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Tip jet [1] helicopters have been a thing, but it's never taken off commercially. The Fairey Rotodyne being a good example. [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tip_jet

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_Rotodyne

Gee, [1] says they were invented by Wittgenstein! I never knew about that.

“ If people never did silly things nothing intelligent would ever get done”

I don't see the point of putting that quote here, sorry. Inventing the helicopter was a silly thing, or what?..

Tip jet helicopters have been a thing, but it's never taken off commercially.

Sort of like Wittgenstein himself.

Kolibri!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b-h8NgsieQ

Traumatic brain injury is perhaps underappreciated. https://www.gwern.net/Questions#psychiatry (Maybe as death rate from other accidents drops, it rises in relative importance?) Among other amazing numbers from that page, it quotes one study that shows 45 percent of the residents of a homeless shelter had a positive screening result for TBI: https://www.gwern.net/docs/www/cmajopen.ca/03aff85438a259787...

Notoriously, Stanislaw Ulam and Steve Wozniak had major personality changes after head trauma.

Great comment. Was curious w/ regards to Ulam. Found this on Wikipedia:

In January 1946, he suffered an acute attack of encephalitis, which put his life in danger, but which was alleviated by emergency brain surgery.

...

Another friend, Gian-Carlo Rota, asserted in a 1987 article that the attack changed Ulam's personality: afterwards, he turned from rigorous pure mathematics to more speculative conjectures concerning the application of mathematics to physics and biology; Rota also cites Ulam's former collaborator Paul Stein as noting that Ulam was sloppier in his clothing afterwards, and John Oxtoby as noting that Ulam before the encephalitis could work for hours on end doing calculations, while when Rota worked with him, was reluctant to solve even a quadratic equation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislaw_Ulam

and Michael Hutchens of INXS who got punched in the head while riding in Stockholm.

And even more famously, Henry VIII, who fell off a horse.

It's posited that Howard Hughes' increasingly strange behavior and eventual withdrawal into reclusion was precipitated by a series of TBIs he suffered in test pilot crashes.

There is also a theory that he began taking pain medication for back pain related to injuries suffered in crashes, and the dosage/addiction added up over time, all the while none of this staff or medical experts tried to wean him off it. Very much like the situation with Michael Jackson and painkillers.

For a Gyrocopter you only need a Thrid Class Medical certificate or to comply with BasicMed neither of which list eyesight as a disqualifying condition.

https://www.faa.gov/licenses_certificates/medical_certificat...

https://www.faa.gov/licenses_certificates/airmen_certificati...

The standards for a FAA third-class medical go beyond just what's on the official "disqualifying" list. It's not a walk in the park.

From personal experience, they care a great deal about your eyesight.

To start, you'd want to look through the AME Guide [1] and the rules in 14 CFR 67 Part D [2].

[1] https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/av...

[2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/part-67/subpart-D

This reminds me, when I had my 3rd class medical exam at age 16, the examiner didn't have equipment to test hearing. So, he went into the adjacent room and whispered, "Can you hear this?" Then loudly, "OK, cover your left ear." Whispering, "Can you hear this?".... I passed.

It might be an ultralight. Don’t even need a pilot certificate, let alone a medical.

I thought you didn't need a license for a gyrocopter but when I looked just now it seemed like you did. Guess it's based on weight class so yeah he might be in the ultralight class, didn't mention it because I thought I was wrong about it being a no license class.

I don't know if ultralight gyrocopters are even a thing. I just figured if he's designing trash-can helicopters, he might be into an ultralight gyrocopter kit, if such a thing even exists. :)

(I also wasn't even sure about ultralights not requiring licenses. Had to look it up.)

It looks like you can build them small and light enough to qualify for the ultralight category it's just tricky and somewhat limiting since the combination of light weight and low fuel capacity is rough on a high drag gyrocopter.

http://www.buildagyrocopter.com/gyroplanes-for-ultralight-an...

Ultralight gyros are pretty popular. They are like motorcycles in the sky. Stupid dangerous and crazy fun. Also if you have an engine out you are already auto rotating so no big deal. From what I hear, the thing that kills pilots in those things is that people like to fly low and they are prone to pilot induced oscillation. Pilots panic, try to overcontrol, and then die.

" He was in a horrific crash on one of those salt flats and his personality was permanently changed. He went from being pleasant to the person I knew him as-- cold, strange and reclusive."

If it was not traumatic brain injurie, like others mentioned, I can maybe give an other point of view.

I guess it is the struggle of acceptance. Everyone knows accidents happen, but before you were in a bad one and have high self esteem, you likely believe, this won't happen to you. That would be unfair.

"Those things cannot happen to me" - well, yes, they absolutely can happen to you. Why not to you? Why not to me?

I had that with a actually not so serious sport accident, which still meant I could not do sport for years - which was a very serious crisis for me. WHY ME?

Well, why not me. In hindsight I would rather think I was very lucky, to not have that accident, while being somewhere far off.

Today I can even do (moderate) extreme sports again, ... but much more aware of what I am doing and how easy it is, to loose it all. So I can allmost say, today I am thankful for that accident, but I can also see, how such a accident can bring you to a very dark place of where you cannot get out.

Your former boss seems to need his flying to get out of it at least for some time. I guess there are worse ways to cope with it.

Fascinating. I have so many questions. How did this manager manage to not get his position terminated? Was he able to run Excel calculations for the GarbageCopter outside his office machine? I will stop here for now. Thank you.