Airscoot RC helicopter overview

The Airscoot rc helicopter was one of the first (no longer produced) mini electric coaxial rc helicopters to be mass produced. Featuring contra-rotating main rotors, as opposed to the conventional single main rotor and tail rotor configuration, the Airscoot was much more stable and easier to fly than the single rotor helis.

The Airscoot's design is very beneficial to the beginner rc helicopter pilot, because the contra-rotating rotors mean that no tail rotor is needed - that's one less function to worry about!

So why no tail rotor? Well, a conventional helicopter's tail rotor is needed to counteract the natural torque force that is generated by the spinning main rotors - without a tail rotor the fuselage of the helicopter would just spin out of control in the opposite direction to the main rotors.

With coaxial rc helicopters, such as the Airscoot, each rotor cancels out the torque generated by the other one, simply because they spin against each other, and so the fuselage is not subject to the normal forces of torque. Therefore the fuselage doesn't want to spin in any direction at all.

Above: Contra-rotating rotor blades spin in opposite directions to each other.

The electric powered Airscoot rc helicopter came with all mechanics, servos and receiver fully installed and set up - the radio control gear being a simpler 4 channel system rather than the usual complicated 6 channel systems that are required to fly the more complex single rotor (collective pitch) rc helicopters, but some final assembly work was needed before the helicopter was ready for flight.

As for flying the Airscoot helicopter, in true coaxial tradition it is a very stable model that can easily be flown indoors in a decent sized room. It has not been designed for helicopter aerobatics, but its intended use is to get the novice pilot used to level flight and hovering a model helicopter, both of which it does perfectly well.

A downside with all coaxial rc helicopters is that flight performance is limited to non-aerobatic and 'flat' flying i.e. coaxial helis like the Airscoot cannot perform any stunts or truly banked turns, simply because of their design limitations.

Here's a video of the Airscoot rc helicopter in action:

Coaxial models like this Airscoot rc helicopter will always be popular with beginners to the radio control heli hobby, and it's thanks to models like the Airscoot that so many people have been safely introduced to the hobby over the years.