the.com/gyrocopter
a helicopter that refuses to power its own blades and somehow flies anyway
means A small aircraft that uses an engine-driven propeller for thrust while its overhead rotor spins freely from the airflow alone, providing lift without being powered.
from A 20th-century coinage stitched from the Greek 'gyros' (a ring, circle, or turn) and 'copter,' itself clipped from 'helicopter.' The 'gyro' part points to the spinning, unpowered rotor; the inventor Juan de la Cierva called his autorotating craft the 'autogiro' in the 1920s, and 'gyrocopter' grew up as a close cousin in that same family of whirling names.
- unpowered rotor
- top blades spin from airflow, not engine
- cannot stall
- physics makes it nearly impossible to fall
- inventor
- Juan de la Cierva pioneered it in 1920s
- mailbox flight
- James Bond flew one in You Only Live Twice
- short takeoff
- some launch in mere meters of runway
autogiro la cierva — spanish aircraft invented by juan de la cierva in 1923, first practical rotorcraft design
sikorsky s-300 — popular single-seat gyrocopter produced since 1992, widely used for recreation and training