From Autogiro to Gyroplane

The Amazing Survival of an Aviation Technology

 FROM AUTOGIRO TO GYROPLANE

The Amazing Survival of an Aviation Technology

Bruce H. Charnov

Foreword by John Lienhard

 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Charnov, Bruce H.
From autogiro to gyroplane : the amazing survival of an
aviation technology /
Bruce H. Charnov ; foreword by John Lienhard.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index
ISBN 1–56720–503–8 (alk. paper)
1. Autogiros. I. Title.
TL715.C43 2003
629.133'35—dc21 2002044972
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.
Copyright © 2003 by Bruce H. Charnov
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be
reproduced, by any process or technique, without the
express written consent of the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2002044972
ISBN: 1–56720–503–8
First published in 2003
Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881
An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
www.praeger.com
 Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the

Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National
Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In Memory Mel N. Morris Jones 1952–2002
Ken Brock 1932–2001
 “There's nothing that's ever been made that can't be
improved on.”
“Don't tell me, show me.”
“I've been in gyroplanes for quite a while. I don't know of
anything else I'd rather be doing than what I'm doing
today. I've had a lot of fun. It's taken Marie and me all over
the world. We can't go to any spot in the world where we
can't call up somebody we know.”
Ken Brock, Bensen Days Seminar, Friday, April 16, 1993.
 CONTENTS
Foreword by John Lienhard ix
Preface xiii
Acknowledgments xxiii
Introduction 1
1. Juan de la Cierva 11
2. Cierva's Autogiro 31
3. Cierva and Harold F. Pitcairn 51
4. Pitcairn and American Autogiro Development 77
5. Development of the Direct Control Autogiro 101
6. American Advances, the C.30A Autogiro, and Cierva's
Death 123
7. Pitcairn after Cierva 143
8. Pitcairn, the Kellett Brothers, and the Coming of War 165
9. The Autogiro Goes to War: The Allies 187
10. The Autogiro Goes to War: The Axis 205
11. Igor Bensen and the Development of the Gyrocopter
225

