That's a real shame, that...

I suppose you can't expect miracles with such vastly reduced amounts of time and money, but it was a very good go at it! I mean, I know nothing about Helicopters, but it did look well on the way to be flying, maybe with some more refinements as you said but in that time there was no way you'd be able to iron out everything...
That's true too, great that he's been recognised for the work on it instead of them pretending it was all Gadget Show's doing!

Just out of curiosity too, what happened with all the blades, batteries, motors and speed controllers afterwards?