The word helicopter comes originally from Greek, with heliko - 'spiral' and which word which means 'wing'?

• Pteron

• Flapos

• Optic

What can a helicopter do that a Boeing 747 can't?

• It can fly backwards.

• It can turn right, aeroplanes can only turn left.

• It can turn upside down.

Whose famous third law explains why a helicopter can fly - the air is pushed down by the spinning blades producing an equal and opposite lift force?

• Newton

• Darwin

• Hawking

The two hand controls on a helicopter are called the cyclic and the collective.  The cyclic controls moving the helicopter forward or backward and left or right.  What does the collective control?

• Whether the helicopter flies upside down or not.

• Whether the helicopter goes up or down.

• Whether the landing equipment is deployed.

Why can it be dangerous to touch the metal part of a helicopter frame before it has landed?

• The helicopter can become very hot in flight.

• Huge charges build up when it is flying because of the spinning blades and it could electrocute someone.

• A helicopter frequently gets covered in very sharp ice crystals in flight.

When a helicopter leaves the ground the whole body wants to spin in the opposite direction to the blades.  Which part of the helicopter stops this from happening?

• The landing skids

• The cockpit

• The tail rotor

The MI-26 Halo is the world's heaviest helicopter.  How many blades does it have on its main rotor to help it lift off with a weight of up to 56 tonnes?

• 2

• 4

• 8

If you made the paper helicopter shown in this picture…

…which way would it turn when viewed from above? (Tip: you could try it to fly it!)

• Clockwise

• Anticlockwise

• It doesn't turn it just floats down like a feather.

Which famous artist and inventor designed a helicopter around 1490?

• Picasso

• Leonardo da Vinci

• Michelangelo

Which of these trees produce seeds that spin like helicopter blades, allowing them to be carried further from the tree?

• Sycamore

• Oak

• Horse Chestnut