The housing allows a higher rotational speed than a conventional rotor, allowing it to have smaller blades.

A computational simulation has suggested that maximum achievable thrust is twice as high, and that at identical power, thrust was slightly greater, than for a conventional rotor.

Another type, for low load torque, has flats ground onto a conventional squirrel-cage rotor to create discrete poles.

Because the rotor is much lighter in weight (mass) than a conventional rotor formed from copper windings on steel laminations, the rotor can accelerate much more rapidly, often achieving a mechanical time constant under one ms. This is especially true if the windings use aluminum rather than the heavier copper.

If a conventional squirrel-cage rotor has flats ground on it to create salient poles and increase reluctance, it will start conventionally, but will run synchronously, although it can provide only a modest torque at synchronous speed.

This allows the Derschmidt rotor to be a rigid design, eliminating the complex series of bearings, flexible fittings and linkages used in conventional rotors.

A superconducting rotor does not have the inherent damping of a conventional rotor.

For pitch control the aircraft featured a separate tail rotor, oriented horizontally to lift the tail, as opposed to the more conventional anti-torque rotors on helicopters that are mounted vertically.

Flying controls all act on the co-axial rotors with pitch, roll and collective similar to a conventional single rotor helicopter.

In fact the machine was a Model G Enigma, which had no plugboard, three conventional rotors, and a rotating reflector that could both be set by hand and was advanced by the stepping mechanism.