WI: Igor Sikorsky never immigrated to America

and stayed in Russia. Would he still continue building aircraft? How would it affect the development of the helicopter?
 

Old Airman

Banned
Sikorsky was a pioneering airplane designer before WWI and was well-known and greatly respected in Russia. Would he stay there after the revolution, he would probably be what Tupolev was IOTL. The Great Daddy of everything flying and having more than one motor. Sikorsky's IOTL forays into flying boats and choppers were mostly caused by necessity to find a relatively unoccupied market niche. Rigid Soviet system would keep him busy designing heavy planes and, most likely, would not allow him to dabble at anything else (although even that is not a given - after all, IOTL Tupolev worked, not too successfully, on naval aviation and even tried his hand, unsuccessfully, in heli design).
As far as helicopter is concerned, absence of Sikorsky would not change things a lot. His early design achievements were VERY closely matched by independent design teams in USSR, GB, Germany (Germans actually had industrially-produced helicopter in 1936). So, would he not develop the R4, somebody else would be christened "the father of helicopter", but that's about it.
 
Had Igor Ivanovich stayed in St Petersburg, the warrant issued by the bolsheviks for shooting him would have been served, and he would be dead. He didn't just leave, he fled. He left his wife and daughter and had some cash and a diamond-encrusted gold watch given him by the Tsar. If he hadn't been successful, he wouldn't have been the Tsar's favorite designer. His friend, Nikolai Polikarpov wasn't so famous so early.
 
If you don't want him to go to the US then perhaps he goes to France instead? IIRC there was a fairly decent sized White émigré community there.
 
If you don't want him to go to the US then perhaps he goes to France instead? IIRC there was a fairly decent sized White émigré community there.

His departure was Murmansk to Liverpool to Paris, where he worked until the end of the war and the end of employment.
 

Old Airman

Banned
Had Igor Ivanovich stayed in St Petersburg, the warrant issued by the bolsheviks for shooting him would have been served, and he would be dead.
Would you mind to share a source confirming that there was a warrant? As far as I remember he left quite early, before the Red Terror started. At this point Bolsheviks were quite content with letting their enemies go in exchange for a promise not to resist "The revolution's authority".
 
Would you mind to share a source confirming that there was a warrant? As far as I remember he left quite early, before the Red Terror started. At this point Bolsheviks were quite content with letting their enemies go in exchange for a promise not to resist "The revolution's authority".

The source is Igor Ivanovich, also related by his son Sergei Igorovich. This was even before the regime instituted the designers' prison.
 

Old Airman

Banned
The source is Igor Ivanovich, also related by his son Sergei Igorovich. This was even before the regime instituted the designers' prison.
Well, considering that designers' prison was established ~10 years after Sikorsky's immigration, I have no doubts that the prison is unrelated to his reasons. To tell you the truth, I somehow doubt the story. Sergei mentions the Red Terror, which did not start for 6 months after Igor left. What's more, Igor's father, Ivan, survived for some time in Red-occupied Kiev without going into hiding, and he was much more politically "colourful" person. A scientist of note and a leading proponent of the Blood Libel, he was THE expert witness for the prosecution during infamous Beilis Affair, and nobody laid a finger on him during the Red Terror. This was despite the fact that "Black Hundredists" were actively targeted by Bolsheviks.
 
Living in Russia during the first half of the 20th century is like trying to dodge a missile. You'd have to avoid World War I, the Red Terror, the brutality of Stalin, being murdered by the Nazis and their Ukrainian collaborators, being thrown into a Soviet gulag if you escaped the Nazi death camp.

I think Sikorsky would have spent his energy trying to stay alive.

Were there World War II battles that depended on the helicopter? Otherwise, I think history would be very much the same.
 
As for Sikorsky's fate if he had stayed in Russia: I think it depends on how good a communist he could become. If he would have sworn allegiance to the Soviet regime early enough, he would not only be 'safe' but as a leading expert on technological development he would rise through the ranks fairly quickly. Of course, rising through the ranks in the 1920's will not save you from Stalin's paranoia in the 1930's. So either he would be the Soviet air industries mainstay like OTL Tupolev, or he would disappear silently and just remain a footnote in history.

However since in OTL he did flee rather then trust the Soviets, I think in any alternate world he would be to critical and too uneasy about the Communist regime to stay in the country in the long run. If he did not flee in 1917, he would have silently sneaked out between 1920 and 1923.

Would he automatically end up in the US? I don't know, though I'd love to speculate what fantastic airplanes we would have missed out on compared to a timeline where Sikorsky would design the first postwar airliners for Handley-Page, De Havilland or Farman. Being from Belgium of course my wet dream would be Sikorsky being appointed chief designer for the newly founded SABCA.

This is of course if after having had his own company in Russia, Sikorsky could 'lower himself' to work for someone else, which may be close to impossible. May be he could build a reputation working for an established European manufacturer for a couple of years, all the while getting to know the right people, until he will strike out on his own again. But my guess is that he will want to run his own company rather sooner then later and every work relationship where he is second in command after the company's director and namesake will be strenuous at best.

Then again, he could just go back to his old profession and become a railroad engine builder. again, this is if he could go back to working for someone else....
 
To tell you the truth, I somehow doubt the story. .

You seem to believe that you can know more about Sikorsky than Sikorsky. The Tsar never went to visit Igor's father, Ivan, nor did he bother his wife and daughter. The Tsar did often visit Igor at this factory. He gave him a diamond-encrusted gold watch. Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe Sergei is wrong, but if Igor was wrong about his own life, does that make you right? He left his wife and daughter for several years of relative poverty for his reasons, and emigrated to the US because he deemed it his best opportunity. His sister Olga, I think, brought his daughter out later.
 
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