Flying Squirrel FLYING SQUIRREL.
Designed around graceful degradation

Safety, Without Autorotation

A single-engine failure is absorbed automatically. A dual-engine failure has one answer, and it doesn't depend on pilot skill.

Single-engine failure

The synchronized chain transmission, with freewheel clutches, keeps both main rotors driven from the remaining engine — no immediate loss of lift, and no pilot action required to keep flying.

Dual-engine failure

The one failure mode the transmission cannot route around. The whole-aircraft ballistic parachute is the primary, last-resort recovery system for exactly this case.

Air-cushion mode as a fallback

Over water, wetland, or open ground, the vehicle can settle and continue under fan power rather than requiring a runway-style landing — a safety feature as much as a use case.

Ballistic parachute deployment

What happens in the one scenario the transmission can't fix

1

Dual-engine power loss

Both engines down simultaneously — the one failure mode the synchronized transmission cannot route around.

2

Parachute deployed

The whole-aircraft ballistic parachute is mortar-fired clear of the airframe within a fraction of a second of activation.

3

Controlled descent

Corner fans, still powered by the battery buffer, vector to steer the descent toward a clear landing site.

4

Touchdown

Fans cushion the final approach and hold attitude at impact — no autorotation, no pilot skill dependency.

Flying Squirrel descending under its ballistic recovery parachute
Corner fans assist landing-site selection during descent — they are not sized to sustain full-weight hover on their own.
The design principle

Never depend on a skill the pilot might not have

Traditional helicopters rely on autorotation — using the rotor's stored momentum to cushion an engine-out landing — as their primary safety strategy. It works, but it takes real skill and regular practice to execute well under pressure.

Flying Squirrel is designed so that path is never the only option: an engine-out is handled mechanically before the pilot has to do anything, and a total power loss is handled ballistically, not aerodynamically.