Like da Vinci, Nikola Tesla had visions of creating flying machines. Since the Wright brothers had made the first practical, powered heavier-than-air flight in 1903, the development of airplane technology had proceeded rapidly. Fixed-wing aircraft, mainly biplanes, were widely used in World War I by both sides of the conflict. Never satisfied with standard airplanes, Tesla put his efforts into inventing a completely “new type of flying machine,” which he called a “helicopter-plane.” A precursor to what we today call a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft.
The invention consists of a new type of flying machine, designated “helicopter-plane”, which may be raised and lowered vertically and driven horizontally by the same propelling devices and comprises: a prime mover of improved design and an airscrew, both especially adapted for the purpose, means for tilting the machine in the air, arrangements for controlling its operation in any position, a novel landing gear and other constructive details, all of which will be hereinafter fully described.
The plane would look and act like no other plane. After rising from the ground vertically, the pilot would tilt the plane forward while his seat tilted to maintain an upright position and the wings repositioned horizontally. Besides the unique system for both vertical and horizontal propulsion, the helicopter-plane was also one of the first attempts to use turbine engines in rotor aircraft. Tesla may have been thinking of this technology for even more broadly useful purposes; he may have traveled to Detroit to market his design as a “flying automobile.”
Unfortunately, the aircraft idea was not further developed and became, in 1928 when he was seventy-two years of age, the last patent Tesla would receive.
[Adapted from my book, Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity]
David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity (2013) and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (2016) and two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.
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Interesting to me is that Tesla appealed to the use of turbine engines in 1928 when the idea of the turbo-prop would be patented the following year (György Jendrassik). Turbo-props didn’t even appear in fixed-wing aircraft until after WWII, and I don’t think the first turboshaft helicopter flew until the early-mid ’50s. Makes me suspect this patent was more about the potential of an emerging new technology making an old idea viable as opposed to being an altogether original idea.
At this point in his life, Tesla was largely without any funding so spent most of his time with thought experiments rather than doing actual lab experimentation. It wouldn’t surprise me that he would keep up on recent developments and try to come up with an application for some of them.
Without a tail rotor the engine torque would spin the body as soon as it left the ground. It’s not a serious design.