Plus the Roton Single Stage to Orbit (and back) design used rotor tip
rockets to ascend and then used the rotor as a recovery device.
The company folded BUT the design is technically feasible. The rotors do not
add a vast amount of gain over a more conventional rocket system but
effectively provide themselves a 'free ride" to orbit and are then available
as a re-entry recovery device.

Ascent thrust was overwhelmingly by the effect of the rockets but the rotor
provides the pumping power.


      Russell McMahon
_____________________________
> >There was a helicopter that had rocket engines at the end of the blades.
>
> You are right, it is still peddled in Popular Mechanics (plans only). It
> uses statoreactors or pulsoreactors as 'rocket engines'. These have no
> rotating parts and thus evade the problem of precession (gyroscopic)
> forces entirely. I have also never seen any evidence of anybody flying
> one of those. But that does not mean much.
>
> Peter
>
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