Who said Quadcopters were a "new" thing...

[Dusty]

randomly stumbled upon this video on youtube, then found the Wiki page for it... nice one

The de Bothezat helicopter, also known as the Jerome-de Bothezat Flying Octopus,was an experimental quadrotor helicopter built for the United States Army Air Service by George de Bothezat in the early 1920s, and was said at the time to be the first successful helicopter. Although its four massive six-bladed rotors allowed the craft to successfully fly, it suffered from complexity, control difficulties, and high pilot workload, and was reportedly only capable of forwards flight in a favorable wind. The Army canceled the program in 1924, and the aircraft was scrapped.

George De Bothezat Helicopter	Small | Large