In the early 1950s, the U.S. Army was briefly infatuated with the idea of the "personal helicopter." The concept was a super-basic helicopter that could carry a single soldier. It was meant to enable faster, more mobile battlefield reconnaissance than could be performed on foot or in a motor vehicle.
This led to the development of the de Lackner HZ-1 Aerocycle, a flying machine that consisted of a standing platform mounted directly above two contra-rotating propellers. It had a range of 15 miles and could fly up to 75 miles per hour.
The project was eventually abandoned, partly because two crashes in test flights revealed that the Aerocycle was more complicated to fly than its makers had expected, and partly because the brass eventually thought twice about having soldiers stand on a narrow platform perched directly above a blender set on "purée."
https://youtu.be/1oYS_5SgU_0?si=-ZhN9hxWpvowEUJ1
Jason Lefkowitz /
npub1na…ar3s2
2024-03-03 02:37:14
Author Public Key
npub1na4ep09zgyk2dglssm565fqvky2r7r8mq4vxppyjmm63aeqsth2quar3s2Published at
2024-03-03 02:37:14Event JSON
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"content": "In the early 1950s, the U.S. Army was briefly infatuated with the idea of the \"personal helicopter.\" The concept was a super-basic helicopter that could carry a single soldier. It was meant to enable faster, more mobile battlefield reconnaissance than could be performed on foot or in a motor vehicle.\n\nThis led to the development of the de Lackner HZ-1 Aerocycle, a flying machine that consisted of a standing platform mounted directly above two contra-rotating propellers. It had a range of 15 miles and could fly up to 75 miles per hour.\n\nThe project was eventually abandoned, partly because two crashes in test flights revealed that the Aerocycle was more complicated to fly than its makers had expected, and partly because the brass eventually thought twice about having soldiers stand on a narrow platform perched directly above a blender set on \"purée.\"\n\nhttps://youtu.be/1oYS_5SgU_0?si=-ZhN9hxWpvowEUJ1",
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