I was just surfing this site a bit and came across this. American R/C Helicopters operated by John Simone Jr. & Sr. introduced their line of fixed pitch helicopters in competition to the Schluter HeliBaby in around 1977 / 78. They first introduced the Revolution .40 which was a knock off of the helibaby but was offered in red anodizied frames, block " self aligning " boom and flat pitch adjustment plates for the main blades. The helicopter noted in the pictures are of the Revolution .60 based on the more elongated upper blue tinted canopy and fibreglass lower deck. The Revolution .60 was introduced in around 1978. My father paid Lowell Draper an employee of American R/C to come up to teach us how to fly helis that summer. He was the first person I had ever seen hover nose in ( he also flew the tail rather than the nose ). With the introduction of the Schluter SuperBaby late in 1979 American R/C Helicopters quickly copied that and called their heli the Revolution Commander. It featured the collective pitch version similar to what is shown in the picture. The helicopter did not last long and I think the Mantis flowed shortly thereafter. The last time I visited American R/C was in May 1980 in Mission Viejo Calif. They were pretty well on their last legs at the time with John Simone Sr. out of the picture and John Jr. was doing more movie work ( Blue Thunder ). Anyway, I lost tract of the them that summer of 1980 as the Schluter Heliboy had become all the rage. I often wonder what ever happened to John Simone. Hmmm this was fun...brought back some memories....now back to my JetCat HP5 Vario TOW Cobra ( how helis have changed since 1976 )

Best Regards
Dean Wichmann