On 20 July 1952, the BŻ-1 GIL was first displayed to the public, during an air show at Okęcie airfield (it was the first public presentation of a helicopter in Poland and one of first presentations in the Eastern Bloc). On 16 November 1953, the helicopter was damaged when the main rotor was bent by the wind and cut off the tail boom, thus ending the test program. By then, the prototype had completed 169 flights, in 20 hours 21 minutes in total.