World's Smallest Helicopter Ready For a Spin

Those of us who've been dreaming of cheap personal air travel in the Buck Rogers, sci-fi jet-pack mode should turn their eyes towards Vinci, Italy on May 25. That's when Gennai Yanagisawa, inventor of the tiny GEN H-4 personal helicopter, will be taking his lightweight 165-pound whirly-gig on a demonstration flight.

Why Vinci? According to the 75-year-old Yanagisawa, "Since the concept of our helicopter came from Italy, I always wanted to take a flight in the birthplace of da Vinci."

Indeed, Leonardo's famous notebook drawings from 1493 show an "ornithopter" with a screw-like rotor. Like da Vinci's pioneering design, Yanagisawa's GEN H-4 has no tail. Instead, twin counter-rotating propellers cancel out the torque that requires single-rotor helicopters to have a perpendicular tail rotor.