12. Bensen, Tervamäki, Growth of the PRA, and the Fairey

Rotodyne 249

13. Failure to Revive the Autogiro: Various Companies Take

the Risk 269
14. Transformation of the PRA: Ken Brock, Martin Hollmann,
and the Ultralight Revolution 289
15. The Emerging Gyroplane Future 309
The Essential Autogiro/Autogyro/Gyrocopter/Gyroplane
History Library: An Annotated List 335
Bibliography 343
Index 371
 FOREWORD
This child of the 1930s was hooked on airplanes. I built
models, collected pictures, and created a vast mental
inventory. Never in that time was I privileged to see an
autogyro, but I knew they were out there, along with flying
wings, Panama Clippers, and the Hindenburg—all the flying
arcana that never quite made it over my rooftop in St. Paul,
Minnesota.
There were two kinds of flying machines in those days:
There were those that fate permitted me to see—DC-3s,
Piper Cubs, blimps, and pontoon seaplanes. As World War II
turned from a threat into reality, B-24s, P-40s, and all their
kin joined that list. The other breed of airplane was that
which I could only dream of seeing one day. By now, I have
indeed seen many of those. The day this now-old man
actually rode in a B-17 (such a reassuringly solid flying
machine that was!) was the day childhood returned, not as
it was, but as I had once wished it might be.
I knew then, and I still do, that I will go to my death
without seeing a corporeal autogyro in flight. That mystic
creature has long since become my personal unicornamong
horses—a spectral creature destined to remain in an
imagined memory.
Back in the late 1930s, one of the big tobacco companies, in
its ongoing efforts to recruit addicts among children, began
offering an airplane picture with each pack of cigarettes. It
also provided albums to hold the pictures. I have three of
those albums completely filled. My parents smoked the
cigarettes for me, and both have long since died of heart
and lung diseases. But, now and then, I pull the albums out
to look at the airplane pictures. They are, I suppose, a
costly part of my parental legacy.
Among such forgotten oddities as the flying automobile and
the supposedly foolproof Stearman Hammond Safety Plane,
is the Kellett Autogiro. It is described as “[a]n extremely
useful ship for observation work because of its low
minimum forward speed of 24 m.p.h.”
That was 1940. Three years later, working as a bicycle
delivery boy for a local drugstore, I was able to pay the full
one-dollar cost of the Aeronautics Aircraft Spotters
Handbook. If I'd felt there was a dimension of legend to the
autogyro up to then, this compendium made it clear that it
was real enough. The book displayed six very different
autogyros along with two of the new helicopters.
Those helicopters would, of course, send the autogyro over
into the land of unicorn-ness for a long time. One of them
was the embryonic American Vought-Sikorsky VS300. The
other was the German Focke-Wulf Fw-61. After the war, we
would hear much about helicopters and almost nothing
further about my unicorn autogyros.
Therefore I feel, as I read Bruce Charnov's extraordinary
book, that I tread forbidden ground. It seems almost wrong
to tear away the veil and reveal the flesh and blood, the
wood and aluminum, that made the autogyro into a living
beast of the forest.
Yet, as I read, Charnov systematically places the autogyro
in direct contact with all I've known about early flight. I find
Bert Hinkler test piloting one of my unicorns. He was the
wild Australian pilot celebrated in a popular song as
“Hustling Hinkler up in the Sky.” Amelia Earhart turns out to
have been deeply involved with popularizing the autogyro.
Charnov shows us how the autogyro, once intended to bring
flight into every backyard, actually played a real role in
World War II. It represented a far greater presence in early-
twentieth-century flight than we realize.
Charnov also reveals another idea that I was unprepared
for. It is the ongoing reappearance of unicorns in the forest
of new aircraft since World War II. The autogyro concept
has been with us the whole while, despite its seeming
displacement by the helicopter. In that, it reenacts an oft-
repeated pattern in invention—particularly in invention as it
relates to flight.
The pattern goes as follows: A technology arises and seems
to offer a bright future. Then it is shelved because of some
new gust of technological change. Finally, it reemerges,
chrysalis-like, in an unanticipated reincarnation.
As an example, consider a technology that arose right
alongside the new Cierva Autogiros. It was a means for
achieving transatlantic service with the short-range
passenger airplanes of the 1920s and early 1930s. The trick
was to build floating airports, anchored like today's offshore
oil rigs, so airplanes could hop their way across the ocean.
Just as these were about to become a reality in the 1930s,
they were preempted by a new generation of long-distance,
ground-based passenger airplanes.
Now the Japanese have actually built a floating airport in
the Bay of Tokyo—not to facilitate transoceanic travel, but
to save precious land. They call it Megafloat. Thus a
technology lingers as its purpose mutates.
The big transoceanic dirigible is part of a similar ongoing
story. It seemingly died with the Hindenburg, but it is now
being championed in a dazzling variety of new versions.
None will replicate the great dirigibles, but all hope to
transcend them. And, I believe, we will soon watch as a
keeper emerges from that pack of contenders.
So it is with the autogyro. Charnov finishes with the rise of
another flying machine, thegyrocopter, and its kindred
forms of airplanes. A gyrocopter is an autogyro whose rotor
blades can be powered like a helicopter's or can be
permitted to freewheel like those of an autogyro while a
regular propeller provides horizontal thrust. It is a
composite between the older autogyro and the newer
helicopter. As these gain in use and popularity, I may yet
see my unicorn. I may yet even ride one as well.
Of course the gyrocopter is more nearly the spawn of a
horse and a unicorn. But that's what all good technology is.
Any machine that ultimately succeeds is an ongoing union
of dream and reality. That's what I relearn from this
scrupulous history of the corporeal autogyro—this reflection
upon the creature of my nine-year-old imagination.
Any good engineer must keep the beings of his reveries
alive, for the corporeal machine is merely the tangible
shadow of that imagined reality. I read Charnov's history
with wide-eyed fascination. But as I do, I protect my
unicorn. I will not let this flood of reality blot out the
autogyro of my child's imagination—still flitting there,
amongst the treetops in my old backyard.
John H. Lienhard
Host and author of “The Engines of Our Ingenuity,”
broadcast nationally on public radio
 PREFACE
In many ways this is the most personal preface I've written
of the several books that have characterized my academic
career, but it is only fitting, as this book has the most
personal of origins. In November 1986 I awoke the morning
of my fortieth birthday with the distinct feeling that
somehow life was passing me by. Perhaps not an
uncommon experience, my immediate reaction was to list
those things I had always wanted to accomplish. Foremost
were studying law and learning how to fly, and by the
following August I was enrolled in Hofstra University's
School of Law, a natural choice because I was already a
tenured professor of management in its School of Business.
For the record, the study of law was a magnificent
undertaking, but the two years of subsequent legal practice
while on leave from the university were of a different nature
and did not result in new career directions, and I returned
to the university in late 1992.
In 1999 I finally got around to flying and immediately was
faced with the question as towhat to fly. From my teen
years I somehow dragged the long-forgotten memories of
advertisements in Popular Science of something called a
Gyrocopter and casually typed it into an Internet search
engine. To my genuine surprise over 2,200 “hits” were
referenced, and I started reading through them. It proved
(and will continue to do so) an amazing experience. I
quickly encountered references to the Spanish inventor
Juan de la Cierva and descriptions of the first flight in 1923
outside Madrid, but also stunning photographs of the
CarterCopter, the most technologically advanced
autorotational aircraft flying and capable of doing what no
other rotary-wing craft has ever done. Having approached
this endeavor to determine what to fly, I found my focus
shifting to the history of these amazing aircraft and soon
realized that there was a mystery as to how Cierva's vision
had survived to become the CarterCopter, and it is that
mystery that became the genesis for this book.
Juan de la Cierva, son of a wealthy and politically prominent
family, is considered the Father of Spanish Aviation as a
result of having constructed the first local airplane, but his
enduring genius came from his discovery (or rediscovery,
according to some) of the aerial phenomenon of
autorotation, namely that unpowered rotor blades will
generate lift as long as air is flowing up through them.
Cierva's inspiration was to see the aircraft wing differently
than others—reasoning that aircraft stall arose when its
speed fell below a critical point when the airflow over the
wing could no longer generate sufficient lift, he advanced
the then-radical idea that if the speed of the aircraft and the
speed of the wing could be separated, lift could continue to
be generated even at slower airspeeds—effectively creating
an inherently safer means of air travel. His solution,
developed in the 1919–23 time period, was to turn the wing
into a four-blade, freely rotating rotor placed on top of the
fuselage.
Cierva had relocated his aviation interests to England by
1925 and, calling his creation an Autogiro, trademarked the
name. (Thus all Cierva and Cierva-licensed aircraft were/are
correctly denoted as Autogiros. Rotary-wing craft that were
either based on other technology or unlicensed copies of
Cierva machines were called either autogyrosor
gyroplanes). I learned that this technology had been
licensed by Harold Frederick Pitcairn and brought to
America in 1928 and subsequently licensed by other
American companies, including the Kellett Autogiro
Company. But by end of World War II the Autogiro,
displaced by the coming of the helicopter, had effectively
disappeared. And so the question of how this technology
survived came into sharp focus.
By this point in my inquiry I was beginning to encounter a
fascinating cast of characters, notably a Russian immigrant
named Igor Bensen, who had a fanatical zeal for his mid-
1950s inventions, the names of which he also trademarked,
the Gyro-Glider and Gyrocopter. During these early months
of research I also found an enigmatic reference to a 1980s
Afro-American autogyro designer, David Gittens, and a
photograph of his Ikenga 530Z Autogyro being accepted
into the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
(NASM). I resolved to query the Smithsonian as to the
uniqueness of this only Afro-American-designed aircraft in
the national aviation collection, and this led directly to a
most fortuitous encounter and the next step in this book's
evolution.
I happened on a reference to the dedication in summer of
2000 of the oldest American-constructed Autogiro, the
restored Pitcairn PCA-1B at the American Helicopter
Museum & Education Center at the Brandywine Airport,
West Chester, Pennsylvania (which also has the original Bill
Parsons stretched Bensen two-place trainer, an aircraft as
historic in its own way as the Pitcairn). Calling to get
information, the docent who answered the phone took it
upon himself to invite me to the dedication when he heard
that I was a professor. At that ceremony I met Dr. Dominick
Pisano and Russell Lee from the Smithsonian NASM and was
introduced to Stephen “Steve” Pitcairn, Harold F. Pitcairn's
son. Steve, unassuming and characteristically modest,
asked me if I had read the book about his father and the
history of the Pitcairn Autogiros. When I replied in the
negative, he went into the museum shop and gifted me with
a copy of Frank Kingston Smith's Legacy of Wings: The
Harold F. Pitcairn Story (I would later learn that the Pitcairn
family had funded the publication of this book). It was a
generous and kind gift, and in many ways this book, in part,
was inspired by Smith's work. For while it was immediately
engaging and is required reading for anyone who wants to
understand this facet of aviation history, it was evident that,
although an informative volume handsomely done and with
superb photographs, the view of the author was devotional
and sometimes one-sided. It led me to seek other
interpretations, which proved a decidedly difficult task.
Peter Brooks's authoritative work Cierva's Autogiros is out
of print but readily available from aviation used-book
dealers, and although it was a scholarly undertaking, its
coverage basically ended, except for some later comments
on the post–World War II period, with the advent of the
helicopter. Histories of the development of rotary-wing
flight, basically chronicles of the evolution of the helicopter,
consistently passed over the Autogiro and presented its
history as a dead-end developmental path. No book covered
the almost eight decades of Autogiro/Gyrocopter/gyroplane
history nor was there any authoritative bibliography to fuel
the scholarly inquiry necessary to answer the mystery of
how the Autogiro technology had survived.
Through Steve Pitcairn I was introduced to one of his
father's 1930s mechanics, George Townson (who argued
with Amelia Earhart on April 8, 1931, when the famed
American aviatrix set the first Autogiro altitude record of
18,415 feet in the Pitcairn PCA-2). George agreed to meet
me at the Pitcairn hangar at the Robbinsville, New Jersey,
airport to deliver a copy of his privately published book
Autogiro: The Story of the “Windmill Plane,” a profusely
illustrated, highly individual account of the American
