Abstract
The development of Czechoslovak helicopters, which took place between 1945 and 1972, is an almost forgotten chapter of post-war economic history. Since 1945, the construction group of Ing.
Jaroslava Šlechty dedicated to the development of a light helicopter, first the XE-II and then the HC-2/102. The nobility used several interesting technical solutions that had no parallel abroad.
During this period, the direction of development was determined by the United States of America, from where it failed to purchase the Bell 47 helicopter in 1947. The Czechoslovak technical intelligentsia tried to obtain information about new trends from abroad.
This knowledge was partially implemented in newly emerging constructions. The development of helicopters in the USSR began intensively in the early 1950s.
Within the so-called Eastern Bloc countries, only Czechoslovakia, along with the USSR, devoted itself to the development of helicopters for a long time. Poland had only a few prototypes at the time.
Polish development was literally buried for decades by the licensed production of Soviet helicopters. Czechoslovak development ran into many obstacles.
In particular, the HC-3 suffered from a large number of problems stemming from a complicated power unit. This was solved by installing an originally Soviet radial engine.
It was this delay that prevented the production of the HC-3 for Agrolet and ČSLA, which later used Soviet helicopters. The last attempt to put Czechoslovak development on an equal footing with the East and the West was the HC-4 helicopter project.
The new project was inspired in its civil version by the French Aérospatiale Alouette helicopters with a turboshaft engine or in the military version by the American AH-1 Cobra helicopter. The project ended in the early 1970s due to technological demands and political disfavor within the RVHP.
This contribution will focus primarily on the import of information on foreign helicopter development during the Cold War and its implementation in the development of Czechoslovak types.