Military Power

Anyone have any idea what this contraption was? It kind of looks like a helicopter, but the "blades" are not blades.

I can not find this aircraft anywhere.
The explanation for the blades can be one of two things, though.
a) It is a jet tip system that forces thrust through the ports on the tips of the rotors.
or
b) The outer parts of the rotors have been taken off to allow it to fit in the hanger or to be worked on.

As far as the raised fuselage I think that was actually a common theme on several early experimental aircraft.

It could be something from a USarmy amusement park

Or a helicopter simulator of some sort.

I'm not thinking it is a simulator as most of them tend to either look like the item they are simulating from the outside as well, or look like a box.

Well, the height of the aircraft means it was probably designed to carry a very large payload underneath, so that it straddle something like a small tank or something of the sort, with a short hookup on chains or cables. But for the props, I'm confused. It looks like they may have been designed to hold fuel in the props, but I dont know how well that would work out.

Or it was just something a crazy scientist all weirded out on acid and vodka, who thought it would be neat to piss some government money away on a useless design.

On Tuesday I watched a special on the History Channel about Howard Hughes. For those who are not familiar with his name, he is probably the biggest reason of why we have so many aircraft designs, also was a billionaire from the day he was born. But, what really caught my eye was when I saw picture of one of the helicopters he designed. It looked like a scaled-down version of this big guy. It looked exactly the same, but was only the skeletor structure. Hughes was famous for not only building and designing aircraft for himself and public transportation, but the military was very fond of his designs and hired him very often. I'm trying to find anything related to Howard Hughes and to the possiblilty that maybe he designed this helicopter for the military.