My palms are sweating after watching that. Risk incarnate.
That being said, I wish modern news and video had more of the magic from this time period when it comes to composition. Love the music and the narrative voice.
With guard rails and fully enclosed rotor blades, it might've worked. I can't think of anywhere to deploy it where it would have advantages over other modes of transportation. Desert, coastlines, ... but then what for? Landmine detection? It's also really loud, so no public or residential deployment.
And even if it had been hardened and dummy proofed, disruption of the blades would not have had many safe failure modes.
The Hiller flying platform is a rather cool gadget and Bay-area folks can see one at the Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos. With all of the wacky vehicles people have made using jumped-up quadcopter designs or small jet engines I am really surprised no one has tried to make a new version of this aircraft.
Cool. I used to live near there but for some reason never knew about that Museum. I'll have to watch this video for now but I'll get over there some day again.
A friend of mine (miles van dorssen) built one of these and flew it in the park. I’d possibly been a little dubious until he found the old 80s handicam he filmed on, and I got to watch the tape through the viewfinder. In that tiny window I saw miles in a bike helmet hovering two feet in the on a violently shaking lawnmower quadcopter. I don’t know how google able miles is but he builds great things
This vehicle, and a whole bunch of other early flying platforms, is on display at the Evergreen Air & Space museum in McMinnville OR, about an hour from Portland.
> In 1954, he proposed that if the rotors of a helicopter were on the bottom, a pilot could use his own weight to steer the vehicle using kinesthetic control, similar to riding a bicycle.
Wikipedia has the first tethered test flight in late '54. It didn't fly untethered until 55, in 56 the US Army took over testing but this vehicle has no Army markings and is untethered. 1955 seems fairly likely.
That being said, I wish modern news and video had more of the magic from this time period when it comes to composition. Love the music and the narrative voice.