The LAF-01 helicopter is in fact the answer to Mr. Rejean Laflamme's childhood dream of owning a helicopter for recreational and work purpose. M. Laflamme is the president and founder of Laflamme Helicopters.

As soon as Mr.Laflamme began to work in 1967, he went to flying school to learn how to pilot helicopters. He rapidly understood that his dream was out of reach because the courses and the certified rotorcrafts were very expensive.

In 1977, Mr. Laflamme had an opportunity to get an old disassembled aircraft similar to a helicopter, it was a Air and Space 18-A gyrocopter. He then undertook to rebuild this rotorcraft even though it took a lot of time and money.

Meanwhile, in 1978 Mr. Laflamme got his airplane pilot licence on a Cessna 172 aircraft. Even though airplanes did not give him the same advantages and feelings than helicopters, he could experience the joys of flying.

Without having finished rebuilding its 18-A, Mr. Laflamme found another gyrocopter in Montreal. This one was ready for flying and was a lot cheaper than the 18-A, but a lot smaller too. It was a McCulloch Super J-2 bought un 1980.

Mr. Jean-Paul Lavigne from Hudson (PQ) was the mechanic in charge of inspecting the Super J-2. He was the first to talk to M. Laflamme about tandem helicopters. According to him, a small tandem helicopter would be a lot easier to pilot and would lift heavier loads. This gave the idea to M. Laflamme to draw a small tandem helicopter: the LAF-01.

M. Laflamme had an accident with the Super J-2 on his first try outs because it was very unstable and hard to pilot. So he decided to go for a training in Paducah, Kentucky USA. Mr. Laflamme was then very disappointed by this rotorcraft which was taking off and landing just like an airplane. Furthermore, it was very unstable and had no payload capacity. The only positive thing was that it resemble to a helicopter.

During this training, he added hours in his flight book flying the McCulloch Super J-2 but a Air and Space 18-A as well. He noticed that the 18-A was a lot better thant the J-2. It could take off vertically, fly with very low airspeed and land vertically as well.

However, M. Laflamme was once again disappointed by the general performances of the machine which also suffered from instability. The machine remained difficult to control and had almost no payload capacity. Moreover, this rotorcraft remained very different from a helicopter. LAF-01 represented then, more than ever, the only way to fulfil his needs.

At the same time, Mr. Laflamme went through some training on a Robinson R22 helicopter. Those aircrafts are the cheapest certified helicopters on the market. After noticing how complicated this machine was to pilot, how tiny the available room was and how much weight it could lift, he concluded that the LAF-01 concept was really brilliant since no other aircraft was giving him what he wanted.

An option to certified helicopters was the homebuilt helicopter kits. Without offering the qualities of a tandem helicopter, those kit helicopters were very cheap indeed. After having studied all the kits offered onthe market, the Rotorway Scorpion seemed the obvious choice. One of M. Laflamme's friend was actually building one of these. Unfortunately, his friend had an accident and killed himself. So M. Laflamme changed his mind about getting a Scorpion.

So he decided to carry on with the rebuilding of the Super J-2 and the 18-A while beginning the design of the LAF-01. The Super J-2 was the first to be completed.

He went back to Paducah the same year to continue his training on the Super J-2. He finally flew his aircraft in Canada and then crashed himself off while running out of gas. Because the 18-A was being rebuilt, he let go the Super J-2 to concentrate on the 18-A and the LAF-01.

After all those disappointing experiments, M. Laflamme finally decided to go through with the LAF-01 project. At last, this machine would have the qualities he was looking for in a rotorcraft: helicopter behaviour, stability, easy to pilot, heavy payload, lower price. This is how he began designing the main aircraft components. In 1982, he began studying the composite materials. In 1987, he finished rebuilding the 18-A gyrocopter. This one being finished, a legal battle against Transport Canada followed in order to obtain a licence of navigability for this gyrocopter. Because this aircraft was unique in Canada, Canadian authorities refused to license it. So M. Laflamme went back to Kentucky in order to finalize his pilot training and to demonstrate his skills to Canadian authorities.

Finally, M. Laflamme obtained his Canadian immatriculation for the 18-A. But the fact that he had to fill new requirements and that he was still unhappy about the behavior and performances of this machine, he sold the 18-A et got a Citabria airplane.

For 7 years, M. Laflamme regularly flew his Citabria. He restored it and was able to satisfy his passion for flight by discovering the surroundings all year-round.

Throughout these years (1981-1996), M. Laflamme continued developing the LAF-01. The project was then being financed by profits carried out from his small machine shop. He also invested funds from the sales of the gyrocopters and Citabria.

1996 is when Mr. Laflamme got his experimental flight licence from Transport Canada and when he began some ground tests on his LAF-01 prototype. Following these tests, modifications were essential, which required considerable amounts of money. The development works had to be spread over many years for financial reasons even though the Canadian National Research Council (NRC) was giving some financial support to the project.

Laflamme Helicopters practically set a precedent by doing complete engineering work on kit helicopters. New tools such as finite state element analysis were used in order to make models of critical parts of the aircraft. Specialized firms located in Montréal proceeded to different dynamic and aerodynamic forces calculations.

Meanwhile, Mr. Laflamme built a second hangar in 1998 juste beside the first one. The total area is then 10 000 sqare feet. This building was erected to prepare for the research center.