Early life Henrich Focke was born in
Bremen on 8 October 1890, Focke studied at
Leibniz University Hannover, where he became friends with
Georg Wulf in 1911. In 1914, he and Wulf both reported for military service and Focke was deferred due to heart problems, but was eventually drafted into an infantry regiment. After serving on the Eastern front, he was transferred to the
Imperial German Army Air Service. Focke graduated in 1920 as
Dipl-Ing with distinction. His first job was with the Francke Company of Bremen as a designer of water-gas systems.
Focke-Wulf and Focke-Achgelis In 1923, with Wulf and Dr. Werner Naumann, Focke co-founded Focke-Wulf-Flugzeugbau GmbH. In 1927 Wulf died while test flying the
Focke-Wulf F 19 canard monoplane. In 1930 Focke was offered a chair at the
Danzig Institute of Technology, an honour which he declined. In 1931 the city of Bremen awarded him the title of Professor. The same year, Focke-Wulf was merged with the
Albatros Flugzeugwerke company. Focke-Wulf constructed
Juan de la Cierva's
C.19 and
C.30 autogyros under license from 1933, and Focke was inspired by it to design the world's first practical helicopter, the
Focke-Wulf Fw 61, which first flew on 26 June 1936 by
Ewald Rohlfs. In 1938,
Hanna Reitsch piloted the Fw 61 inside the
Deutschlandhalle. While working at the CTA Focke also developed the
BF-1 Beija-Flor (hummingbird) two-seater light helicopter from 1954, which made its first flight at
Sao Jose dos Campos on 22 January 1959. The BF-1 was similar in design to the
Cessna CH-1, with a 225 hp Continental E225 engine in the nose and the rotor mast running vertically between the front seats. An open structure tubular steel tail boom carried a pair of tail surfaces and a small tail rotor. The BF-2 was developed from this and first flew on 1 January 1959, and performed an extended flight-testing campaign until it was damaged in an accident. It is thought that further work on the
Beija Flor was then abandoned. After Borgward collapsed in 1961, Focke became a consulting engineer with Vereinigte Flugtechnische Werke of Bremen and Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Luft-und Raumfahrt. Focke was awarded the
Ludwig-Prandtl-Ring from the
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Luft- und Raumfahrt (German Society for Aeronautics and Astronautics) for "outstanding contribution in the field of aerospace engineering" in 1961. Focke died in Bremen on 25 February 1979. In 1993, Focke was inducted into the
International Air & Space Hall of Fame at the
San Diego Air & Space Museum. ==See also==