Peter Pan's Dream Helicopter

Georgina Hunter-Jones

Helicopter Life travelled to Matsumoto in Japan to visit Gennai Yanagisawa, maker of the GEN H-4 single person helicopter.

The GEN H-4 Solo helicopter started from a dream. Gennai Yanagisawa (Gen), who built the machine says, "twenty five years ago I thought I would like to fly. I was engineer of power plants and so I make a 'logical' engine and then try and fit it to a helicopter."

The engine he made was a 125cc boxer engine, which he developed over five years, but although the engine was light, powerful and reliable, its price put it beyond those who might like to fly cheaply.

On the one hand Gennai was thinking of a small helicopter he could strap to his back, while at the same time he was experimenting with the small engine, using it in a motor-paraglider and models, as well as a radio controlled helicopter. He designed a flying platform, which could float by using rotors and the engine, but which had no yaw, pitch or roll movements. Using vanes he managed to control yaw on the platform, and by tilting the rotors gave the machine pitch and roll. Nonetheless the machine had many crashes, until Gennai finally had a breakthrough idea. Why not add a thinking factor to the unit: a pilot!

Now...