Autogiro, but the highlight of this first visit to the Pitcairn
hangar was seeing the last flying 1930s Autogiro, the
restored Pitcairn PCA-2 Miss Champion. I resolved to be
there when she next flew, and that was to be in fall of 2000
at the American Helicopter Museum's Rotorfest 2000. And,
watching this Autogiro fly by at twenty feet and twenty
mph, I was fascinated and resolved to do the research,
write the history, and produce the foundation bibliography
for future readers/researchers. It was to prove an engaging
task as I continually rediscovered an intriguing cast of
genuine characters who had played unique roles in the
development and preservation of Juan de la Cierva's vision.
In the course of my Internet search I had also encountered
a new magazine, FlyGyro!,being published in England by
Mel Morris Jones, and had immediately become a
subscriber. Mel nurtured my interest and became a terrific
and enthusiastic supporter of my research. Questions
concerning Autogiro history were promptly answered even
as future research directions were suggested. I sent him
reports and photographs of the Rotorfest 2000 Fly-In and
was thrilled when he put the photo of Steve Pitcairn flying
Miss Champion on the cover. I asked him if he thought
people might be interested in a reexamination of Amelia
Earhart's involvement with the Autogiro on the seventieth
anniversary of her world altitude record, and he quickly
elicited my commitment to write the article, which was
published in the February 2001 issue ofFlyGyro! It was not
only the first substantial result of my research to be printed,
it proved to be exceptionally fortuitous and led to quite
unexpected results that advanced the research in ways that
could not have been envisioned.
In the article “Amelia Earhart and the PCA-2: A Re-
evaluation of the First Woman Autogiro Pilot” I described
how the famed aviator had been beaten cross-country in an
Autogiro by the unknown John M. “Johnny” Miller from
Poughkeepsie, New York. Shortly after the magazine
appeared, I received a letter that began, “I'm the Johnny
Miller you wrote about…” and continued for several single-
spaced pages describing the transcontinental flight,
including details that were available nowhere else. In the
course of several subsequent conversations and letters
Johnny provided me with a unique view of the early history
of the Autogiro in America, including detailed descriptions of
the transcontinental flight and the Eastern Airlines
experimental Autogiro airmail route during the July 6, 1939,
through July 5, 1940, period from the roof of the
Philadelphia 30th Street Post Office and nearby Camden,
New Jersey, airport. I finally met Johnny in the CarterCopter
exhibit tent at the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA)
AirVenture Fly-In in July 2002 and consider the few hours
we spent in conversation as one of the highlights of my
Autogiro research; at ninety-seven he remains vital and
vivid in memories and accounts of what happened—a
national aviation treasure!
Through Russ Lee, curator of Rotary Aircraft at the
Smithsonian, I had managed to locate David Gittens, and
we exchanged many emails and much written material. And
when I had finally completed the writing of David Gittens's
gyroplane history (a version of which was subsequently
adapted for publication by the PRA magazine Rotorcraft), he
was kind enough to review what I had written and
comment. I also count as a highlight of this research
unexpectedly meeting David at the 2002 Popular Rotorcraft
Association (PRA) Fly-In at Waxahatchie, Texas. As David
resides in Sarasota, Florida, there was no logical reason to
suppose that he would be in Texas, but there he was and
we embraced as old friends—his Ikenga 530Z Gyroplane is
a stunning adaptation of the earlier Cierva/Pit-cairn
“tractor” (engine in the front, like a conventional airplane)
design. He gave me information on his particular venture
and was genuinely enthusiastic and supportive as this book
began to take shape. Written in nonsequential segments (as
information became available) that were later to be placed
in the proper position in the 1923–2003 history, the
biographies of the living pioneers often were written (and
rewritten) as the historical accounts of the early days were
assembled, weighed, and analyzed and conclusions were
drawn.
It has been a thrilling journey—as the eight decades of
autorotational history assumed a form not previously
available in a single work, relationships emerged to cast
innovative, and sometimes startling, light on events and led
to the new understandings and rediscovery of forgotten
pioneers. A few examples illustrate each of these points:
The conventional view was that Igor Bensen had, based on
the earlier British Rotachute (a rotary kite) designed by
Raoul Hafner for insertion of Allied agents into Europe
during World War II, first designed the Gyro-Glider and later
followed with the famed Gyrocopter, but this proved to be
untrue. Although Bensen's accomplishments, discussed at
length in the book, were many and varied, a forgotten
inventor named Harris Woods independently came up with a
design for a gyro-glider in 1945 based on an experience in
the Kellett KD1B Autogiro used in the earlier Eastern
Airlines airmail route and perhaps also based on an artist's
speculations accompanying the Ed Yulke article “Gyro Cars
for Fun” in the November 1945 Popular Mechanix. Although
Bensen's design was derivative from the Rotachute and the
World War II German submarine Focke-Achgelis Fa-330
rotary kite, an obscure Californian named Arliss Riggs was
building an independent series of Cierva/Pitcairn tractor
autogyros in California in the 1950s and 1960s.
Understanding the derivative nature of Bensen's
achievements helped explain why the Europeans, who had
begun with his kits in the late 1950s, had so quickly
modified Bensen designs and gone in different and
sometimes radical directions. Mel Morris Jones had helped
me contact the famed Finish designer/aeronautical engineer
Jukka Tervamäki, who related to me details of his
experience working in the Bensen Aircraft Company factory
in 1958, and he too was kind enough to review what I had
written and suggest how the text might be made better.
And when I became aware that Jukka had, with mechanic
Aulis Eerola, designed, constructed, and flown an autogyro
(an ATE-3, OH-XYV) in the 1969 Finnish Spede Pasanen and
Ere Kokkonen filmLeikkikalugangsteri (Toy Gangster), I
pestered him via email when I located a used copy in a
video store in Helsinki until he was kind enough to get it
and send it to me. By this time I had taken my first flight in
an autogyro, a wonderful, state-of-the-art two-place Magni
aircraft designed and sold as a kit through Greg
Gremminger, American distributor for Vittorio Magni's
Italian company (that same Magni with Greg is featured on
the cover of the August 2001 Popular Mechanics), and I was
hooked on flying, but the historical research continued at an
increasing pace. Its own unique excitement was the
encounter with historical figures, and none was more
significant than the legendary Californian Ken Brock. It was
to result, from a tragic turn of events, in the unexpected
possession of and unanticipated obligations accompanying
his legacy.
Concurrent with the work on this book, I had convinced
Hofstra University senior administrators of the benefits of
holding the first academic conference on the topic, “From
Autogiro to Gyroplane: The Past, Present and Future of an
Aviation Industry,” and securing a 2003 date from the
director of the Cultural Center, I embarked on securing the
support and participation of those pioneers whose names
were on my manuscript pages—one of whom was Ken
Brock. He failed to respond to my mailings, so I brazenly
walked up to his booth in an industry exhibits area in late
July at the 2001 EAA AirVenture and said, “Ken—you don't
answer my mail but I want you to come to my conference!”
He was friendly and receptive and admitted that he had not
looked at the mail, and almost immediately his wife and
partner, Marie, briefly took me aside and told me to send
mailings to her attention—she would see that Ken read
them and they would both participate in the conference. I
explained to Ken that I had written his history and would
appreciate his comments. We agreed that I would send him
my text, but he could not have guessed that behind my
breezy demeanor I was quite nervous about this, for the
interpretation I had reached was, I knew, quite at odds with
the traditional view that Igor Bensen was the single most
important moving force in the American gyrocopter
movement. My research had strongly pointed to the
interpretation that Brock had saved the PRA from the iconic
cult of Igor Bensen, and Brock's long tenure (1972–88) as
president of the organization had resulted in a creative
burst of innovation. I was aware that no other writer had
pictured him in this manner and was quite prepared to
receive a denial or claim that I had unjustly slighted Bensen
while aggrandizing Brock, but his reply was quietly eloquent
and affirmative: “You've done a nice job …,” he wrote on
September 11, 2001.
I had additionally come to see the Brock KB-2 Gyrocopter
as a truly historical aircraft—he and Igor Bensen had
disagreed about that model in 1970, and Bensen, claiming
that the KB-2 had been modified to such an extent that it
could no longer be called a Gyrocopter, as that was a
Bensen Aircraft–trademarked term. As a result, the KB-2
became the first modern gyroplane. I asked Ken if he would
consider donating a KB-2 to the Smithsonian's National Air
and Space Museum, and he replied that he would be
humbled to have one of his models in the national aviation
collection. In late August 2001 I was at the Smithsonian
with Rod Anderson and Dr. Claudius Klimt of the
CarterCopter organization and shared my research on Brock
with members of the rotary aircraft group. It was well-
received, and I was enthusiastically urged to pursue the
donation of the KB-2 in 2004 after the NASM had completed
and occupied its new exhibition space at Baltimore's Dulles
Airport. I could almost imagine the dedication of the KB-2,
with Ken and Marie looking on, but it was not to be. Ken
Brock died in a crash of his private plane on October 19,
2001—the tail wheel collapsed upon landing and the plane
skidded off the runway and flipped over, injuring Marie and
fatally injuring Ken. So I found myself in possession of Ken's
legacy and was immensely glad (and perhaps relieved) that
he had approved it—his story is told here, but I was pleased
to publish a modified tribute in the January 2002 issue of
Rotorcraft. And it meant a great deal to me that Marie
asked a friend to call me the day before Ken's funeral, at
which hundreds of friends and admirers came to celebrate
the life of this gyroplane pioneer, to tell me that the
Smithsonian donation meant so much to Ken that she would
put his KB-2 aside so that it could eventually be presented
to the NASM. A few months later Mel Morris Jones passed
away from a brain tumor—he had constantly encouraged
this book and become a good friend. And it is with the
express permission of the Brock and Jones families that I
am honored to dedicate this book to these two gallant
gentlemen who had become friends.
When I began this research I knew virtually nothing of the
history of the Autogiro, but I knew, like many, only of the
most famous modern autogyro, Little Nellie, in the 1967
James Bond film You Only Live Twice. That film's six and a
half minutes of gyro flight and fight remain, based on forty-
six hours of flying by Wing Commander Kenneth H. Wallis
RAF (Ret), the most stunning international images of the
autogyro, and I knew that it was a story essential in the
modern history I was writing. Ken Wallis proved an
engaging subject, and his history is told in detail, but there
was to be much more. When Hofstra University had
committed to the Auto-gyro/gyroplane conference, I had
proposed that Ken Wallis receive an honorary doctorate in
recognition of his life's achievements as an autogyro film
star, designer, and pilot. That proposal had worked its way
through the various committees and officials and was finally
approved by the university's board of trustees after over a
year's deliberations. I waited until the doctorate was
approved to contact Ken—but he had heard of the
conference and let me know through a mutual friend that
he intended to participate, and he had reviewed what I had
written about him. When I finally called his home,
Reymerston Hall, late one evening and identified myself,
Ken greeted me with, “Bruce, old man, how are you?” and
we shared a long conversation about Autogiro/autogyro
history.
It was apparent from my many contacts with living pioneers
that there was a story to tell and those eager to tell it and
to enthusiastically share in the recovered aviation history.
And as the book assumed its first draft form, linkages
became clear that found their way into the constant
consultations that seemed to arrive daily via letters, email,
fax, and the occasional telephone call. Roger Connor of the
Smithsonian asked for information on the controversy
concerning the first American Autogiro flight and the Henry
Ford Museum–Greenfield Village called with a query as to
where they might get a replacement tire for the Walter
Scripts Pitcairn PCA-2 Autogiro used by the Detroit News
seventy years ago (I didn't know, but one call down to the
Pitcairn Aircraft hangar in Robbinsville, New Jersey, and a
short conversation with a member of Steve Pitcairn's
restoration crew did the trick!).
This book also features a great number of acknowledgments
—and the reader is invited to note those individuals cited. It
is an accurate reflection of those who endorsed and
participated in this project, enthusiastic in its vision of
telling the eighty-year journey from Autogiro to Gyroplane.
In significant measure those living individuals cited in the
text were invited to comment on their stories, and in lesser
measure, most did. This has resulted in a vibrant profusion
