Welcome to AVweb's exclusive daily coverage of Day Six of EAA's AirVenture '99, direct from Oshkosh.
George Jetson look out! Personal aerial transport is at hand, in the form of the Gen H-4 personal helicopter. Sporting four engines and eight cylinders, redundancy is the theme of the Gen H-4. It can fly with one engine out, and can land safely with two engines out. If luck runs out, the design includes an "I quit" handle: A BRS ballistic parachute is included. It's powered by four 125cc two-cylinder two-stroke engines that require a 30:1 oil/gas mix, and have a small carburetor on each cylinder, with a total of 40 hp.
Gen Yanagisawa, of Engineering Systems Company, designed and built the prototype personal helicopter. The framework of aluminum tubing incorporates the landing gear, a seat for the pilot and a gimbaled mount for the engine/rotor combination. The top rotor blades are each about 13 feet long, made of carbon fiber and Kevlar, and they counter-rotate, negating the need for a tail rotor. A strong gearbox handles the power input, and reduces the two top rotors to between 800 and 850 rpm. The empty weight is listed as 155 pounds, and gross weight is 485 pounds. Cruise speed will be 60 mph. You, too, can take off from your driveway, for around $30,000.