AirScooter Corporation (), is a defunct American
aircraft manufacturer
An aerospace manufacturer is a company or individual involved in the various aspects of designing, building, testing, selling, and maintaining aircraft, aircraft parts, missiles, rockets, or spacecraft. Aerospace is a high technology industry.
...
that was based in
Henderson, Nevada
Henderson is a city in Clark County, Nevada, United States, about southeast of downtown Las Vegas. It is the second largest city in Nevada, after Las Vegas, with an estimated population of 320,189 in 2019. The city is part of the Las Vegas Vall ...
. It designed and intended to manufacture an
ultralight
Ultralight aviation (called microlight aviation in some countries) is the flying of lightweight, 1- or 2-seat fixed-wing aircraft. Some countries differentiate between weight-shift control and conventional three-axis control aircraft with ailer ...
helicopter
A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...
, with a
coaxial rotor
Coaxial rotors or coax rotors are a pair of helicopter rotors mounted one above the other on concentric shafts, with the same axis of rotation, but turning in opposite directions (contra-rotating). This rotor configuration is a feature of helicop ...
configuration. The company was founded in early 2000 by Elwood "Woody" Norris, who served as chairman of the board, and James "Jim" Barnes, who served as secretary of the board. The company was out of business by 2013.
Products
The company's proposed product, perpetually under development, was the single-seat AirScooter II, which was intended to be classified as an ultralight aircraft. It was expected to weigh 254 lbs and be powered by a single 65 hp four-stroke engine capable of carrying a load of up to 350 lb.
Although its operating ceiling was to be around 10,000 ft (2 700 m), the AirScooter II has fixed pitch rotors and was incapable of an
autorotative emergency descent, and was intended for recreational flying at low altitude, i.e., at or below 50 ft (15 m) above ground level (AGL).
Production of the AirScooter II was originally expected to begin in 2005, but production was pushed back to 2006 and then later targeted for 2007. As of September, 2013, production had not yet been announced and the company's website had been taken down. There have been no major press releases or other production information published since 2007.
AeroTwin Motors Corporation
Between 2002 and 2012 the company had a subsidiary, the ''AeroTwin Motors Corporation'' that developed the
AeroTwin AT972T aircraft engine.
[Tacke, Willi; Marino Boric; et al: ''World Directory of Light Aviation 2015-16'', pages 256-257. Flying Pages Europe SARL, 2015. ]
References
External links
AirScooter Corporation Web site archiveson
Archive.org
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
*
CBS News, 17 April 2005: Flying Cars Ready To Take Off
{{DEFAULTSORT:Airscooter Corporation
Companies based in Henderson, Nevada
Helicopters