Helicopteron

Quick meaning: Helicopteron is a noun meaning (historical) A flying machine having an aerial screw propeller.

Meaning

(historical) A flying machine having an aerial screw propeller.

Example Sentences

Only one of these pictures related to what had once been Europe, and was a view of Paris, consisting of a promontory projecting into the sea, crowned by an astronomical temple and gay with helicopterons circling above the lofty towers of its terraces.

As the whole airship, in full sailing order, weighed nothing at all, very little power and oil consumption was required to raise it to any desired height — perpendiculary into the air. This was effected by a helicopteron or elevating propeller which sucked the air downwards by means of a vertical tunnel, right through the supporting gas body.

This machine, designed and built by the engineer Robur, relied upon the twofold operation of the screw which, in turning, moves in the direction of its axis. If the axis is vertical, it moves vertically; if it is horizontal, it moves horizontally. It was the principle of the helicopteron which rises because it strikes the air obliquely as if it were moving along an inclined plane.

Prof. Alfred M. Mayer, of the Stevens Institute of Technology, in the Journal of the Franklin Institute for March, gives a paper on flying-machines and [Alphonse] Pénaud’s artificial bird, for the invention of which the Academy of Sciences awarded awarded M. Pénaud a prize in June last. In this paper he describes some “helicopterons,” or aërial screw-propellers, which have been successful in raising themselves in flight.

Word Forms

• helicopterons
• helicoptera

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include helicopter, airscrew, hydroglider, autogiro, bicopter, propulsor.

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