03/31/2024. Remarks by Johan Visschedijk: "Igor B. Bensen, president of the Bensen Aircraft Corporation of Raleigh, North Carolina, designed the Prop-Copter for research and test purposes only. The private venture was a VTOL aircraft of the "flying jeep" type. It was Bensen's first design departing from the basic rotor-kite layout.
The B-10 had a 72 hp McCulloch O-100 four-cylinder horizontally-opposed two-stroke engine at each end of the rectangular frame, driving each a 50 in (1.27 m) diameter horizontal airscrew. The engines were synchronized by a cross-tie transmission capable of driving both airscrews if one engine failed. The pilot was sitting astride the frame and had stick and rudder pedal controls to move the air deflector vanes under the airscrews. The B-10 had an all-up weight of the 650 lb (295 kg).
Registered N56U, the sole B-10 first flew on August 6, 1958, and had since achieved flights in and out of ground effect and reached speeds of up to 60 mph (96 kmh).
