Patent ID: 8042763

Claim:
A rotary wing aircraft comprising a non-rotating structural backbone, a first rotor system coupled to the non-rotating structural backbone including first variable pitch rotor blades supported by a first rotor shaft for rotation about an axis of rotation in a first rotor plane and controlled by a first blade pitch controller which includes cyclic pitch control, a second rotor system coupled to the non-rotating structural backbone including second variable pitch rotor blades supported by a second rotor shaft for rotation about the axis of rotation in a second rotor plane and controlled by a second blade pitch controller which includes cyclic pitch control, the second rotor plane being positioned to lie in axially spaced apart relation to the first rotor plane along the axis of rotation, wherein the first blade pitch controller is coupled to the non-rotating structural backbone so that neither the first rotor shaft nor the second rotor shaft extends through the first blade pitch controller.