The sensational Aerocopter claimed to be a flying toy, rather than any sort of model. Kind of like a drone from the days of black and white TV.
Arguably neither an aeroplane nor a helicopter, lift was allegedly provided by a novel oscillating/rotating wing arrangement. The operating concept involved a small child running along, towing the Aerocopter with a length of fishing line. It would then take off and “soar to 300 feet”. Presumably the child was supposed to remain on the ground.
If it really was “sensational”, those sensations were mostly frustration, disappointment and boredom. So in terms of preparation for adult life, it was a genuinely educational toy.
“Easy to fly” – yeah, right.
Rather than being “easy to fly”, my Aerocopter stubbornly refused to fly at all. We only ever made one attempt to get it airborne, in a charming park at the unfashionable end of Enfield. After all this time, I can still remember bringing home a massive tangle of fishing line. My dad was fairly unimpressed but that was essentially his default setting anyway.
Even aged 10 I worked out that I wasn’t running fast enough. With hindsight, perhaps it needed a strong headwind. Or a bicycle.
Presumably “soars to 300 feet” meant that if your Aerocopter ever rose above ground level, there was 300 feet of fishing line. The instructions suggest that if the line supplied isn’t long enough, you can tie some more on. But I haven’t measured the length of line supplied, and don’t intend to – left unsupervised, monofilament can get up to all sorts of mischief. The line is staying safely wrapped around its “plastic control reel” for the time being.
So the only tangible result was an even worse bird’s nest than my first attempt at using a ‘classic’ multiplier reel, a year or so later. (For the purposes of this exercise, I didn’t learn anything much about life from fishing.)
A configuration ahead of its time
I needed some expert advice about this unusual configuration, so I asked a friendly and helpful VTOL UAS specialist. He advised me that it’s similar to a cyclocopter, which is very popular in some Russian circles (no pun intended).
https://newatlas.com/aircraft/russia-cyclocar-evtol-protoype-flight/
So the Aerocopter was a configuration ahead of its time, world beating 1960s British aviation technology again. All it needed was scaling up, a novel propulsion system, 21st century materials and control systems etc. Another golden opportunity tragically missed.
Work in progress
Eventually an Aerocopter turned up on eBay, and I’m sort of trying to assemble it. There are four components and no glue is involved. The left wing is labelled ‘L’ for left (none of this ‘port’ and ‘starboard’ business). The instructions imply that you need to be right-handed, so that’s OK.
But to attach the wings you need to thread a fairly stiff bent steel wire through the fuselage. While making sure that your brass balls are correctly located.
A vac-formed plastic fuselage is fragile at the best of times and the next brittle fracture could be terminal. So local paragliding enthusiasts are safe for now.