of detail that hopefully tells a compelling story, while at the
same time being backed up by extensive endnotes and
documentation founded on an exhaustive research
bibliography. I have endeavored to produce the volume that
I had hoped to find when I got hooked by Autogiro history,
and it is my hope that others reading this book will be
intrigued and inspired to further the knowledge of this
forgotten segment of aviation history. And if this book can
serve as the foundation for such research or even just the
popular retelling of the stories and personalities that have
characterized Juan de la Cierva's vision, it will have
succeeded in extending that history into a new century.
While preparing this preface, I read an article in the fall
2002 issue of American Heritage of Invention & Technology
on vacuum tubes. Author Mark Wolverton engagingly
described the history of the vacuum tube and the emerging
technological innovations that may bring it back into a more
general use in the twenty-first century. He concludes by
asking, “Why abandon a technology just because it's old?…
The stubborn longevity of [vacuum] tubes demonstrates
that sometimes we may be a little too quick to discard the
old in favor of the new. Once in a while even the
obsolescent can have a few surprises and tricks in store.”
Such a question, asked about the Autogiro and Juan de la
Cierva's autorotational technology, is an appropriate
question for this book.
And with regard to the flying, I've never shaken the
romance and sheer excitement of the original Pitcairn
Autogiro. I recently took my twelve-year-old daughter,
Jessica Lauren Charnov, down to visit Steve Pitcairn. I
specifically asked if Jessica could seeMiss Champion, as I
wanted it to be part of her memories. Steve kindly asked if
she would like to sit in the cockpit, which she happily did.
And then I asked, “How about her father?” and Steve told
me to go ahead. It proved an amazing experience—sitting
there and taking in the controls, I thought of the 1932 flight
in this very Autogiro by Lewis A. “Lew” Yancy to Havana,
Cuba, and then on to the Yucatán, and the world's altitude
record over Boston later that same year. In April I took Ken
Wallis down to the Pitcairn Aircraft hangar, and although the
weather did not allow flying, Steve introduced Ken Wallis to
Miss Champion, an amazing coming together of two
gyroplane pioneers. I've also contracted with Ron Herron of
Little Wing Autogyros to “cut steel” and start welding a
fuselage for me based on his tractor design. And I have
taken delivery of a fantastic seven-cylinder rotary engine
being produced by Rotec in Australia that has a lineage
stretching back to the original engines on the early Cierva
and Pitcairn machines. The two together would result in a
modern autogyro that strongly resembled the earlier
Autogiros in appearance and performance. And what should
its paint scheme be? Why, just like Miss Champion, of
course!
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is the product of a great deal of help,
encouragement, and shared enthusiasm. There are many
who deserve thanks and acknowledgment and I can only
hope that no one has been forgotten, for without their aid
this project could not have been completed. I thank initially
Steve Pitcairn, whose thoughtful, spontaneous gift of a copy
of Frank Kingston Smith's Legacy of Wings: The Harold F.
Pitcairn Story was where and when this book began, and
who later so generously made available the Pitcairn Aircraft
Association photo archives, and I also thank Sen. Juan de la
Cierva, who kindly shared his memories of his uncle of the
same name, inventor of the Autogiro in Spain in 1923.
Historian/scholars Carl Gunther (Pitcairn Aviation), James
G. Lear (American Helicopter Museum), Russell Lee, Roger
Connor, Tom Deitz, and Dr. Dominick Pisano (Smithsonian
Institution National Air and Space Museum), Dr. Bette
Davidson Kalash (Jesse Davidson Aviation Archives), Glenn
and Pam Bundy (Archimedes Rotary Aircraft Museum,
Popular Rotorcraft Association), and pioneer
editor/author/historian/pilot Paul Bergen Abbott were
incredibly helpful, generous with their time, and genuinely
tolerant of my many inquiries.
Rotary aircraft authors/journalists/publishers Mel N. Morris
Jones (Fly-Gyro!), Katheryn Fields (Rotorcraft), Dan Leslie
(TV journalist), Stephanie Gremminger (former
editor,Rotorcraft), Ron Bartlett and Kay Verity (Autogyro
1/4ly), and the British Rotorcraft Association's T. P. “Ben”
Mullett were amazingly helpful and shared enthusiasm for
this project to present a comprehensive history of how the
amazing autorotating vision of Juan de la Cierva survived
and, with photo/journalist Stu Fields, cannot be thanked
enough for providing many of the stunning photographs
that accompany the text. Legendary Autogiro/gyrocopter
pioneers John “Johnny” M. Miller, Martin Hollmann, George
Townson, Ken and Marie Brock, David Gittens, Italy's
Vittorio Magni (who continues as a leading manufacturer),
and Finland's Jukka Tervamäki were extraordinarily kind
with their information (and photographs) and memories,
and this book could not have been completed in the form
that it assumed without their assistance. Nor could the
story of the industry be told without the kind assistance of
current industry leaders Ron Herron (Little Wing
Autogyros), Greg and Steph Gremminger (Magni USA, LLC),
Jim and Kelly Vanek (SportCopter), Donald and Linda
(Haseloh) Lafleur (RAF), Robert E. Kopp (Gyro-Kopp-Ters),
Don Bouchard, and many others who made time to talk to a
stranger about their business. Special thanks are also due
legendary pilot John T. Potter, who so generously shared his
memories of Don Farrington. And Jay Carter Jr., Rod
Anderson, Dr. Claudius Klimt, and Glenna Montgomery of
CarterCopters, along with Jay and David Groen, Al Waddill,
and James “Jim” P. Mayfield III of Groen Brothers Aviation
willingly shared their vision of the future for this amazing
aviation technology, and their enthusiasm about that future
proved contagious.
I am also grateful for the support and encouragement of
Tom Poberezny, president of the Experimental Aircraft
Association, Ms. Ann Brown, executive director of the
American Helicopter Museum, Hofstra University former and
current presidents Dr. James M. Shuart and Stuart
Rabinowitz, J.D., Provost and Executive Vice President Dr.
Herman Berliner and Dean Ralph Polimeni, Ph.D., of the
Frank G. Zarb School of Business, for their constant
support. I also salute my wonderful administrative support
team Geraldine “Geri” Woods and student research
assistants Laura A. Barone and Audrey E. Damour, as well
as administrators Anneliese Payne, Sherry M. Ross, Dr.
David Klein, Barry Germond, and Dr. Lanny Udey of Hofstra
University's Academic Computing services, and Brian
Caligiure for their invaluable contributions in the area of
photographic digitizing that made many of the book's
illustrations possible.
I thank the editors at Greenwood/Praeger for their efforts,
even as I fully accept responsibility for my errors.
As always, this is for my children Aharon Chayim Charnov,
Miryam Esther Benovitz and her husband Don-E, and
Jessica Lauren Charnov. And delightfully, for the next
generation: Ariella Reva Benovitz, Yonaton Menachem
Benovitz, and Mindel “Mindy” Leora Benovitz.
And for Ron Herron—now that the book is done, on to the
Little Wing!
 INTRODUCTION
A very interesting type of heavier-than-air craft is the
Cierva autogyro. It is neither a helicopter nor an airplane. It
consists of a body or fuselage very similar to that of an
airplane. In its nose there is a motor and an ordinary type
of propeller. Its small stubby wings and tail surfaces are
somewhat similar to that of any airplane. The remarkable
feature of this machine is the windmill, or rotary wing which
is mounted over it. This windmill, or rotor as it is called, is
not actuated directly by any power from the engine but is
made to revolve by the airstream from the propellor striking
against it. When an ordinary airplane takes off in flight, its
propeller gives it speed through the air and makes air pass
under the wing at such a rapid rate that the airplane rises.
With the autogyro, instead of the wing being fixed in
position, it rotates and goes through as many particles of
air in a given time as the wing of an airplane does; but with
the windmill, instead of a great deal of forward motion
being required, it is accomplished in one place by rotation….
The machine can be made to hover over a certain place
when climbing it upward. It can be brought straight down to
the ground and landed on a place without any forward
motion…. The autogyro has been very successful in its
flights and promises a great deal for the future, where
machines are required to land on the top of a building, a
small field, in a forest or the top of a mountain.
—General William “Billy” Mitchell,
Skyways (1930)
April 1931 saw what is undeniably the most dramatic
moment in the history in America of the Autogiro, the 1923
invention of Spaniard Juan de la Cierva. On April 22, 1931,
on the back lawn of the White House, President Herbert
Hoover presented the prestigious Collier Trophy of 1930, for
the greatest achievement in American aviation to Harold F.
Pitcairn 1and his associates Edwin Asplundh, Agnew E.
Larsen, James G. “Jim” Ray, and Geoffrey S. Childs for
“their development and application of the Autogiro and the
demonstration of its possibilities with a view to its use for
safe aerial transport.”2 Pitcairn thus joined the luminaries of
aviation, many of whom were present for the ceremony,
including Orville Wright and Senator Hiram Bingham, who
had created the Air Commerce Act of 1926, the
“cornerstone of modern aviation.”3
Although Pitcairn sought to schedule the presentation so
that Cierva could be present, the availability of President
Hoover dictated the time and place of the ceremony.
Hoover, previously secretary of commerce, whose
jurisdiction had included the drafting of federal and state
aeronautical safety regulations, had often consulted with
Pitcairn, and he requested that the ceremony be held on the
south lawn of the White House and that it commence with
the landing of a Pitcairn Autogiro!
On April 21, pilot Jim Ray flew the Pitcairn PCA-2 from the
factory in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, to College Park,
Maryland. The next morning, with newsreel cameras
present, Ray landed the Autogiro on the south lawn of the
White House, a landing strip of only two hundred feet, with
the Pitcairn landing almost within its own length. It was the
first rotary-wing aircraft to land at the White House,4 and its
takeoff was almost as dramatic—backed up close to the
building, Ray took off in a crosswind and was climbing after
a ground run of only forty-three feet. He then turned
northeast ahead of an advancing squall that was already
churning the Potomac River, a most effective demonstration
of what Fortune magazine called “the only basic
contribution to the art of flight since the Wright brothers
rode a biplane into the air in 1903.”5
A fixed-wing aircraft derives lift from its wings in
accordance with Bernoulli's law, which states that because
air has to flow faster over the curved top of a wing surface
than under the flat bottom and that faster air exerts less
pressure on the top of the wing, lift is produced.6 The
difficulty with a fixed-wing aircraft was that it could fall out
of the sky when its speed was less than that necessary to
keep sufficient air flowing over the wing—a condition known
as a stall. Cierva's innovation was to separate the speed of
the wing from the speed of the aircraft by letting the wing
surfaces—here two to four rotor blades, each functioning as
a separate wing—rotate freely above the aircraft. He named
it an Autogiro, and it was the first aircraft that could not
stall. The air flowing up through the rotor blades caused
them to turn, a condition he calledautorotation, and
continually provided lift, even when the aircraft was
descending.
The helicopter, which appeared after the Autogiro, flies with
a powered rotor by “pushing” down. Should a helicopter
lose power, its pilot immediately disconnects the rotor
blades from its engine and allows free rotation, which lets
the aircraft gently descend as it derives lift from
autorotation; in such emergencies the helicopter becomes
an Autogiro.
William E. Hunt later a pioneering rotary-flight engineer and
an associate of Igor Sikorsky, described the dramatic impact
of Ray's landing in the following manner:
In 1931, while I was attending a technical school in
Washington, DC, taking a two-year course in aircraft design,
aerodynamics and draughting, I happened to be passing the
back of the White House when I became aware of an
unusually loud aircraft engine noise above and behind me.
Quickly turning around, I saw it was an autogyro, and as it
passed overhead it aimed directly towards the Rose Garden,
which it circled several times. Then I noticed several people
standing behind a table on the left side of the garden.
I ran across the street and stood peering over the iron
fencing, hedge and flower garden just as the autogyro
made its final pass (years later, veteran pilot Jim Ray told
me he almost decided not to land) and turned directly
towards me, descending at a very steep angle. The aircraft
made a quick nose-up “flare-out,” its whirling rotors tilting
backwards to provide maximum lift, as Jim Ray with
consummate skill made a perfect slow, soft landing on the
lawn, the first and last time an autogyro would do so. He
then turned round and taxied back as far as he could, and
turned round again, facing into the wind, keeping the rotor
turning with the propeller wash, ready for take-off…. With
wheel brakes hard-on, power was increased, causing the
rotor blades to whirl faster, then the pilot simultaneously
applied full power and released the wheel brakes into the
wind. With another quick nose-up the 'gyro rose as if by
magic at a steep angle to clear the tree-encircled lawn….
Little did I realize at the time that this form of aircraft would
lead me to the Sikorsky Division of the United Aircraft
Corporation.7

