The body of Bell Helicopter’s FCX-001 looks more like something we’d expect out of Elon Musk’s Hyperloop. Or maybe a stealth redesign of the Huey (also designed by Bell, wouldn’t you know). This angular, late-20th century looking chopper comes from a challenge Bell issued to its designers. The company wanted to know what people should expect the helicopter to morph into in the coming years, and what the designers came up with was a tail rotor-less, shape shifting, just-barely-not-autonomous helicopter. Tail rotor-less because a new air jet system stabilizes flight, shape shifting because the main rotors change shape depending on how the pilot needs to fly, and barely-not-autonomous because the new flight controls are a serious step in the direction of pilotless automation. What’s even cooler is, most of these design changes found inspiration in the latest Lamborghini and Ferrari designs, basically making this a flying, futuristic super car.
The Lamborghini-Inspired Helicopter
