Suburban Helicopter

The usually calm call of birds and a slight breeze is totally broken as some super loud helicopter comes barging into your backyard, hovering and then hauling off just as fast as it entered. You can't call the police and complain, nor notify your local news, because they are all in on this afternoon harassment soaring through the sunny sunday sky. A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by one or more engine-driven rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forwards, backwards, and laterally. These attributes allow helicopters to be used in congested or isolated areas where fixed-wing aircraft would usually not be able to take off or land. The capability to efficiently hover for extended periods of time allows a helicopter to accomplish tasks that fixed-wing aircraft and other forms of vertical takeoff and landing aircraft cannot perform. Helicopters were developed and built during the first half-century of flight, with the Focke-Wulf Fw 61 being the first operational helicopter in 1936. Some helicopters reached limited production, but it was not until 1942 that a helicopter designed by Igor Sikorsky reached full-scale production, with 131 aircraft built. The earliest references for vertical flight have come from China. Since around 400 BC, Chinese children have played with bamboo flying toys, and the 4th-century AD Daoist book Baopuzi reportedly describes some of the ideas inherent to rotary wing aircraft.