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Revolution Helicopter Corp., Inc. (RHCI) was a kit helicopter manufacturer based in Excelsior Springs, Missouri. It marketed the Mini-500 single-seat helicopter, so-called because the fuselage superficially resembled the MD-500 five-place turbine powered helicopter. The company was founded by Dennis Fetters, a former associate of Augusto U. Cicaré, the self-taught Argentine inventor of a novel helicopter control linkage system. The design basis of the Mini-500 was Cicaré's CH-4, circa 1982. Before launching RHCI, Fetters had operated Air Command, a manufacturer of gyroplanes. RHCI went out of business in November 1999 after a number of fatalities in the Mini-500 were traced to faulty design, workmanship and materials in critical components. At the time of its demise the company had a two-place kit helicopter under development, the Voyager-500. Former employees reported that the prototype flew less than three hours, total, and none were ever delivered to customers.
[edit] Product notes
The Mini-500 had the following general characteristics:
- Kit-built project
- Space frame of welded steel alloy tubing
- Aeroshell made of composite materials
- Single occupant
- Engine: Rotax Model 582, 67 hp, 2-stroke, 2-cylinder
- Fuel: gasoline
- Rotor: 2-bladed, 19 ft 2 in diameter
- Length: 22 ft 6 in
- Useful load: 355 lb
- Speed: VNE 175 mph, max. cruise 155 mph, minimum 0
- Service ceiling: 10 000 ft
- Hover ceiling: 7 000 ft IGE
- Number of units built: about 475 by 1998
- Notable for: Plagued by structural problems and mechanical failures in the late 1990s
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