Built by bicycle-maker Paul Cornu, it was an open-framework structure built around a curved steel tube that carried a rotor at either end, and the engine and pilot in the middle.

Control was to be provided by cables that could alter the pitch of the rotor blades, and by steerable vanes at either end of the machine intended to direct the downwash of the rotors.

The Cornu helicopter is reported to have made a number of short hops, rising perhaps 1.5 or 2 metres (5–7 feet) into the air and staying aloft for something less than one minute.

This was long enough for Cornu to learn that the control systems he had designed were ineffective, and he abandoned the machine soon thereafter.

Modern engineering analyses have demonstrated that the Cornu helicopter could not have been capable of sustained flight.