Piasecki Helicopter Corporation

Ghost Corp Apparel — resurrecting iconic corporate ghosts.

Piasecki Helicopter Corporation emerged in 1946, when Frank Piasecki’s P-V Engineering Forum was reorganized to finance production. From Morton, Pennsylvania, outside Philadelphia, the company made tandem-rotor helicopters that looked a little improbable and worked very seriously. Its early HRP-1 became the original “Flying Banana,” setting the visual tone for an era when aviation apparently refused to be boring.

At its Morton headquarters, Piasecki developed and built rotary-wing workhorses for U.S. military customers, including the HUP Retriever and H-21 Work Horse/Shawnee. The company’s paired-rotor layout dispensed with a tail rotor and gave it a distinct silhouette: two big rotors, a bent-up rear fuselage, and absolutely no interest in blending into the background.

Boardroom turbulence caught up with the outfit in 1955–56. Frank Piasecki departed to form Piasecki Aircraft, while Piasecki Helicopter Corporation changed its name to Vertol Aircraft Corporation in 1956—“Vertol” being shorthand for vertical takeoff and landing. Boeing acquired Vertol on March 31, 1960, creating its Vertol Division and carrying the Morton operation’s tandem-rotor legacy into the Boeing era.

Our Piasecki Helicopter Corporation collection celebrates the audacious Pennsylvania helicopter builder that turned banana-shaped airframes into serious transport machines. It is for rotorcraft obsessives, Cold War aviation heads, and anyone who appreciates a corporate ghost with two rotors and zero chill.