From 1913 a young Russian designer, Igor Sikorsky, set his mind to develop large aircraft. Sikorsky invented a giant airplane (the Grand) with four engines and a wingspan of 88ft 7in. Naysayers said it would never fly, but fly it did, with eight passengers on board.
Sikorsky outdid himself with the "Il'ya Muromets." 77ft long, with a wingspan 105ft, it weighed over 12,000lbs fully loaded and could carry sixteen passengers. Passengers could relax in a heated cabin with electric lights, a bedroom, a bathroom, and a balcony for viewing the spectacular sights from aloft. In 1914, it flew eight hours non-stop on its way to completing a 1,600 mile, 26 hour roundtrip flight between St. Petersburg and Kiev. In this plane, Sikorsky had invented the forerunner of passenger airliners and heavy bombers.
Igor Sikorsky (1889-1972) was born in Kiev, Ukraine. As a boy he was fascinated by Jules Verne and Leonardo da Vinci. In 1918, he escaped the Bolshevik Communists and moved to America, where he was to pioneer the mass production of helicopters in 1939.