It Seems Strange To Think,

that as little as 100 years ago mankind still turned to nature to conquer the air,

the monocopter was the brain child/storm of Alphonse Papin and Didier Rouilly, who I guess having looked at a sycamore seed falling to earth decided to make a powered one in 1913–1914, the craft weighed in at 500 kg (1,100 lb) including the float on which it was mounted, it had a single hollow blade with an area of 12 square metres (130 sq ft), counterweighted by a fan driven by an 80 hp Le Rhone rotary engine spinning at 1,200 rpm which produced an output of just over 7 cubic metres (250 cu ft) of air per second,

but did it work? we will never know, due to the shortage of materials the machine never had the more powerful engine it was designed for, testing was delayed due to the outbreak of World War I and did not take place until 31 March 1915 on Lake Cercey on the Côte-d'Or, unfortunately, the aircraft became unstable and the pilot had to abandon it, after which it sank, but you have to admit in the next 100 or so years since then taking to the skies has really changed.