A closer look
Igor Sikorsky, the legendary Russian-American aviation pioneer who designed the first viable mass-produced helicopter, absolutely insisted on wearing his signature fedora during all of his highly dangerous experimental test flights in the late 1930s. The VS-300 prototype was a chaotic, vibrating nightmare of exposed steel tubing and terrifyingly large, fast-spinning rotor blades, yet Sikorsky calmly sat in the completely open cockpit dressed perfectly for a sophisticated evening jazz club. He reportedly wore the stylish hat primarily to shield his balding head from the massive downdrafts of freezing air generated by his own invention, proving that basic vanity is highly compatible with groundbreaking aeronautical engineering. It is a genuine shame that modern test pilots dress in heavily padded safety gear and flame-retardant suits instead of demonstrating the sheer swagger of wearing business casual attire while attempting to violently tame a loud flying machine for the very first time
