VERTICAL FLIGHT

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 684, 8 June 1929, Page 27

VERTICAL FLIGHT

NEW AIRPLANE ITALIAN INVENTOR The new vertical-flight airplane, which has just been built at Cowes to the order of the Air Ministry, was described by its inventor, Signor Vittorio Isacco, to a Royal Aeronautical Society. Signor Isacco, an Italian, announced that trials with the machine are to be carried out shortly by the Air Ministry. He stated that his machine, which he calls the heliogyre, is capable of rising and descending vertically, of remaining at any given point in mid-air and of flying horizontally. In 1924 the Air Ministry offered a prize of £50,000 for a helicopter which could perform these evolutions, but the offer has since lapsed. Signor Isacco’s plane incorporates e horizontal “windmill” that rotates above the machine. Engine on Each Sail

A small engine with propeller is mounted on each "sail” of the “windmill.” Three of the machines have now been built. The first two, to the order of the French Government, have risen several times from the ground, and trials with the second are still going on in France, under the supervision of the French Technical Aeronautical Department. The machine which has been built for the British Air Ministry is for two persons and has four wings, each with a 32 h.p. British Cherub engine. In the front is a 100 h.p. Genet engine.

Even if all the wing engines fail, the inventor states, the machine could continue its flight ou the autogyro principle at reduced speed. Only in the event of every engine failing would the pilot have to land. He could then glide vertically or obliquely in complete safety.