A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward, and laterally. These attributes allow helicopters to be used in congested or isolated areas where fixed-wing aircraft and many forms of VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft cannot perform.
The word helicopter is adapted from the French language hélicoptère, coined by Gustave Ponton d'Amécourt in 1861, which originates from the Greek helix (ἕλιξ) "helix, spiral, whirl, convolution" and pteron (πτερόν) "wing". English-language nicknames for helicopter include "chopper", "copter", "helo", "heli", and "whirlybird".
Helicopters were developed and built during the first half-century of flight, with the Focke-Wulf Fw 61 being the first operational helicopter in 1936. Some helicopters reached limited production, but it was not until 1942 that a helicopter designed by Igor Sikorsky reached full-scale production, with 131 aircraft built. Though most earlier designs used more than one main rotor, it is the single main rotor with anti-torque tail rotor configuration that has become the most common helicopter configuration. Tandem rotor helicopters are also in widespread use due to their greater payload capacity. Coaxial helicopters, tiltrotor aircraft, and compound helicopters are all flying today. Quadcopter helicopters pioneered as early as 1907 in France, and other types of multicopter have been developed for specialized applications such as unmanned drones.
"Helicopter" is a song by English rock band Bloc Party that was originally released in the UK in 2004 on the Little Thoughts EP, and two years later as a single from their debut album, Silent Alarm in the US. The song was received with much acclaim, reaching number 26 on the UK Singles Chart on its first release, but failing to chart in the US. Various remixes have been recorded.
The song has also been featured on the video games Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, Guitar Hero: On Tour, FIFA 06, Project Gotham Racing 3, Burnout Revenge, Colin McRae Dirt 2, and Marc Eckō's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure. The song was also featured in the films Yes Man, Charlie St. Cloud and Grandma's Boy and in the Malcolm in the Middle episode "Morp". A remix of the song was featured in the film Reverb.
"Helicopter" is an indie rock and garage rock song, written by all band members prior to their debut studio album. Composed in B minor, it was written in common time and has a quick tempo of 171 beats per minute.
Raid on Bungeling Bay was the first video game designed by Will Wright. It was published by Brøderbund for the Commodore 64 and MSX in 1984 and the NES in 1987. The Commodore 64 version was published in the UK by Ariolasoft, and the NES version was ported by Hudson Soft.
Apart from offering a 2D overhead view of terrain which was a bit more complex than in other games, Raid on Bungeling Bay was basically a simple war zone shoot 'em up. The player controlled a helicopter that launched from an aircraft carrier to bomb six factories scattered across islands on a small planetoid occupied by the Bungeling Empire (the usual villains in Brøderbund games), while fending off escalating counterattacks by gun turrets, fighter jets, guided missiles, and a battleship. There was also a hidden island for the player to reload on. Failure meant that the Bungeling Empire develops a war machine to take over the planet Earth. Players had to attack its infrastructure while defending the aircraft carrier which served as home base.
Pure may refer to:
Pure is a compilation album by pop band The Lightning Seeds, released in 1996 and reaching #27 in the UK Albums Chart.
The first of what would turn out to be five compilations Ian Broudie released from 1996 to 2006, Pure, The Lightning Seeds' first release by Virgin, is almost a reissue rather than a compilation, since it consists of all but three of the songs released by Epic on the first two albums, Cloudcuckooland from 1990 and Sense from 1992; the only songs missing are one song from the first album ("Control the Flame") and two from Sense: ("Where Flowers Fade" and "Marooned").
All songs written and composed by Ian Broudie; except where indicated.
Pure is a 2011 novel by English author Andrew Miller. The book is the sixth novel by Miller and was released on 9 June 2011 in the United Kingdom through Sceptre, an imprint of Hodder & Stoughton. The novel is set in pre-revolutionary France and the upcoming turmoil is a consistent theme throughout. It follows an engineer named Jean-Baptiste Baratte and chronicles his efforts in clearing an overfilled graveyard which is polluting the surrounding area. Baratte makes friends and enemies as the cemetery is both loved and hated by the people of the district.
Miller was inspired to write about the Les Innocents Cemetery after reading historian Philippe Ariès's brief description of its clearing and imagining the theatrics that must have been involved. The novel received positive reviews, particularly noting the quality of writing. The novel was awarded the Costa Book Award 2011 for "Best Novel" and "Book of the Year", and was nominated for the Walter Scott Prize and South Bank award.