John D. Silva (1920-2012) was the chief engineer for KTLA-TV in Los Angeles, California and is most famous for inventing the first telecopter, or a helicopter fitted with a TV camera in 1958.
[1] John D. Silva was born in San Diego, California on February 20, 1920 and studied engineering at Stanford University.
In 1942 he joined the Navy as a radar operator and was among the 91 wounded when the destroyer Shea was attacked by Japanese bombers during World War II.
After the war, he moved to Los Angeles to join Paramount Pictures, which at the time was operating an experimental TV station, W6XYZ, later to become KTLA-TV.
Silva began designing and building an aerial broadcasting studio with a rented Bell Helicopter in a North Hollywood backyard in secret so as not to alert other TV stations.