Igor Sikorsky was born in Kyiv and achieved world fame while still living in it. For example, he set the World Speed Record and set several world records by landing the largest pre-WW1 plane in Kyiv. He also assembled his first trial helicopters there. Recently, it has been confirmed that Sikorsky recognized himself as a Ukrainian. During the time the former Heavyweight Boxing Champion Vitaly Klitschko was (he still is) the Mayor of Kyiv, two monuments to the great aviator were opened in Kyiv. The one on the front of the article is situated at the airport in the center of Ukraine’s capital. It is Sikorsky Airport now. But the first monument to Sikorsky had been opened several years earlier and it is situated at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute where Igor studied. It also wears his name:
The monument is installed close to the place where Igor Sikorsky posed with his trial helicopter #2 in 1910:
Read the history of Sikorsky’s first helicopters he assembled in Kyiv >
“My family is of UKRAINIAN origin” >
