F. Cantero Villamil's Viblandi "Libélula" (Dragonfly) helicopters

[Jemiba]

The VERTIFLITE January/February 2012 issue featured a special about the spanish helicopter industry, including an article,
written by Erasmo Pinero, Jr., about Federico Cantero Villamil. This spanish helicopter pioneer, living from 1874 to 1946,
started his work on rotorcraft in the late ‘20s. In 1935 construction on the “Libelula Española” (Spanish Dragonfly) began,
protracted by the civil war, and testing didn’t start before 1941. Originally intended as a coaxial helicopter, the final configuration
had single 3-bladed main rotor and tail rotor. There are no records about test results, for achieving a hover the machine probably
was underpowered. Nevertheless the “Libelula Española” quite probably was the first spanish conventional helicopter. A patent filed
in 1945 shows a developed version using the coaxial rotor designed by Cantero.

 

[Stargazer]

The excellent Spanish publication Aeroplano has a long article in its No. 23 about Spanish inventor Federico Cantero Villamil and his Viblandi helicopter designs.


Here are the photos from there, but I'm sure the article is worth reading—if you can read Spanish, that is...


Captions are as follows:


0) (none)
1) Construction of first prototype
2) First Viblandi helicopter in Cuatro Vientos.
3) Second prototype with single main rotor.
4) Viblandi helicopter with coaxial rotors.
5) Last 1943 project.
6) Single-rotor Viblandi helicopter.

 

[Motocar]

Good for the cutaway drawing...