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118    HELICOPTER AIR SERVICE PROGRAM 

At a time when we are willing to spend money to build good will, these are facts which we cannot disregard.

I could speak for an hour about these things, and mention important, dramatic cases of this nature.

Let me only finish with one, which give figures. During the recent flood in Germany, where many helicopters were participating - and by the way, so far as I know, the overwhelming majority were American-built helicopters - they evacuated several thousand people out of very dangerous situations, in a number of cases picked up people from trees, rooftops, and whatnot.

At the end of the operation, the Germans, the military authorities, with the accuracy with which they are usually doing their business, they checked every single case, and they found that at least 1,117 lives had been saved. This is a record which I think should under no circumstances disregard.

It would be a question of expediting or curtailing, or at least slowing down badly the development and the progress of the helicopter construction in the United States. And I must add, of course, that with respect to the progress, several items are necessary. The main factor obviously is the military orders for the machine.

But another important factor is the business which comes from the airline operator, which consequently involves 80 seats in the helicopter, and which therefore becomes the key to the possibility of selling machines abroad. This, of course, is a very valuable and very important part of our work. 

These perhaps are a few high points which I wanted to have the privilege of reporting to you.

May I say the helicopter is only at the very beginning of what can be done. That really is the first phase of virtually unlimited possibilities. The development and the uses of it have been hardly touched. In the very near future, if we continue the healthy, successful development on which fortunately an excellent start has been made, I am quite certain that this country would have no reason to regret every effort that has been made to make it possible.

Senator Monroney. Thank you very much, Mr. Sikorsky. You honor this committee by your appearance here today and by this find and wonderful statement of the future of helicopters.

I quite agree with you when you say that we are at the very beginning of what can be done, and that the future of the helicopter is hardly touched. Because you, who built the first one in the Western Hemisphere, have been a pioneer throughout this whole period. 

We now come, I think, within reach of arriving at what can be done by a vertical-rising aircraft. It is up to us to figure ways and means of keeping this advance which has accelerated so much in recent years, moving ahead not only as an instrumentality of war, where it has proven its effectiveness, but as an instrumentality of mercy as you just said, in telling how wounded soldiers' lives can be saved by the early and quick removal of persons with certain types of wounds to the base hospital.

The prospect of breaking the bottleneck of the congested traffic in our big cities by commuter traffic, perhaps by helicopters, offers another wide vista which I know you from your great experience and position in helicopter development have visualized.