Asboth Helicopter

1918

Asboth's helicopter as patented on 30 April 1917. There are crew and machine-gun positions above and below the rotor plane.

In late 1917, Oscar von Asboth left Fischamend to become a director of the Ungarische Luftschraubenfabrik GmbH, the former propeller manufacturing subsidiary of UFAG. At his own expense, Asboth commissioned UFAG to build a model helicopter followed by a man-carrying version based on the designs he had discussed with Balaban at Fischamend and for which he received Austrian patents 76,184 and 79,539 dated April 1917. His was a four-rotor helicopter tethered by a single cable attached to the airframe by a gimballed yoke that allowed the airframe to move about all axes. The four wooden rotors each had a diameter of 3 meters. Unfortunately, before any tests were run the model version, powered by a French 20hp rotary engine, and the virtually completed full-sized airframe were destroyed in a fire at the UFAG factory on 9 September 1918. Five months of effort had come to naught.

Peter Grosz "Austro-Hungarian Army Aircraft of World War I", 2002


The Asboth helicopter frame with rotary engine and fuel tank installed at the UFAG factory shortly before it was destroyed by fire on 9 September 1918.

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