1/3/24, 12:10 PM Helicopter - Wikipedia

Helicopter

A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and

thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors.
This allows the helicopter to take off and land
vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward
and laterally. These attributes allow helicopters to
be used in congested or isolated areas where fixed-
wing aircraft and many forms of short take-off and
landing (STOL) or short take-off and vertical
landing (STOVL) aircraft cannot perform without a
runway.

In 1942, the Sikorsky R-4 became the first A Bell 206 helicopter operated by the Los Angeles
helicopter to reach full-scale production.[1][2] Police Department Air Support Division

Although most earlier designs used more than one

main rotor, the configuration of a single main rotor accompanied by a vertical anti-torque tail rotor
(i.e. unicopter, not to be confused with the single-blade monocopter) has become the most
common helicopter configuration. However, twin-main rotor helicopters (bicopters), in either
tandem or transverse rotors configurations, are sometimes in use due to their greater payload
capacity than the monorotor design, and coaxial-rotor, tiltrotor, and compound helicopters are
also all flying today. Quadrotor helicopters (quadcopters) were pioneered as early as 1907 in
France, and along with other types of multicopters, have been developed mainly for specialized
applications such as drones.

Etymology
The English word helicopter is adapted from the French word hélicoptère, coined by Gustave
Ponton d'Amécourt in 1861, which originates from the Greek helix (ἕλιξ), genitive helikos (ἕλῐκος),
"helix, spiral, whirl, convolution"[3] and pteron (πτερόν) "wing".[4][5] In a process of rebracketing,
the word is often (erroneously, from an etymological point of view) perceived by English speakers
as consisting of heli- and -copter, leading to words like helipad and quadcopter.[6][7] English
language nicknames for "helicopter" include "chopper", "copter", "heli", and "whirlybird". In the
United States military, the common slang is "helo" pronounced with a long "e".

Design characteristics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter 1/27