This, then, was the best of times for Harold Frederick

Pitcairn and the Pitcairn-Cierva Autogiro Company. Since
acquiring the American manufacturing and licensing rights
to Cierva's patents and inventions on February 14, 1929, for
the significant sum of $300,000, Pitcairn had sold his
transport airline and airmail service in June 1929 and
embarked on a developmental program that resulted in the
PCA-2, which had received its government certification on
April 2, 1931.
Pitcairn needed to publicize his new model, and Amelia
Earhart, ever mindful of current aviation developments, had
been as eager to fly Pitcairn's new Autogiro as he
apparently was for her to do so with the assured publicity.
On April 8, 1931, she set an altitude record of 18,415 feet.
On her first attempt, watched by over five hundred
spectators, the news media, and cameras, she reached
18,500 feet but experienced fuel-line trouble. After a light
lunch and a nap and remedial action by the Pitcairn
mechanics, she made a second attempt, which took three
hours, and returned at dusk with a National Aeronautic
Association (NAA) sealed barograph attesting to the altitude
record. The record would stand until broken by Captain
Lewis L. A. Yancey, who reached 21,500 feet over Boston,
Massachusetts, on September 25, 1932.
April 1931 was truly a month of triumphs for the Pitcairn-
Cierva Autogiro Company as experienced by few aviation
companies and catapulted the Autogiro into the American
popular imagination. It was touted as the safest aircraft
flying, increasing its appeal to a public recently battered by
the death of noted coach Knute Rockne in the March 31,
1931, crash of a Fokker Tri-Motor (NC999E) at Bazaar,
Kansas. But although these successes seemed to portend a
bright future for the Autogiro, it was not to be, and Pitcairn
would effectively be out of the business by 1941, the result
of bad economic conditions, poor business decisions, and
the advent of the helicopter.
Also, the fate of Autogiro development was indelibly
impacted in England on the fog-shrouded morning of
December 9, 1936. The KLM DC-2 (PH-AKL) flight, bound
for Amsterdam from the airport at Croydon Aerodrome,
London, was delayed beyond its 10:00 A.M. scheduled
takeoff. Under the command of a Captain Hautmeyer, it
finally made an instrument takeoff, made necessary by
visibility that rarely exceeded 25 yards. The pilot, although
experienced, inadvertently swung subtly off to the left from
the white 2,100-foot takeoff guideline, which proved to be a
fatal mistake to all but two of the sixteen people on board
when the plane crashed—at the time, the worst air disaster
in British history. Thus did Juan de la Cierva die—an ironic
end to a man so passionately committed to developing a
safe means of air travel. Stripped of his passion, the
company he founded in England would quickly shift the
focus of its efforts toward developing a helicopter. And while
a few other Cierva licensees, notably the Kellett Brothers of
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,8 would pursue Autogiro
development, the technology would effectively disappear
with the coming of the helicopter, which did the one thing
that the Autogiro could not—hover over a place without
vertical movement—an advantage that, particularly in the
minds of senior military officers who procured the new craft,
more than made up for increased cost and mechanical
complexity.
Although it is tempting to assert that the Autogiro
disappeared because of the shift of the world economies
toward the waging of global war, this would be incorrect. For
even though the United States minimally investigated
application of the Kellett and Pitcairn Autogiros for specific
combat missions, Japan, England, France, Sweden,
Germany, and the Soviet Union regularly made use of
Autogiro technology. But it was clearly the helicopter that
had focused public and military attention on rotary-wing
aircraft. The result was that all attempts to revive or even
advance Autogiro technology, most notably by combining it
with the helicopter in configurations that came to be known
as a compound helicopter or convertiplane, came to naught.
Spectacular autorotational achievements such as Fairey
Aviation's “Rotodyne” of England and its Russian
counterpart, the Kamov Ka-22 Vintokrulya (Vintokryl)
(“Screw Wing”) were abandoned by the early 1960s, and it
appeared that Cierva's technology would become so
insignificant and irrelevant as to completely vanish from
aviation sight. The impressive Umbaugh 18A (later, Air &
Space 18A)9 and McCulloch J-2 gyroplanes10 of America,
and the Canadian Avian 2/18011 made little impact through
the 1970s and soon faded from public view. Few recall that
England's Wing Commander Ken Wallis RAF (Retired) flew
his Little Nellie autogyro in the 1967 James Bond film You
Only Live Twice (which was not a miniature helicopter as
one character in the movie claims) or that Canadian Peter
Rowland Payne designed the legendary Avian 2/180
gyroplane. If remembered at all, Payne is associated with
his better-known inventions, notably the nonlethal rubber
bullet (1967) and the crash-test dummy (anthropomorphic
mannequin).
That this seeming inevitability of technological extinction did
not occur was occasioned in part by the most unlikely
combination: Igor Bensen, a Russian-immigrant engineer; a
World War II German submarine rotary-wing kite invented
by Professor Heinrich K. J. Focke; and the English 1942
Airborne Forces Experimental Establishment (AFEE)
Rotachute designed by Austrian immigrant Raoul Hafner, Dr.
J. A. J. Bennett, and O. L. L. Fitzwilliams. Although these
obscure rotary-wing inventions had virtually no impact on
the course of events for the combatants, Bensen's
experiences with both would lead directly to the creation of
the Gyrocopter, a term he would trademark just as Cierva
had done with Autogiro thirty years earlier. The Gyrocopter,
fondly known as the “flying lawn-chair,” was the unlikely
vehicle that would enable autorotation technology to
survive.
For a while in the middle of the twentieth century, it
certainly appeared that Cierva's dream would survive only
as an amateur project constructed in thousands of garages
and backyards, but even that was not assured. For while
Bensen preserved and nurtured it with missionary zeal, the
Popular Rotorcraft Association, the movement he created,
soon had to be rescued from his leadership lest it too fall
victim to the very limitations embodied by that vision. And
it was only during the subsequent leadership of Ken Brock,
who never appears to have seen himself as the
revolutionary that history reveals him to be, that the
gyroplane movement has emerged as a true international
endeavor.
Ultimately, the survival of this amazing aviation technology
is to be found in its simplicity and safety—the very factors
that characterized its early development. In many ways this
has been a technology seeking a task and an effective form
of business organization to achieve a successful commercial
result, and that is only now happening. It is only in the
eighth decade of the “windmill plane” that its industrial
potential seems about to be realized, with the creation and
marketing of the Groen Brothers Aviation (GBA) Hawk 4
series of gyroplanes to an international market. This
success, which eluded so many previous entrepreneurs, is
as much the product of the creation of an effective business
organization and effective business decision making as it is
the result of a superior gyroplane model.
This book presents the history and development of the
autorotational aircraft. Whether called an Autogiro
(trademarked by Cierva and referring to Cierva-licensed
aircraft), Gyrocopter (the Bensen trademark until the
company ceased operations), autogyro, or the general term
gyroplane, there is a wonder as to the means and methods
by which it survived bad business decision making, poor
timing, the Depression, a world war, and bad luck. That the
Autogiro survived is even more impressive given that for
almost all of its first eight decades, it totally and completely
failed to find a market! It was, in every real sense, a failure
from the late 1930s onward. Its survival was not in any way
assured, and in a dramatic turn of events, the most exciting
developments are only now emerging at the start of the
twenty-first century with the CarterCopter, which is poised
to make aviation history in ways that Cierva, Pitcairn, and
their contemporaries could not have anticipated but in a
manner that they could immediately appreciate and applaud
as the fruition of long-ago dreams of rotating wings. The
story of the survival of this technology in the shadow of
constant failure is a suspenseful drama with a fascinating
cast of characters, but it is a worthy paradigm for
technologies seemingly passed by. In this time ever-
increasingly characterized as one of rapid change, there
may be many such technologies that are worthy of current
innovation. This book tells that story.
NOTES

