Nerealizované nákupy zahraničních vrtulníků do Československa 1945–1990

The author focuses on the issue of five unrealized acquisitions of helicopters from the USA, France, the USSR and Poland to Czechoslovakia. After 1948, the Czechoslovak Republic began to orient itself towards the Soviet Union, which led in 1956 to the purchase of the first Soviet helicopters, that dominated both the military and the civilian sectors until 1990. In addition to the constrained development of domestic helicopters, there were efforts to purchase machines from the capitalist countries. The first concerned the American Bell 47B in 1947 for the National Security Corps (Sbor národní bezpečnosti), the second attempt was to purchase the Aérospatiale Alouette III for the mountain rescue of the Tatra Mountains in the second half of the 1960s. In the late 1950s, the purchase of a heavy transport helicopter for the Czechoslovak People’s Army was also considered – possibly the Yak-24 or Mil Mi-6 types. In the late 1980s, on the other hand, the purchase of new helicopters for construction and assembly activities (Kamov Ka-32) and for air rescue services (W-3A Sokół) was considered. The study focuses on the analysis of individual aspects of these purchases in a broader technical-historical perspective.