Hiller Aircraft

Hiller Aircraft Company was founded in 1942 as Hiller Industries by Stanley Hiller to develop helicopters.

History

Stanley Hiller, then seventeen, established the first helicopter factory on the West Coast of the United States, located in Berkeley, California, in 1942, under the name "Hiller Industries," to develop his design for the coaxial-rotor XH-44 "Hiller-Copter" for the U.S. Army. The XH-44 became operational in 1944. In collaboration with Henry J. Kaiser, it became United Helicopters in 1945. In the postwar years, United Helicopter produced a number of innovative helicopter designs for military and civilian purposes, including coaxial-rotor and tailless designs, as well as more conventional models. In January, 1949, a Hiller-360 became the first civilian helicopter to cross the United States.

Besides helicopters, in the year after World War II, Stanley Hiller researched a two man rocket-jet aircraft design that took off and landed vertically, called the VJ-100, in which he tried unsuccessfully to interest the U.S. military.