There was a fatal crash of the Beta 400 prototype in November 1967 and the company ceased operations in April 1968.
Their agricultural products were marketed under the name "F&P"; Filper also manufactured food processing equipment such as peach pitters.
The test bed had tubular frame with tandem rotors connected by a drive shaft with the engine below.
The dynamic design was created by Jford Johnston and Ervin Culver, who were Lockheed employees at the time.
The exact details of the agreement are unknown but they were sufficient to allow Copperfield to seek venture capital to develop a helicopter using the Gyroflex technology.
In 1965, Copperfield principle and marketing executive William Orr contacted Filper Corporation as a possible source to capital for further development.
Based upon the success of the test bed, Filper acquired development and marketing rights to the "Gyroflex" design and the services of some Copperfield personnel.
A rigid rotor makes the helicopter very maneuverable, capable of high speed with an extraordinarily wide center of gravity range.
Prior to 1960, attempts to develop rigid rotor technology by various helicopter manufactures had failed.
The first Lockheed rigid rotor prototype was the CL-475 (note, the CL model designation stands for Clarence l "Kelly" Johnson from the Skunk Works).
Lockheed then designed a much more aerodynamic rigid rotor prototype, the Model 286, which demonstrated amazing stability and flight characteristics.
Finally a prototype compound helicopter was produced by adding a Pratt and Whitney PT-6 turbo jet engine to the Model 286.
Using that basic system arrangement, Jimmie Johnson created a design for the Beta 200,[4] a two seat personal helicopter.
The design featured an aerodynamic fuselage, forward and aft pylon mounted rotors and a passenger compartment located at the rear.
The rotors were interconnected with a drive shaft which was driven by the engine through a clutch and transfer gear box.
These included: These design choices ultimately precluded the very aggressive flight performance and procurement costs presented in marketing materials.
The cowling very tightly conformed to the engine Design of pre-production Beta 200A vehicle design was completed in May 1966 Fabrication pre-production airframes began in late 1965.The fabrication was conducted in an addition to the Filper plant in San Ramon.
It was assigned FAA tail number N5005F, The remaining articles under construction were Beta 200A airframes .None were close to being flight worthy at the end of the program.
No FAA tail numbers were assigned to these incomplete airframes In late 1965 the dynamic components, gear boxes, rotor blades etc.
Mr. Jones left Filper Research in early 1967 The results of the initial flight tests were very disappointing.
The Beta 200A exhibited the following undesirable characteristics: Attempts to enter into forward flight were unsuccessful; The N5000F was tested in hover only.
Since the Filper Research facility at San Ramon had only a helipad, flight testing was done at the Livermore, California airport.
As the pilot was attempting to reach the 110 kn test point at an altitude of approximately 1500 ft AGL the rotor system went unstable and destroyed the vehicle in flight.