The first helicopter flew 80 years ago, although it's never caught on as a mass mode of transport. But there was one brave British attempt. Devel

Why did the half-plane, half-helicopter not work?

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2024-11-13 06:30:03

The first helicopter flew 80 years ago, although it's never caught on as a mass mode of transport. But there was one brave British attempt.

Developed during the 1950s and early 1960s, the infancy of the helicopter, the UK government hoped it would become a form of mass transport.

Taking off vertically using helicopter rotors with jets at their tips but powered forward by turboprops on the wing, it was to allow quick travel between cities and towns in the UK and around Europe. But the project died through a combination of lack of funding and concerns over noise.

"The idea was ahead of its time," says Michael Oakey, managing editor of The Aviation Historian magazine. "But it never really got going properly. Orders were hard to come by and interest faded."

The project began in 1953 when state-owned British European Airways (BEA) asked the aviation firm Fairey to design a helicopter-type aircraft for commercial passenger use. This was only 17 years after German engineer Henrich Focke had created the Focke-Wulf Fw61, widely regarded as the world's first practical helicopter.

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