First r/c helicopter?

Paul · 07-09-2006

History has it that Dieter Schluter was the first person to succesfully fly an r/c helicopter in the world, according to his own book the exact date he completed first succesful flight was April 1970, and in June the same year achieved 2 world records for r/c helis ratified by the FAI, so far so good. However I have a book about the history & development of the Lockheed AH-56A Cheyenne and in this book I quote :

"The fact that no RC model helicopter had ever been flown did not seem to deter Lockheed. The model emerged with a 5 foot diameter, two bladed main rotor with a fixed collective pitch control. Power came from a single McCoy 60 model airplane engine which turned the rotor through a combination belt & gear drive with an 8:1 reduction ratio.

.....the model helicopter proved very stable and easy to fly. The concept had been proven, and now it was time for a full scale aircraft."

The year? 1959, 11 years prior to Schluter

Presumably their work would have been classified so perhaps explains why it was never publicised, if it had have been made public where would model heli development be today?

**GEEDUBBYA** · 07-09-2006

Howdy Paul,

Yes the Cheyenne has always been one of my favorite helicopters, i would have loved to seen the military accept it, but, the cobra was just abit better. As for the classified documents about the r/c heli they built, I am sure that the info was classified.
Like you said just think where r/c heli's would be now if the documents were open to the public back then.....but, even scarier, just think where unmanned aeriel vehicles would be now had they pursued the r/c technology they had inadvertantly developed back then. UAV technology is pretty good now, but think of what it could be like had they followed that path.

Have a good day and very interesting ideas you brought up here,

Greg

Paul · 07-09-2006

Greg,

I love the Cheyenne too, one of my many 'must build' models along with Airwolf etc. Bit ironic though that Schluter also produced a model of the Cheyenne! Wonder if he knew?

**wonwinglo** · 07-09-2006

Paul,Lockheed built tethered R/C Helicopters,Schlutler built and developed the first successful model helicopter R/C system that could complete a full circuit,I well remember seeing him demonstrate in the UK at Sywell,everyone was awe struck to see something made in miniature that was previously said not possible,and as we know he went on to develop and produce the parts for others to incorporate in their models.
Model helicopters under 'remote' ( not to be confused with radio control ) were designed and flown by Igor Sikorsky many years even before Lockheed,there is photographic film evidence to back this up.

**Bluewavestudios** · 07-09-2006

Hi,

The Cheyenne was also one of my favourite Helicopters too, I still have a nice brochure on it and some Kavan Helicopters at home, there are some very nice pics on there. I always found the Cheyenne to be an interesting machine and it would certainly be a nice scale model to see today.

Bear in mind the designation for this Machine was the AH56-A...look at pic closely and you can see where the AH64-A Apache clearly originated from, there are a number of similarities clearly visible.

Regards......Mark.

Paul · 08-09-2006

Mark,

that pic you posted is in this book, the chopper was anchored to the floor of wind tunnel (against Lockheeds' advice) for testing, blade flapping was encountered which sliced through the tail boom and the remains of fus broke away from the mounts and disappeared down the wind tunnel!

Fortunately there was no-one in cockpit at the time, heli was controlled remotely, though a 20lb rotor tip weight did crash through control room, but no-one was injured....

**Bluewavestudios** · 05-10-2006

Since this post I have found a rare early picture of the Cheyenne in the hover, see below.

Regards.....Mark.