They resembled stranded water-beetles, down here in the hangar, with their blades folded back.

The whirring blade stopped and folded into an inner compartment, even as Picard heard the click of another compartment opening.

While blades folded hundreds, thousands, or even millions of times are encountered in fiction, there is no record of real blades being folded more than around 20 times.

Then Bean gave the order, and all his choppers rose up, cut the blades, and dropped as the jets came on and the blades folded back for the quick ride back to Sri Lanka.

As soon as the flitter was down inside the hangar, blades folded and shut down, Gerswin vaulted out, helmet under his arm, to head for his office.

The blade folded below the level of the handle scales so the user could not be cut by this extra edge, a small hole drilled through both handle scales and liners allowed the blade to be held in place so it would not open on a parachute jump and cause harm to the operator.

This drives the unique feature of the Carat, its folding two blade propeller: the blades fold forward like spears to minimize drag when the engine is off.

At the end of the power run the blades fold back alongside the fuselage to minimise drag during the glide.