A closer look
Modern helicopters fundamentally owe their foundational aerodynamics to ancient Chinese bamboo flying toys that existed over two thousand years before the Wright brothers were even born; these delightfully simple children's toys consisted of a stick attached to a propeller that you spun with your hands, which somehow laid the blueprint for the massive military gunships and loud news choppers that ruin our sleep today; the celebrated aviation pioneer George Cayley literally studied these wooden trinkets in the nineteenth century to understand rotary-wing flight, meaning modern aerospace engineering is essentially based on a prehistoric fidget spinner; it is a brilliant reminder that billion-dollar defense contractors and cutting-edge military technologies are ultimately derived from bored kids playing with sticks in a rice paddy
