Friday, March 8, 2013 - 12:51pm
For the last two years, AgustaWestland has been secretly test-flying this tilt rotor technology demonstrator. It looks like a freakin' space fighter, doesn't it? SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!
helicopters stories
Monday, November 26, 2012 - 8:17pm
Hirobo is a Japanese company that's best known for its line of smallish remote control helicopters. So that's nice. But now, the company is thinking bigger. Not a lot bigger, but just big enough to carry you to work and back every day in a one-seater coaxial personal microhelicopter.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - 4:21pm
Helicopters are amazing. They're big, complicated, noisy machines that fly in a perpetual state of borderline instability, but can somehow magically hover in one spot in midair. As it turns out, this comes in particularly handy if your fancy R/C P-51 Mustang just landed at the very top of a tree.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012 - 2:59pm
A Czechoslovakian design firm has joined forces with a Czechoslovakian light aircraft manufacturer and a Czechoslovakian bicycle company to make this flying Czechoslovakian bicycle electric helicopter thing.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012 - 9:15am
Aviation buffs are going to want to get their hands on one of these for their man caves this summer. It's a 1:6 scale Hughes MD 500 helicopter that, courtesy of its upside-down landing on your ceiling, allows its propellers to cool you off.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012 - 1:37pm
At the end of WWII, a single pregnant brown tree snake stowed away on a military transport from Papua New Guinea to Guam. 65 years later, two million snakes are eating everything on the island that moves, and the USDA is trying to fight them off by parachuting dead mice stuffed with aspirin out of helicopters.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - 12:47pm
The military, since it has bigger sticks than everyone else, always gets its hands on all the coolest toys before the rest of us do. Eventually, military tech does make its way into the civilian market, and in about five years, you'll be able to buy your very own commuter-sized version of the V-22 Osprey planeocopter.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011 - 3:47pm
Most helicopters do their business with one giant set of rotor blades. Double that to two rotors, and you can go with slightly smaller ones. Sixteen-tuple that, and you can use tiny little rotors instead: the e-volo multicopter proves that it's not just possible, it may even be a better way to go.
Monday, October 10, 2011 - 3:17pm
Boeing had this image on display at the Association of the US Army's (AUSA) annual convention in Washington DC this week, showing four concept helicopters destined for deployment in 2030. Two decades is a long time from now, but prototypes (or close to it) are flying already.
Thursday, April 21, 2011 - 4:04pm
This concept copter features a passenger compartment that can be lowered to the ground, avoiding that ungainly leap followed by a probable faceplant that normally happens when exiting a hovering chopper with something strapped to your feet (or so I'm told). But then, you snowboarders are used to faceplants anyway, right?
