SPECIAL HELICOPTER SECTION: HELI TALK: TWIN ROTORS

Are two heads better than one? Ask anyone to draw a picture of a helicopter, and in nearly every case they'll sketch the classic “conventional” configuration with a single main rotor and an anti-torque tail rotor at the end of a long tail boom. This layout hasn't changed appreciably since Igor Sikorsky clamped down his Homburg hat and lifted his original VS-300 into the air in 1940. Today, the vast majority of helicopters, both full-scale...