Aerocopter – New Helicopter Defintely Proves Area 51 Exists!

Helicopters are so 20th century man!

The design was first penned by Da Vinci for crissakes!

But, perhaps with some alien help, we’re gonna be flying around using Mono Tiltrotors, apparently.

AeroCopter is about to develop a scale-model flight demonstrator prototype of one.

Here’s the blurb:

Seeking funding to support the work, the Boston, Massachusetts-based-AeroCopter’s MTR vehicle has a single turbine driving a ducted fan pusher propeller and the electromagnetically driven 8.2m (27ft)-diameter ring that encircles the fuselage. Lift is generated by the rotor blades of the ring, which has counter-rotating upper and lower halves. A driveshaft linking the ring to the turbine uses permanent magnets to turn the ring, which has many more magnets located at short intervals around its circumference. Once at 1,000ft (305m) altitude the ring is tilted through 87° and locked in place.

AeroCopter has designed a 1,320kg (2,900lb) two-seat personal air vehicle with a cruise speed of at least 220kt (405km/h) and a range of 555km (300nm). There is also an unmanned air vehicle version.

I can’t wait for the panic and phone-calls regarding UFO sitings once this baby starts flying 🙂

 

Aerocopter via FlightGlobal via Gizmodo