In the current edition of Vertiflite comes news of the restoration of a Fairey Ultralight in the form of G-AOUJ, as pursued with aplomb by the Helicopter Museum in Weston, a place that prefers to describe itself (like Hyacinth Bucket) as super-mare instead of on-sea.
It caught my eye for the fact it is the only helicopter I can recall that was steered by a cyclic stick dangling inside the cockpit from the rotor-head, as per most autogiros. It would eventually be reverted to hydraulic control in view of the physical force needed, and this is something of interest for developers of eVTOL types with an overhead array of propellers, as it suggests that it is a reasonable modus operandi and especially in view of the absence of the same gyroscopic inertia produced by a (single) main rotor.
In fact the Ultralight was designed to be fairly transportable and where it failed in that again as compared to eVTOLs was due the fact that its main-rotor dwarfed the length of the airframe, which meant that it still required a flat-bed truck. As a result it would lose out to the Scout and/or Wasp, proving rotorcraft of the last century never could never be as nearly portable as the multicopters of this.
Proprietor of the museum is Elfan Ap Rees, who sounds like a Welsh warlord from the pages of Shakespeare's Henry IV parts one and two. I wrote the museum prior to the competition in California to ask if they wanted what was left of our entry hanging from the ceiling. I received no reply, and so next time I shall write the organ-grinder in lieu of the monkey.
Thanks to GettyImages for the print, which I won't be paying for. it's the only picture I've seen of the Ultralight accommodating a passenger... who seems to be reading the instructions.
