When
I was in fifth grade they had a book about helicopters in the school
library and it was full of pictures and statistics about the
capabilities of different helicopters. I fell madly and deeply in
love. I drew helicopters and I drew helicopter blueprints and I drew
and I drew. That is all I wanted to do at school was look at
helicopter books and draw plans for my very own helicopter. There
were naturally some engineering hurdles that I would have to
overcome. First, how to make it go up in the air. I thought that
helicopters worked basically like an air screw and disregarded the
more technical lift diagrams that were in the 'official' helicopter
book. Second, I needed to steer the machine once it was in the air. I
decided to save this problem for after I had a working helicopter, I
stop-gaped by planning on tethering the fuselage to the ground.
Third, I needed to stop and land my helicopter – once again no big
problem in my mind because I had a helicopter that ran on an
extension cord so there was nothing to stopping but unplugging. I set
to work making my dream flying machine and procured a Radio Flyer
knockoff wagon for the chassis and fuselage. I then got the largest
spare motor my dad had that ran on 110v power and mounted it with
four legs made of metal conduit, one each to the four rounded
corners of the little red wagon. I had made the legs tall enough for
me to just be able to run the controls which consisted of plugging in
the extension cord to the pig tail cord I had installed on the motor.
I then tethered the helicopter to the ground with a rope so that it
wouldn't fly more than ten feet in the air and the last thing I
needed was a propeller. To make a propeller I got the longest 2”x4”
lumber we had, a 12 footer, and set the blade of the table saw to a
45 degree angle and sharpened one side half way and the flipped it
over and sharpened the other. Newly minted propeller in hand I set up
the wagon and the motor to the side of our house so there was no
chance my maiden voyage would be cut short because of parental
interference. I drilled a hole through the center of the double
bladed proto-propeller and epoxied it to the motor shaft. Ready for
my maiden voyage into the sky I sat in the cock pit or more
accurately couched in the the space under the motor and about to be
spinning blade of death. I plugged it in and the blade began to spin
slowly and then faster and faster. As the blade gained speed the
blade started to shake violently as the eccentricities of the blade
were amplified. I wanted out but I didn't have time to eject before
things got really out of control. The wagon started to pitch so
violently that the blade hit the ground and broke into several long
jaggedy stabby pieces. With the lightened load the motor was able to
spin much much faster and the wagon tipped over while the motor
chewed trenches into the ground inches from my head. Thankfully, the
blade caught the extension cord and it wound rapidly around the blade
until it pulled it out of the wall stopping the carnage. I am not
sure how I escaped injury or even death but the writing was on the
wall and I cleaned up my helicopter by taking the broken pieces and
hiding them behind the house and gave up on helicopters except for
drawing.