1. The standard work on Harold F. Pitcairn is Frank

Kingston Smith's Legacy of Wings: The Harold F.
Pitcairn Story (New York: Jason Aronson, 1981). See
alsoGeorge Townson, Autogiro: The Story of ‘the
Windmill Plane’ (Fallbrook, California: Aero Publishers;
Trenton, New Jersey: Townson, 1985); Frank Anders,
“The Forgotten Rotorcraft Pioneer: Harold F. Pitcairn,”
Rotor & Wing International25, no. 5 (May 1990): 34–
37; Frank Kingston Smith, “Mr. Pitcairn's Autogiros,”Air-
power 12, no. 2 (March 1983): 28–49; Carl R. Gunther,
“Autogiro: Part 1 and 2,” Popular Rotorcraft Flying 17,
no. 5–6 (October–December 1979); George Townson,
“History of the Autogiro,” American Helicopter Society
Newsletter 11, no. 4 (March 1961); George Townson,
“General Information and History of the Autogiro,”
American Helicopter Society Newsletter 11, no. 4
(March 1961);George Townson and Howard Levy, “The
History of the Autogiro: Part Two,” Air Classics Quarterly
Review 4, no. 3 (fall 1977): 4–19, 110–14.
2. Smith, Legacy of Wings, p. 184.
3. Smith, “Mr. Pitcairn's Autogiros,” p. 36.
4. For photographs of the landing and takeoff at the White
House, see Smith, p. 36.
5. “Autogiro in 1936,” Fortune 13, no. 3 (March 1936):
88–93, 130–31, 134, 137; 88.
6. Francis Pope and Arthur S. Otis, Aeronautics (Yonkers-
on-Hudson, New York: World Book Company, 1941) pp.
106–10.
7. See William E. Hunt, ‘Heelicopter’ Pioneering with Igor
Sikorsky (London: Airlife Publishing Ltd., 1998), pp. 35–
36.
8. Philadelphian Roderick “Rodney” G. Kellett and his
brother W. Wallace Kellett, along with C. Townsend
Ludington and his brother Nicolas Townsend, had
 founded the Kellett Aircraft company in 1929 with a
license from the Autogiro Company of America. The
Kelletts had originally begun in the aviation business as
dealers in 1923 operating out of the Pine Valley airport.
Peter W. Brooks, Cierva Autogiros: The Development of
Rotary-Wing Flight (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian
Institution Press, 1988) pp. 134–36. By 1936 Kellett
Aircraft had invested $500,000 into the Autogiro
business. See “Autogiro in 1936,” p. 130 (photo
caption).
9. Kas Thomas, “The Umbaugh Story: Rags to Riches (and
Back?),” Popular Rotorcraft Flying 10, no. 2 (March–
April 1972): 10, 23.
10. Bill Sanders, “The Rebirth of N4353G and N4364G,”
Rotorcraft 28, no. 4 (June–July 1990): 14–19; Robert
Zimmerman, “A Reality at Last: The Family
Autogyro,”Popular Mechanics 131, no. 3 (March 1969):
112–13. For a critical appraisal of the J-2, see Peter
Garrison, “Everybody Loves an Autogyro,” Flying 88, no.
2 (February 1971): 66–68.
11. David Mondey (ed.), The Complete Illustrated
Encyclopedia of the World's Aircraft (Secaucus, New
Jersey: Chartwell Books, Inc., 1978), pp. 86–87.
 Chapter 1

