Charles Huron Kaman was a 26-year-old engineer in 1945 when he founded Kaman Aircraft Company in the garage of his mother’s West Hartford, Connecticut home with just $2,000 invested by two friends. He started the company to demonstrate a new rotor concept he devised to make helicopters stabler and easier to fly.

When Charlie Kaman entered the fledgling business of vertical flight, helicopters were unstable and difficult to fly. While working nights and weekends, he developed a new concept of rotor control based on “servo-flaps”—small ailerons added to the edges of rotor blades to improve helicopter stability. He also proposed intermeshing rotors, which increase lift while eliminating the tail rotor. These inventions became the hallmarks of all Kaman helicopters.

A pioneer in rotary-winged flight and one of Connecticut’s great inventors, Mr. Kaman achieved many breakthroughs, including the first gas turbine-powered helicopter, the first twin-turbine-powered helicopter, the first remotely controlled helicopter, and the first all-composite rotor blade.