User:Born2flie/Charles Seibel

__NOINDEX__

Charles Seibel (birthdate – death) was a helicopter designer and engineer. Seibel worked with helicopter pioneer Arthur Young on the Bell Model 30, which would serve as a prototype for the Bell 47. Seibel founded the Seibel Helicopter Company which built the Seibel S-4 and marketed it to the United States Army as the YH-24. When Cessna purchased his company, Seibel stayed on and developed the only helicopter ever built by Cessna, the CH-1. Later, Seibel returned to Bell to work on experimental programs and played a key role in development of the Bell 533, AH-1 Cobra and Bell YAH-63 aircraft.

Biography
Seibel graduated from California Institute of Technology in 1943 with a Masters degree (M.S. Engineering - Helicopter theory). He was hired in June 1943 by Bell Aircraft's Chief Pilot, Bob Stanley. While working on the Model 30, Seibel decided to design a simpler helicopter and began work on his design in his attic. In the fall of 1946, Seibel left Bell Aircraft for Boeing and moved to Wichita, Kansas with his family and continued working on his helicopter in the basement.

In September 1947, he successfully launched his first helicopter at Wilson Field. The simplified design achieved control through shifting the center of gravity, but that control method was abandoned in favor of a conventional cyclic control to prevent the aircraft from rolling over in the event of a hard landing. In building the aircraft, Seibel had utilized truck gears and clutches as well as scrap material purchased from war surplus. He had pitched the design to an aircraft company, but had been told that development would cost US$250,000. The total cost of Seibel's development of the S-3 added up to around US$5,000.

Using the S-3 as a demonstrator for the viability of his designs, Seibel courted investors from the local oil company and secured enough investment capital to start his own company, Seibel Helicopter.

Seibel served as President of the American Helicopter Society during the 1956-57 term.

-

The moveable c.g. concept was subsequently abandoned on the S-3 (insufficient control and the potential for roll-over on hard landing) and a more conventional cyclic control system was installed for continued testing and promotional flying. The Seibel Helicopter Company was formed with investors from the local oil industry in 1948. Quiting his job with Boeing to work full-time on helicopter projects, the Seibel S-4, a 2-place ship, was a follow-on development utilizing a similar control system as the later S-3 and incorporated Seibel's rotor system using stacked, stainless steel "L" shaped blade attachments which carried all rotor loads and flexed for control input thereby eliminating blade pitch bearings. Also, the ship used a supercritical tail rotor shaft and simplified ring and pinion transmission. The S-4 first flew in early January 1949 with a heavy schedule of test flying for test pilot Johnny Gibbs who had a helicopter background doing crop dusting. The S-3 was still being used as a promotional demonstrator until early 1949 and it was dismantled, having accumulated 100 hours - three "pilots" had flown the S-3, only one of whom was licensed as a rotary wing pilot. The Seibel Helicopter Company moved from their Wilson Field facility to a North Broadway building (5613 No. Broadway) in the fall of 1949 and made application for a type certificate, only the 5th company in the U.S. to do so. Dick Ledwin departed Bell and joined Seibel.

Charles Seibel and Sanford Hinton, prime movers of the helicopter division, are both deceased. Seibel had a large archive of photos and movies of the CH-1 project - the whereabouts unknown of the originals but Seibel made a video in 1991 using much of his material. Jack Leonard took a position as manager of a new eastern office in Washington for the Hughes Tool Company after leaving Cessna in early 1962 - he became responsible for coordination of the company's military programs in the eastern states.

Bell Helicopter
In 1964, Cessna closed down the Helicopter Division and Seibel moved on to become the Chief Experimental Project Engineer for Bell Helicopter. On March 5, 1965, the president of Bell called a meeting and outlined plans to complete and fly a Model 209 attack helicopter by September of that year. Seibel was placed in the charge of the helicopter's development and was given a $1 million budget. Seibel's team used many components from the UH-1C helicopter, and achieved the goal with a first flight on September 7. On 25 September 1965, the helicopter reached a speed of 200 mph setting a world record in its class.

In 1968, named an Honorary Fellow of the American Helicopter Society.

Philosophical and/or political views
Wikipedia is not a soapbox for individuals to espouse their views. However, views held by politicians, writers, and others may be summarize in their biography only to the extent those views are covered by reliable sources that are independent of the control of the politician, writer, etc.

Awards
(If any)

Patents

 * US Pat. 2575533 - Filed Apr 16, 1947, Rotor Blade Mounting and Control.

Category:Aircraft designers