An Idea Propagates In The Cold War

FAI Aeromodel F1F (Helicopter)
Altitude and Duration record
holder  1963 & 1965

In the early fifties a young American who had graduated from Brown and then gone on to Princeton to get a Masters degree went to Cambridge. There, pursuing a Ph.D. in Physics where so many famous scientists had worked (like Isaac Newton), he managed to continue an interest in model airplanes that started in his youth.

The idea he had was to implement one of the oldest forms of flight, older than birds. As old as the propagation of seeds from trees, yet within a decade his ideas were captured in Eastern Europe and led to the establishment of free flight helicopter records, the last group of which still stand to this day, over 30 years later.

Doctor Charles W. McCutchen had other unique ideas and designs, but the focus of this set of web pages is the single blade helicopter, the maple seed configuration. Here you can read the original article in the Aeromodeller, see some general arrangement drawings of record setters and read McCutchen's own account of bringing this idea to a series of actual flying designs.

Some pictures are scanned in from Aeromodeller articles of the 50's, presumably out of copyright. Some others are from the beautiful Belgian "Model Avia"  now defunct..