JUAN DE LA CIERVA
“It was still the only basic contribution to the art of flight
since the Wright brothers rode a biplane into the air in
1903.”
“Cierva, the soft-spoken Spaniard with the bulbous
intellectual forehead…”
“Autogiro in 1936,” Fortune
Juan de la Cierva y Codorníu, “the greatest name in the
history of rotary-wing flight before Igor Sikorsky evolved
the first widely used type of heli-copter,”1 has largely been
forgotten.2 Although his discovery (some would say
rediscovery)3 of autorotational flight and development of
the first functional rotary-wing aircraft—which he called the
Autogiro and which derived its lift from autorotation4—
preceded Sikorsky by sixteen years, he has largely been
relegated to, at best, a curious footnote in aviation history,
and then only in reference to the development of the
helicopter.
Autorotation is defined as “the process of producing lift with
freely-rotating aerofoils by means of the aerodynamic forces
resulting from an upward flow of air.”5 This means that as
long as the aircraft is moving, lift will be produced by the
movement of air up through the rotating wing surfaces
(called rotors). Thus the Autogiro's unpowered rotor lifts up,
not pushes down as does the helicopter's rotor. The
Autogiro, the unique spelling coined as a proprietary name
by Cierva, was characterized in an enduring descriptive
manner as the “windmill plane”6 and as a “‘devil's darning-
needle,’ a corkscrew plane, a dragonfly, a flapper flying
machine….an intoxicated duck … [comparing] its method of
making a turn in the air to Charles Chaplin in his favorite
fashion of turning a corner in a hurry.”7 Yet these
descriptions do not begin to capture the excitement that
occasioned its flight. Even today one marvels at the
photographs and surviving films of the Autogiros of the
forgotten American pioneer Harold F. Pitcairn flying over
Manhattan, over the partially constructed George
Washington Bridge, and past the Statue of Liberty—and
when his son Stephen “Steve” Pitcairn flies one of the few
surviving flying Autogiros,8Miss Champion (NC11609)9 at
air shows, a hush falls over the crowd as aviation history
flies by at eighteen to twenty miles per hour, twenty feet off
the ground! In what has been termed the Golden Age of
Aviation,10 Cierva and Pitcairn's aircraft captured the world's
attention. And it all began with a young man, the son of an
aristocratic family in Spain, who would first become, before
inventing the Autogiro, the “Father of Spanish Aviation.”
Juan de la Cierva was born in Murcia, Spain, on September
21, 1895, the first son of a privileged family. His father, Don
Juan de la Cierva Peñafiel, made the family fortune from the
practice of law and land ownership. After World War I the
elder Cierva served in successive Conservative government
administrations as a delegate to the national assembly, and
as minister of education, the interior, war, the treasury, and
development. He remained both active and identified with
Conservative governments until he left public life with the
formation of the Spanish Republic in 1931. He died in 1938,
but unfortunately lived long enough to attend the funeral of
his eldest son.
There was little in the education of the younger Cierva that
would portend his interest in aviation. He attended local
schools in Murcia and received private tutoring when the
family moved to cosmopolitan Madrid in 1905. Although
there is little mention of the impact of the Wright brothers
first flight at Kill Devil Hill, North Carolina, in 1903 on the
eight-year-old boy, while a student in Madrid Cierva begun
studying the work of Samuel Pierpont Langley,11 Sir Hiram
Stevens Maxim,12 Clément Ader,13 Octave Chanute,14 and
other contemporary aeronautical writers.15 He was
particularly impressed with the scientific inquiries of Otto
Lilienthal,16 who had died in 1896, the year after Cierva's
birth—and who had articulated principles by which manned
flight could be made a reality. Cierva was also taken by the
fact that Lilienthal had made more than two thousand
gliding flights, a paradigm of practical and theoretical
aviation that was to distinguish Cierva's own efforts.17
Aviation achievements were regularly reported by the
newspapers in Europe and the newly established aviation
journalsRevista de locomocion aerea18 and Aviacion, and
Cierva was certainly aware of the first officially observed
European powered flight of Brazilian Alberto Santos-
Dumont19 in France on October 23, 1906, and of Wilbur
Wright's demonstration flights in France in late 1908. Those
flights led to the spread of “aviation fever.”20 He also could
not help but be inspired by reports of the first crossing of
the English Channel by Louis Blériot on July 25, 1909. By
1908–9, Cierva had decided to make aviation his career,
later observing that he doubted that his parents looked
favorably on his aeronautical endeavors. But he also noted
that “boys find ways and means to satisfy their
extraordinary impulses, and we spent much of our spare
time and most of our spare cash in these primitive
experiments in practical aeronautics.”21
The first powered flights in Spain were made in Barcelona
on February 11, 1910, followed by appearances in Madrid
on March 23 by French pilot Julien Mamet in his Blériot.
These later flights were witnessed by fourteen-year-old
Cierva and his friends, who resolved to push ahead with
their own design efforts. Beginning with models and larger
kites, the aviation adventurers—Juan, his younger brother
Ricardo, José “Pepe” Barcala Moreno, Pablo Diaz Fernández,
Tomás de Martin-Barbadillo, Rafael Silvela Tordesillas, and
Antonio Hernandez-Ros Murcia Codorníu (the mother's
name following the father's, as was Spanish custom at the
time)—advanced to gliders during the 1910–11 period,
flying craft that were not very successful but gaining
enough experience to convince Cierva to pursue aviation in
his college education.
In 1911 Cierva enrolled at the Civil Engineering College of
Madrid with his friend Pepe Barcala, and by 1912, along
with Pablo Diaz, the young men were ready to build the first
Spanish airplane. In 1912 the Spanish government
purchased its aircraft from external sources, notably from
France. A French pilot, Jean Mauvais, then living in Madrid,
sold aviation supplies to the government and gave
exhibition flights for the public in his Sommer biplane. His
reputation was as a genial gentleman, and he had become
friends with the young men, who spent spare time at the
nearby Cuatro Vientos Airport, six and a half miles
southwest of Madrid. The local fliers used to play a recurring
practical joke on the French pilot by hiding his small Dion
Bouton single-cylinder two-seat automobile at various
places about the airfield—a ploy soon mastered by Mauvais
as he regularly retrieved his car to drive back into Madrid at
the end of the day. But on one occasion the locals were
more inventive than usual, and it resulted in a lengthy
search by the increasingly frustrated pilot. He was grateful
for the help of Cierva and his friends, who eventually found
the small automobile suspended by a rope from the ceiling
inside the dirigible hanger! But it was Mauvais's
misfortunate that would lead Cierva, Barcala, and Diaz to
construct the first Spanish airplane.
Aviation was new and a relatively uncommon phenomenon
—and although flying achievements and daring aerial feats
were acclaimed, the public had not yet fully realized the
dangers inherent in a speeding plane, with its various
whirling blades and moving wings. Crowds regularly rushed
onto runways to mob the successful aviator, as they would
do to Charles Lindbergh when he landed at Paris on May 21,
1927. Famed woman early aviator Matilde Moisant's flying
career would end on April 14, 1912 when she crashed after
avoiding the spectators rushing on the runway at Wichita
Falls, Texas. Pulled from the wreckage with her hair and
clothes on fire, she was not seriously hurt, but her family's
concern led her to end a promising aviation career at just
twenty-six years old.22 This rushing by the crowd happened
to Mauvais at the conclusion of a demonstration flight at a
Madrid race course. The spectators, having been amazed by
the aerial spectacle, rushed the landing plane with tragic
results: although the pilot tried to avoid the approaching
crowd, several people were killed and the plane was
wrecked. As a result, Mauvais, who had emerged almost
unscathed, announced that he was quitting flying, and the
wreckage of the Sommer was removed and
unceremoniously heaped in back of the pilot's airport
workshop.
The boys entered into an agreement with Mauvais to
purchase the wreckage and, using what could be salvaged,
began to construct a new aircraft. It was also agreed that
Mauvais would act as the test pilot of the aircraft, as none
of the boys could then fly. Almost twenty years later Cierva
speculated that Mauvais “probably thought this an excellent
joke; very likely he supposed the bargain was safeguarded
by the likelihood that we would never complete our part of
the contract.”23 The boys used their joint capital,
approximately $60, and started construction in the
workshop of Pablo Diaz's father at No. 10, Calle de
Velázquez, Madrid. The boys, with their severely limited
budget and fearing the disapproval of concerned parents,
had to fabricate most of the parts that went into the
rebuilding effort. A significant portion of their limited capital
paid for the services of a carpenter at an hourly wage, but
when it came time to replace the propeller that had been
destroyed in the original crash, there was a genuine crisis.
Cierva knew from his reading that propellers were crafted
from seasoned wood, and he found it in the most unlikely of
places for a young man from an aristocratic family—the
barroom of a local inn!24 Cierva reasoned that the counter
of the bar had been bathed in spilled drinks for years and
that the constant exposure to alcohol would surely have
seasoned the countertop; of perhaps equal importance, it
was within the remaining funds, so they purchased it and
from that countertop carved a propeller. Cierva had learned,
by this point, enough of the requirements to design
sufficient curve and balance that the propeller functioned,
much to Mauvais's surprise!
It must be regarded as one of the ironies of Cierva's life and
Spanish aviation that the propeller of the first aircraft
constructed in Spain was crafted from a wine-soaked
tabletop from a local bar. But although this failed to achieve
mythic status, later Spanish lore would assert that Cierva's
inspiration for the flexible rotor blade that made the
Autogiro possible was occasioned during an operatic
performance of Don Quixotewhen he saw the windmill
onstage with its flexible blades!25 Although there is various
evidence that Cierva was inspired at the opera, his intellect
having been active in considering the matter of rotor
design, actually there is agreement and a family memory
that the opera was Verdi's Aïda.26 So although invocation of
a Spanish national literary hero is worthy of myth,
propellers from local drinking establishments are apparently
quite forgettable! But the aircraft constructed by the boys
was not forgotten—using the first initials from each of their
last names, the young builders dubbed their biplane the
BCD-1, but it quickly became known as El Cangrejo—the
“Red Crab”—because they had colored the wings and
