Hiller's XH-44 helicopter: final journey Hiller's XH-44 helicopter: final journey (November 17, 2004)

By Willie Turner

Hiller Aviation Museum

At the tender age of 19, Stanley Hiller Jr. made a business decision; he decided to build a helicopter.

This would be a monumental task for any 19 year old, but in the early 1940s it would be almost impossible.

Igor Sikorsky flew the first helicopter in the United States in 1939 on the East Coast. For a young entrepreneur on the West Coast to design and build a helicopter a few years later should have been unfeasible.

But nobody told Stanley Hiller, and in July of 1944 he flew his XH-44 for the first time in the University of California, Berkeley's Memorial Stadium, making it the first helicopter to be built and flown on the West Coast.

Mr. Hiller's company, Hiller Aircraft, would go on to build more than 3,000 production helicopters and numerous experimental aircraft.

Mr. Hiller donated the XH-44 to the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum in the 1960s, where it was on display for many years in the pioneering helicopter exhibit.

Just before the Hiller Aviation Museum opened in San Carlos in 1998, the museum requested and was granted a loan of the XH-44 from the Smithsonian.

"Having the XH-44 is significant to the museum because it was the beginning of Hiller Aircraft and its complexity made it way ahead of its time," said North West, the museum's exhibit director.

In December 2003, the Smithsonian opened its new facility, the Udvar-Hazy Center, located at Washington Dulles International Airport. The Smithsonian recalled most of its loaned collection for the new facility, including the Hiller XH-44.

On September 2, 2004, the little yellow helicopter that flew just miles from the museum over 60 years ago was boxed up and sent back East, where it will be viewed by hundreds of thousands of people each year.

Leaving the Hiller Aviation Museum with a hard-to-replace void, a committee named TEAM 44 was formed, headed by Mr. West, to build a replica XH-44 exhibit to replace the original aircraft.

With generous donations from Autodesk, Mechsoft, R.B. High Tech Transport of Belmont and many individual donors, the project is half finished and tentatively scheduled to open in the spring of 2005. Anyone interested in donating to the project is asked to call Hiller Aviation Museum TEAM 44 at 654-0200, ext. 215.

The Hiller Aviation Museum is a nonprofit organization, located at the San Carlos Airport. It's open daily from 10a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, see www.hiller.org.

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