Hi lads & lasses,
Having just spent a delightful week or two researching anything to do with Paul Cornu, Breguet Bros etc and the early helicopters, Plug plug ... please read my efforts in the new quarterly newspaper ...Blades ...
www.loop.aero ... It seems to me, most unlikely Cornu actually got airborne at all.
There are no photos available to support Cornu's report of a 'first flight' on November 13, whereas there are piccies of Louis Breguet's 'Gyroplane No 1' fully airborne, perhaps a month earlier. The Breguet-Richet design was a quad rotor with four 'bi-plane' rotors mounted in each corner of a tubular cross frame, providing no less than 32 lifting surfaces, all driven by a 40 hp 'Antoinette' engine! So there.
Cornu's engine delivered a bare 24 hp, so even with a Mauw of only 250kg ... as the great Sikorsky observed, that level of power wasn't sufficient to ever achieve vertical lift. If anyone with a university degree wants the vertical lift formula dial up Google.
Paul Cornu's claim to be first was based on his own report ... but as they say. He would say that, wouldn't he!
But Hey ... both these Frenchmen must truly be given the credit.
PS. Anyone out there fancy building a working model of Da Vinci's 'Airscrew' design ? Bet some bright spark could make it fly.
Dennis Kenyon.