| legal form | Company |
| founding | 1942 |
| Seat | Firebaugh , California |
| Branch | Aircraft construction |
The Hiller Aircraft Company was founded in 1942 as Hiller Industries by Stanley Hiller to develop helicopters.
history
Stanley Hiller was just seventeen when he founded the first helicopter factory on the west coast of the United States in 1942 in Berkeley , California. The company was called "Hiller Industries" and developed the XH-44 "Hiller-Copter" equipped with a coaxial rotor system for the United States Army . The XH-44 first flew in 1944. In 1945, Hiller began dating Henry J. Kaiser and the company was renamed United Helicopters . In the post-war years, United Helicopters designed a number of innovative helicopters for military and civil use, including coaxial rotors and brushless designs, as well as other traditional models. In January 1949, a Hiller 360 became the first civil helicopter to cross the United States.
After the Second World War , Stanley Hiller worked, in addition to helicopters, on a vertically taking off and landing two-seat rocket-propelled aircraft, the VJ-100 . Hiller's efforts to arouse the interest of the US military were in vain, so that it did not get beyond the drawing board stage.
The company was renamed Hiller Helicopters in 1948 . The company developed several helicopters and was instrumental in the development of several others. From the early 1960s to 1969, his factory in Palo Alto served as the CIA's front company producing CORONA reconnaissance satellites.
Hiller was bought by Fairchild Aircraft in 1964 . Stanley Hiller bought the company back in 1973 with the help of a dozen investors from Thailand . At least 30 new helicopters were produced in a new factory in East Bay and at the same time the first aerospace company was built in Thailand.
Products
- Hiller XH-44
- Hiller X-2-235
- Hiller J-5
- Hiller UH-4 "Commuter"
- Hiller UH-5B "Rotormatic"
- Hiller UH-12 "Raven" (HTE-1, OH-23)
- Hiller HH-120 "Hornet"
- Hiller HJ-1 (YH-32 Hornet, HOE-1, YH-32 ULV)
- Hiller VZ-1 Pawnee "Flying Platform"
- Hiller autogyro
- Hiller ROE-1 "Rotorcycle"
- Hiller X-18
- Hiller Ten99
- Hiller VJ-100 two-seat VTOL rocket aircraft
- Fairchild Hiller FH-1100
- Fairchild Hiller FH-227
Individual evidence
- ↑ Berkeley Historical Society Newsletter, Summer 2006, p.6
- ↑ a b Hiller Helicopters timeline (accessed Nov 9 2011)
- ↑ CAD drawing of the VJ-100
- ^ "Blue Print For Passenger Rocket" Popular Mechanic , July 1949
- ↑ NRO review and redaction guide (2006 ed.) (PDF; 6.6 MB) National Reconnaissance Office. Retrieved January 21, 2013.
Web links
- Hiller's home page (s) accessed December 8, 2012
- Hiller Aircraft Ready To Takeoff (en). Retrieved December 8, 2012