62 Miracles Ahead! 



mitting you safely and easily to study the control movements. 

 How simple this method of accustoming yourself to flying a 

 helicopter! And I am certain that flying a direct-lift machine 

 will become, in time, just as much an automatic habit as driv- 

 ing your motorcar is now." 



How to Fly a Helicopter 



The controls of the helicopter are easy to operate. A con- 

 vertible model, which can be driven like a car, has a clutch 

 for applying the engine's power to the wheels. Thus you don't 

 have to push the helicopter out of the garage. You open the 

 doors and drive it out. Or your garage may have a roll-back 

 roof so that the helicopter can rise straight up and be on its 

 way. 



There is a tachometer on the instrument panel which counts 

 the number of revolutions a minute made by the rotor blades. 

 When you want to ascend you open the throttle and watch 

 the tachometer until the rotor blades are making two hundred 

 and forty revolutions a minute. Then you slowly pull the 

 left-hand lever, which changes the pitch of the rotor blades 

 so they bite more deeply into the air. The helicopter begins 

 to rise, and its ascent can be controlled by changing the pitch 

 of the rotor blades. After you reach the proper altitude you 

 push a center control stick forward. This stick tilts the rotor 

 blades slightly. They bite the air in a forward motion and the 

 helicopter begins to move. Except for ascending and descend- 

 ing, all movements of the helicopter are controlled by the 

 center stick. 



When you reach your destination and want to descend 

 you pull back the center stick. The craft comes to a stop and 

 hovers over one spot. Then you release the lift lever, the rotor 

 blades bite less powerfully at the air, and the helicopter sinks 

 slowly to the earth. You can descend at the rate of one foot 



