A closer look
Igor Sikorsky designed the first mass-produced helicopter but was deeply frustrated because he envisioned his marvelous flying machine as an instrument for rescuing people from inaccessible areas, not as a heavily armed gunship for warfare; he lived long enough to see his invention strapped with machine guns and rocket launchers, turning his humanitarian dream into a highly efficient airborne killing machine for the military-industrial complex; it is a classic tale of engineering ingenuity colliding with human nature, where a guy invents a beautiful mechanical bird to save drowning sailors, and the military instantly looks at it and asks how many missiles they can bolt onto the landing skids; every great inventor must eventually make peace with the fact that society will eventually use their creation to blow something up
