This work deals with the development and application of advanced control concepts for a 3-DOF laboratory helicopter. The motivations for this work are diverse. One important task is to thoroughly examine the system in order to formulate an accurate physical-mathematical model, based on which future research can be done. Another motivation is to implement some of the control architectures that are introduced within the framework of graduate level courses. The central intention behind this work however is to develop, implement, and test more advanced control concepts, such as gain scheduling and flatness based feedforward control. This helicopter is especially suitable for these kind of approaches because it exhibits challenging attributes while its complexity is limited. The findings and control strategies can then be generalized and applied to other systems.