Alexander A. Nikolsky (1903-1963)
The Alexander A. Nikolsky Lectureship was instituted in 1981 and is given to an individual who has a highly distinguished career in vertical flight aircraft research and development, and is skilled at communicating their technical knowledge and experience, for whom a summary of their original work represents a valuable reference publication.
Alexander Alexandrovitch Nikolsky — or Nick, as he was affectionately known — lived three distinct lives: first as the son of an aristocratic Russian family in Moscow; then, following the revolution, as a displaced student in Cairo and Paris; and finally, as a naturalized US citizen at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sikorsky Aircraft and Princeton University. During his life as an American, he became more American and accomplished more for his adopted country than most of us. Throughout his entire life he displayed the virtues of courage and excellence.
Nick began his career as a cadet in the Russian Imperial Navy. He was serving on a naval training ship in Vladivostok when the Revolution of 1917 overwhelmed Russia. He and his fellow cadets took the ship and sailed it to Japan. He later made his way to Cairo, then to Paris. The White Russian community in Paris took him in hand, and entered him in the Sorbonne, where he received certificates in mathematics and physical mechanics. Before he left Paris he also qualified for degrees in electrical and mechanical engineering.
During his years in Paris he came to the conclusion that his future lay westward and, not waiting for legal entry documents, he signed on a merchant ship as a sailor. He arrived in Philadelphia in 1928, jumped ship, and worked his way to Boston, where the Russian community again sponsored his further education, entering him in the Aeronautical Engineering Department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He graduated the following year, receiving an M.S. in Aeronautical Engineering, and was immediately employed by Igor Sikorsky, President of Sikorsky Aircraft. He became an American citizen several years later.
Nikolsky spent 13 years at the Sikorsky Aircraft Division of the United Aircraft Corporation, serving successively and successfully as stress engineer, Chief of Structures, and Assistant Chief of Design. More importantly, he became a part of a small nucleus of engineers who worked with Igor Sikorsky to develop the world's first practical helicopter. The interest which developed during this phase of his career colored his remaining professional life.
When Dan Sayre formed the Department of Aeronautical Engineering at Princeton University in 1942, he persuaded Nikolsky to join him. Nick left Sikorsky and became the second faculty member of the new department. He rose to the rank of Professor two years later, and overcoming the handicap of illness, in 1954, became the first incumbent of the Robert Porter Patterson Chair in Aeronautical Engineering.
The simplest way to describe Nikolsky's technical achievements is to say that he dominated a new and important field. His domain was the field of rotary-wing aircraft, exemplified first and most strikingly by the helicopter, and later by the new category of aircraft known as vertical takeoff and landing machines. His original work with the small group at Sikorsky created a technical breakthrough. At Princeton, as a research team leader, he provided information crucially important to rotary-wing aircraft designers, and pioneered the development of a facility for the dynamic simulation of those aircraft which was unique in the world. He profoundly influenced the growth of research in the expanding Aeronautical Engineering Department, especially with rotary wing, to the point where Princeton became the foremost center of knowledge in that area. At Princeton, Nikolsky wrote two books, including the first definitive text on the analysis and design of rotary-wing aircraft: Notes on Helicopter Design Theory (1945) and Helicopter Analysis (1951).
The above biography was provided by Professor Howard C. "Pat" Curtiss of Princeton University's Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department and included as Appendix A in the 1992 Nikolsky Lecture entitled “The Rebirth of the Tiltrotor” by Robert R. Lynn (Journal of the American Helicopter Society, Volume 38, Number 1, January 1993).
A longer biography is available at no charge, which was originally appended of the First Alexander A. Nikolsky Lecture, Factors Shaping Conceptual Design of RotaryΓÇÉWing Aircraft, by Wieslaw Zenon ‘Steppy’ Stepniewski, April 1982, Journal of the AHS.
Below is an obituary in the local paper, near Sikorsky Aircraft's Bridgeport plant.
The Bridgeport Post (Bridgeport, Connecticut), February 19, 1963, Page 27
A. A. NIKOLSKY SUCCUMBS AT 60
Helicopter Pioneer, Formerly of Stratford, Dies in New Jersey
Princeton, N.J., Feb 19—Alexander A. Nikolsky, 60, a pioneer in the development of the helicopter, a former resident of Stratford and a member of the Sikorsky division of United Aircraft until 1942, died in Princeton hospital Friday [February 15].
Funeral services were conducted Sunday in the Princeton university chapel.
Professor Nikolsky, who came to the United States in 1928, participated in the Sikorsky company development of the first practical helicopter. He is credited with the first definitive work in this country on helicopters in a book entitled, "Notes of Helicopter Design Theory," issued in 1949.
He was a member of President Kennedy's Science Advisory committee and a professor in Princeton's Department of Aeronautical Engineering. He had served on the Princeton university faculty since 1942 and was advanced to the rank of professor in 1945. His work was centered in the university's helicopter laboratory in the James Forrestal Research center. He was also a member of the Army Scientific Advisory board.
Survivors are his wife, Marion Hubbell Nikolsky, and one son, Alexander. A special memorial service will be conducted in Princeton, on a date to be announced.