Homemade Helicopter by 102 year old Boeing Engineer

https://youtu.be/oB9EYOtCOYs ^ | Mar 9, 2021 | Carson Thompson

[PROCON]

Incredible, any rotary-wing aviators here?

Homemade Helicopter by 102 year old Boeing Engineer

[GMMC0987]

Isn’t that an Autogyro?

[plain talk]

incredible

[BradyLS]

Amazing! And he didn’t wear a helmet! Nor even a maks!

I hope to be as hale and healthy if I get to that age!

[chaosagent]

Yep. Just like the old Bensons.

[Howie66]

Pretty danged impressive!

[E. Pluribus Unum]

That's not a helicopter, it's a gyrocopter.

Bensen Gryocopter

[PROCON]

It says it’s a helicopter, which assumes a motor driven rotor blade unlike the autogyro.

[noiseman]

Not a helicopter, it’s an autogyro, or gyrocopter.

[PROCON]

Well go complain to the 102 year old Boeing engineer then. 😊

[Repeal The 17th]

That is an “Auto-Gyro”.
These are some homemade “Helicopters”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN64CnJSOs4
There have been kits available to purchase for over 40 years.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

History of the Gyroplane - part 6 death and destruction

[knarf]

Gyro, not Heli ... but the coolest feat.

And y'kin tell by the lack of safety gear ...he drank from the hose, shared pop with his friends and made a lot of babies.

OK ... I made that last one up !

[llevrok]

We don’t need no steeenking helmets!

[PAR35]

Agree. It’s not a helicopter. It does look like it has power to the rotor to spin it up before starting his run.

[PROCON]

I was stuned he didn’t even wear goggles.

[PAR35]

Some gyros do use power to spin up the rotor before starting the forward motion. It makes for a much shorter takeoff run.

[Norski]

Extraordinary. Kudos to this engineer.

[PROCON]

Didn’t the FReeper who posted the aviation ping list pass away?

[taildragger]

Autogyro.

Not the 72 hp McCollouch Drone Engine for sure. That is looks like an IO-240, i.e. an O-200 Continental with the IO-360 jugs, that is 120 hp baby! Ya Bensen Origins but highly modified.

Is this the Gent that made the Gyro for James Bond movie "Thunderball"? If so, wow, he's still kickin'! Good for him!

BTW without getting into the weeds, a local friend is in this space w/ some innovations that are potentially patent-able, the Gyro as a aero-platform is not dead IMHO. The guru of Gyro's in the U.S. is a guy who's done a bunch of them and won a ton of awards for his innovations, Message me privately he's a low key guy, I am not sure he'd want the publicity.