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1 0 C T I N N O V A T O R S , 2 0 2 3 Transforming Flight Innovations chief Cherepinsky leads Sikorsky's autonomous helicopter research, technology >> BY HARRIET JONES Igor Cherepinsky learned to fly when he was 16 years old. "It's really cool up there," he says. "Just the whole feeling of being able to take off like a bird and go anywhere you want." He would pair his passion for the freedom of flying with the rigorous discipline of engineering, harnessing them both in a career that's focused on keeping pilots safer and giving them the controls they need to fly dangerous missions. Cherepinsky immigrated to the U.S. with his family from the Soviet Union when he was a teenager. ey ended up in Brooklyn, where he finished high school and moved on to Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. It was there he first encountered a recruiter from Sikorsky. e connection stayed with him, and he got hired straight out of graduate school into the helicopter maker as a flight-controls engineer on the company's iconic Black Hawk. He has spent the rest of his career there, rising from an engineer to now the director of Sikorsky Innovations, tasked with "solving the toughest problems in vertical flight by introducing new technologies, processes and products." Autonomous focus It was through Sikorsky that Cherepinsky first got to meet military pilots who fly medical evacuation missions in combat zones, and learned what they go through to save lives. "at was really how my involvement in autonomy started – it was trying to see if we can make some of these really tough missions a little bit easier," he said. Autonomous flight is Cherepinsky's specialty — figuring out how to hand over control of some of the most technically difficult aspects of flight to the machine itself. Since he was hired in 1998, that has involved developing an advanced autopilot and flight director that's now standard on the Black Hawk, and the fly-by-wire system that puts a computer in between the pilot and direct control of the aircra. e next step was development of a soware system called the Autonomy Mission Manager, and work on the S-76 Sikorsky Autonomy Research Aircra (with the friendly acronym SARA) — IGOR Igor Cherepinsky leads Sikorsky's efforts to incorporate autonomous flight technology in its helicopters. PHOTOS | STEVE LASCHEVER