The Propeller-Driven Sleigh.

Updated: 26 July 2005

THE SIKORSKY SLEDS
Igor Sikorsky is famous for his pivotal role in developing a practical helicopter, but years before this he built a rather more specialised form of transport. He produced not one but two propeller-driven sleighs when he was only twenty.
In late 1909 and early 1910, and after, Igor Ivanovitch Sikorsky and two or three passengers would drive at high speed around the snowy streets of Kiev in a sleigh driven by a rear-mounted engine and propeller. It all sounds highly dangerous to pedestrians, but perhaps you could get away with that sort of thing in pre-revolutionary Russia if you had the right rank. Sikorsky's motives were not mere joyriding; he was studying engine-propeller combinations in preparation for aircraft design.

Left: A Sikorsky Propeller-Driven Sleigh in 1912.
Sikorsky is at the wheel. Note the large headlight for night running.
The blurred propeller blade at upper left and the snow being thrown up by the front skis seem to indicate that the sleigh was in motion when the photgraph was taken.

Few mechanical details of these machines are known. Steering was presumably through swivelling front skis, and the dark framework to the left of the picture appears to be a rudimentary propeller-guard. Its main function was probably to protect the propeller blades if the machine turned over.
At least three different engines were tried on the sleighs; the last two are known to have been 15 and 25 horsepower motorcycle engines.
Sikorsky attempted to make a helicopter in 1910, but like his contemporaries found the control and stability problems to be too great. By 1913 he had built the world's first four-engined aeroplane, the 9000-pound Bolshoi-Baltisky, but it was not until 1938 that he returned to the work on helicopters which is his greatest claim to fame.

Left: A Propeller-Driven Sleigh on the cover of Popular Science in 1912.
I know nothing further about this picture. The date suggests that it is an artist's interpretation of reports from Russia on the Sikorsky prop-sleigh.
A speed of 60 mph is claimed.

CANADIAN PROP-SLEIGH
A Canadian prop-sleigh was built by 15-year-old Armand Bombardier in Valcourt, Quebec in 1922.
It was powered by the engine from a Model T Ford, and had a frame with four ski runners. The front runners were steered by a rope, and the engine was mounted at the rear, driving a hand-carved wooden propellor. There was a single seat at the front. It made its first (and possibly last) trial run in December 1922.

ENIGMATIC PROPSLEIGH

Left: An aerosled in Russia.

I know nothing for sure about this picture, but I believe it is almost certainly Russian. It looks like an intermediate design between the Sikorsky prop-sleighs above and the military aerosleds described below, which would make the date somewhere in the 1920s or 30s.

THE RUSSIAN MILITARY AEROSLEDS
Prop-sleighs were actually used in by the Soviet Army; they were normally called "aerosleds". The Red Army had several aerosled detachments that were employed with some success in winter operations against the Finns during the Winter War.

Left: A Russian military aerosled.
From the amazing website of V Chobitok; who I have been unable to contact to ask permission. (Mr Chobitok, if you see this please contact me) Note that some crude retouching appears have been applied.

The resemblance to the unidentified "enigmatic propsleigh" above is obvious, particularily in the design of the ski-shaped runners and the spring suspension cylinders. The V-shaped frame to the right is almost certainly a guard to prevent the propellor breaking if the vehicle turned over.
The Russian aerosleds were used primarily for maintaining communications between units and formations, and moving ammunition, rations, and petroleum products to forces operating away from their supply bases. The aerosleds also evacuated the wounded from the battlefield. Sometimes aerosled detachments were used on combat missions, launching surprise attacks against the enemy.
See the brilliant website of V Chobitok: Aerosleds
I'm afraid the Chobitok site is entirely in Russian. The five lines at the top with black bullet points are links leading to detailed descriptions of various models of aerosled, complete with mechanical drawings. Not to be missed.

OTHER PROPELLOR-DRIVEN LAND TRANSPORT
The Museum of RetroTech has many other propellor-driven exhibits:
There is the propellor-driven motorcycle
And of course the propellor-driven car
And the Museum Governing Committee are planning a gallery on propellor locomotives. You heard it here first.