First hover: 41 minutes in a car park

On a grey January morning, prototype P1 lifted off from the car park behind Hardturmstrasse 140, climbed to four metres and held there. We had planned for five minutes. It hovered for forty-one, until the battery warning brought it down on the mark it took off from.

Why a helicopter

The rescue team that started this company asked for an aircraft that could stare at one spot for hours, launch from a hand in a gale and fit in a vehicle. A quadcopter cannot fly long enough; a fixed wing cannot stand still. A single-rotor helicopter does both, if you can make it simple enough to fly itself.

What P1 taught us

The shrouded tail rotor was too loud and vibrated the camera. We redesigned it twice before R7 reached the field. The stacked daylight and thermal sensor, though, was right first time, and it has barely changed since.

P1 now hangs from the ceiling of our Zürich workshop, above the bench where it was built.