Aérospatiale canard helicopter?

[Tophe]

In the Trait d'Union magazine #136 March-April 1991 is presented the Aérospatiale F-0104-91. It seems a fool's day joke (construction decided April 1st 1991, 1st fight scheduled April 1st 1992, code 0104-91 like 01st April 1991...) while very interesting, because of many advantages:
1/ easy loading by rear doors
2/ no interaction of the main rotor airflow with antitorque
3/ no more heating of the fin aft of the exhaust
4/ no more crushing physical risk for the pilot landing in a tiny zone
5/ fore fin protecting the cockpit from bird impacts
6/ Protection against electric aerial wires thanks to the fore cut-wire tool
(not patented by Aerospatiale said the journalist, maybe the canard helicopter principle being already patented)

 

[Orionblamblam]

An interesting design, though I'd bet an April Fool's joke. It would pretty much require active computer control to stabilize it at high forward speed.

 

[hesham]

Of course it's a beauty design,


and I am thanking my dear Tophe about it,but its number is very strange,we
know Sud Est and Sud Aviation,which later became a part of Aerospatiale,used the X series,
and used numbers 100,200 & 300 for experimental aircraft and helicopters,
also Aerospatiale used the series X-100 up to X-137 (and I don't know any number more),
but the number 104 is very weird,we can't say X-104,that's because it was appeared
in early 1990s,and the beginning of the those number was from 1957 as I know.

 

[Jemiba]

Probably not necessary to ponder about this designation !
"F-0104-91" clearly indicates the 1st of April 1991 and the layout itself
is an indication for one of the well known April Fool's jokes by Le Fana,
there's one every year, I think. Not sure where, but there was the same
verdict in another forum. Nevertheless, god to remind us again to it, as we
should add it to our list of fakes !

 

[c460]

This is clearly an April fool's joke. One of the sentences in the article translates "the name F-0104-91 can only correspond to a little fish swimming up the rivers in April". It seems clear enough to me.
By the way, Le Fana did make a number of April fool's jokes in a quite distant past, but for some years it seems to have adopted another tradition, that is to cram the April number with real but barely credible aircraft designs and stories, with no fake.
Adrien

 

[Tzoli]

Apart from it is an April's Fool Joke, what about the idea?
Any real design featuring canard helicopters?