Tesla Gets Patent on Helicopter-Plane

Wireless Experimenter Says His Invention Is Ideal for Air Flivver.

Nikola Tesla, pioneer wireless experimenter, has turned his attention to aviation. According to an announcement from Munn & Co., patent attorneys, the 71-year-old inventor has received two patents from the United States Patent Office for a combined helicopter and airplane.

The plane has not been built, and according to the inventor he is not particularly interested in experimenting with the actual building. He says he is certain the plane will fly.

Briefly, his helicopter-airplane takes off vertically as a helicopter and then by mechanical means is turned in the air until the lifting propeller is at right angles to its climbing position and draws the machine through the air laterally, or at any other angle the operator wishes it to go.

The inventor said yesterday that he conceives his plane as the ideal air flivver. It can be built with a wing spread of eight feet and a depth and length of the same dimensions. Its weight would be about 500 pounds, and a machine of this size would carry two people.

Mr. Tesla describes his power plant as a turbine engine which also combines some of the principles of the present-day internal combustion engine and aeronautical rotary motor.