Henrich Focke’s Helicopter Design Lecture at the Technical University of Stuttgart, Winter Semester 1955-56

Kurzfassung

The biography of Henrich Focke is well known and documented. During a small period from October 1954 to February 1956 he held lectures in the winter semester at the University of Stuttgart. During the summer period he returned to Brazil for continuation of his contract work on the Convertiplane (Quad-tiltrotor aircraft) and the Beijaflor (a small single rotor helicopter). The topic of Focke’s lecture in the winter semester 1954-55 was “Design of Fixed-Wing Aicraft”, while in the following period 1955-56 it was about “Helicopter Design”. The lecture note of the former are unavailable, but the latter was recently found in the archive of the University of Stuttgart. It covers 123 pages of text with sketches, graphs and photos and provides insights into the helicopter design philosophy of Henrich Focke.