Tiltrotor Capsule History: Transcendental Model 1-G to the Bell V-280 Valor

The Transcendental Aircraft Company was founded in January 1947 in Delaware by Mario Guerrieri and Bob Lichten, two employees of Kellet Aircraft. They had begun design work on the Model 1-G in 1945. It was a small monoplane powered by a single 160hp Lycoming O-290-A air-cooled flat-4 engine that drove two 3-blade rotors at the tips of the wings via a two-speed reduction gearbox. In the decades since, enormous strides have been made in tiltrotor...