fuselage with aniline dye to a deep scarlet color.27 Finally
the day came when Mauvais took to the air, test-flying the
plane as part of their deal—and it flew quite well! Although
he had given up flying after the fatal accident that had
rendered the original Sommer a pile of debris, he had
helped the boys with advice and become interested in their
plane's progress. Now he would perform a service that
would echo in Cierva's life until his death in 1936—Mauvais
often took Cierva flying.
Cierva flew in it many times, and Mauvais let the young
man reach around from the rear passenger seat and hold
the wheel. Cierva probably remembered those moments
when he himself took flying lessons in 1927 so that he could
fly his Autogiro! It was apparent that, despite some slight
wobble and vibration, the problem of the propeller had
successfully been solved. The wings were another matter.
The boys had run short of money, and to cover the wing
surfaces, they had purchased the cheapest canvas, which
was stretched over the wooden framework of the wings and
doped with a great deal of glue. Although the propeller
lasted as long as the airplane flew, the wings became sticky
when exposed to rain. Eventually the plane began to
disintegrate. When the wings began to vibrate in flight, it
was perceived as merely a minor annoyance. When parts of
the aircraft began to fall off, however, it was an inglorious
end to theRed Crab, Spain's first airplane.
The boys were emboldened by their success with the Red
Crab and the subsequent benefit of the favorable
impression that it had made upon their parents (including
an increased allowance to spend on aviation projects). In
1913 they constructed a racing monoplane, its design
probably inspired by the publicity that the French Nieuport
was receiving in European air races. The new airplane,
dubbed the BCD-2, was originally powered by a twenty-four
horsepower Anzani engine, which was designed by Italian
motorcycle builder Alessandro Anzani, then living in
Courbevoie, France. But needing more power, the boys soon
substituted a sixty horsepower Le Rhône engine. First flown
by pilot Julio Adaro Terradillos at Getafe airfield outside
Madrid in December 1913, the aircraft proved unstable and
soon crashed. Repaired with what the young men hoped
would be sufficient corrections, the BCD-2 was transported
to Cuatro Vientos outside Madrid where Mauvais agreed to
be the new test pilot. Its development ended for good when
it crashed again. But this setback did not dissuade the boys,
and Cierva's next project was to prove far more ambitious
although, unfortunately, no more successful. However, out
of that experience would come the Autogiro, the most
significant aviation innovation since the Wright brothers.
The young men then devoted their time to their studies—
with Cierva concentrating on his classes at the Civil
Engineering School in Madrid where he studied a course
that resulted, in 1917, in graduation with the title of
Ingeniero de Caminos, Canales y Puertos (Engineer of
Roads, Canals and Ports). There were neither aeronautical
schools nor courses of aeronautical study in Spain, and
Cierva's academic achievement was then considered the
highest engineering degree in Spain. His achievements,
however, with the Autogiro were to be such that in 1930,
when the first University for Aeronautics was established in
Spain, he was awarded an honorary degree, granting him
the additional academic title of Ingeniero de Construcciones
Aeronáuticas.28 By 1931 Cierva would become a permanent
consulting member of the Junta Superior de Estudios y
Pensiones para Extrajero, an institution for aeronautical
research that awarded scholarships for study in foreign
countries; a member of the Association of Spanish Civil
Engineers and the Association of Aeronautical Engineers in
Spain; an honorary member of the AIDA [a society for
aviation engineering] in Italy; a member of the Société
Française de Locomotion Aerienne in France; and a member
of the British, German, French, Spanish, and Belgian Aero
Clubs. Additionally, he would be made Chevalier of the
Legion of Honor in France and holder of the Order of
Leopold in Belgium, and awarded the Cross of Alfonso XII in
Spain.
While a university student, Cierva followed the course of the
war in Europe and read avidly of the rapid developments in
air combat; spurred on by the needs of combat, the nature
of the airplane was quickly changing as it developed into a
lethal weapon. With such progress came scientific articles
and treatises, which were devoured by young Cierva.
Although he had ceased practical experimentation after the
BCD-2, he immersed himself in the theoretical literature of
wing curves and airfoil design, mathematically based
subjects that were to furnish a theoretical foundation for the
coming Autogiro development. However, one more practical
excursion into airplane design was just around the corner in
1918.
Spain, which had remained neutral in the world war, now
resolved to nurture local aviation talent to incorporate
airpower into its armed forces, as the ongoing conflict had
revealed such force to be a vital element of modern
warfare. On September 5, 1918, the Spanish government
announced an aviation design contest under the direction of
Colonel Don Julio Rodríguez Mourelo, director of Spanish Air
Services, for pursuit, reconnaissance, and bomber aircraft.
Although the prize offered in each category was only 60,000
pesetas, equivalent then to about $9,600 ($60,000–
$70,000 today), Cierva was undeterred. Even the possibility
that there would be additional orders of the winning design
was not a major incentive for the young graduate, as he felt
it unlikely that the Spanish government would order many
aircraft. Rather, he saw this as the beginning of his aviation
career. Although he had involved himself in his family's
business and political affairs after graduation in line with his
father's expectations, his avid interest in aviation had
continued and he could not let this opportunity pass.
Perhaps because of ease of construction, the relatively
smaller size, or the fact that pursuit and reconnaissance
aircraft (out of which pursuit craft had evolved), there were
several entries in those classes. But there was only one in
the bomber category—Juan de la Cierva! His aircraft would
have to be ready to fly in trials in March of the following
year. The budget for this construction was set at 150,000
pesetas, or about $24,00029 ($150,000–$175,000 today).
This sizable amount was jointly financed by Cierva's father
and a wealthy friend, Don Juan Vitórica Casuso, Conde de
los Moriles.
The bomber, called the C-3, was a large aircraft, with an
eighty-two foot, one-quarter inch wingspan, with a loaded
weight of 11,000 pounds, and powered by three 225
horsepower Hispano Suiza 8Ba engines, produced in
Barcelona by a nominally Spanish company (it was actually
French). It was constructed with the help of his old friend
Pablo Diaz in the Vitórica carriage workshops near Madrid,
with Cierva noting, in what would become a lament of
amateur builders everywhere, “we were obliged to tear
down the walls of our workshop in order to get it out for its
test flights.”30 After components had been assembled at
Cuatro Vientos, it was an imposing aircraft indeed, a biplane
designed to carry fourteen passengers or more than 2,000
pounds of bombs in addition to its two-person crew.
Although the design followed generally accepted principles,
it incorporated unique and innovative features, including
three tractor (forwardfacing) engines31 and economical
distribution of bracing struts between the wings which
improved both speed and performance. Cierva also
employed an original wing section, the design for which he
had derived mathematically. These advanced design
features were a result of Cierva's mathematical studies, an
approach that would distinguish his efforts in all things
aeronautical—first came the theory, then the application.32
On February 13, 1930, in speaking to the Royal Aeronautical
Society, a group whose opinions and approval he greatly
valued and of which he was an associate fellow, Cierva
summed up his method in this manner:
My engineering theories, all based on energy equations
since 1924 and very similar in general lines to that
developed later by Mr. C.N.H. Locke, and published by the
Air Ministry in the R. & M. 1127, in 1927 were not a useful
guide to me until, in 1928, I succeeded in finding an
analytic method of integrating the frictional losses of
energy, when the aerofoil used in the Göttingen 429, which
gives the average profile drag in any conditions and for any
value of the parameters defining a rotor. The theory
completed in this manner has allowed me to produce
Autogiros with the correct proportions and I can safely say
that the present results check with amazing accuracy the
simple assumptions which form the basis of my theory.33
Even though the design was not destined for success in the
bomber competition, several of Cierva's innovations were
evident in the French Caudron C.25 transport plane
exhibited in the 1919 Paris Salon de l'Aéronautique.
Cierva and his backers chose Captain Julio Ríos Argüeso, an
experienced army pilot to fly the C-3. Captain Ríos was an
experienced pursuit pilot who had been wounded by a
sharpshooter while flying low against the Riffs in Morocco.
He came highly recommended and was regarded as a
thoroughly capable aviator. However, Ríos had never
previously flown a large biplane, a lack of experience that
proved his undoing on July 8, 1919, in its first flight at
Cuatro Vientos. It was Cierva's conclusion, and that of the
spectators to the first (and only!) brief flight of the C-3, that
Ríos had initially been nervous and apprehensive but had
soon gained an easy confidence in the manner in which it
flew. The C-3 proved reasonably responsive to effective
control—but then disaster! When Ríos, now apparently
overconfident, acted as if he were flying a pursuit plane in a
tight low turn, he caused the large trimotor bomber to lose
its lift. All fixed-wing aircraft will lose essential lift if their
speed falls beneath a predetermined level, and that loss of
lift is called a stall. The result was a nonfatal crash that
ended Cierva's hopes for the competition and, apparently,
the chance for an aviation career.

Cierva, at his father's insistence and encouragement, again

returned to family business affairs. Becoming manager of
his father's agricultural and manufacturing interests, he also
entered politics and became a member of the Spanish
parliament in 1919, representing his native Murcia where
the family still retained land. He was to remain a
participating member of the Spanish government until
1923, and as we shall see, to play a significant if relatively
unknown role in Spanish political affairs until his death in
1936. On December 10, 1919, Cierva married María Luisa
Gómez-Acebo Varona. Their first child, also named Juan,
was born on July 24, 1921. But of equal importance, he
never stopped thinking about the crash of the C-3.
Beginning late in 1919, just prior to his marriage, Cierva
began a serious investigation into aviation theoretical
literature as to how a stall-proof aircraft might be
constructed. He had become convinced that his bomber
design had been sound—it had flown successfully at its first
trial—and that the pilot was not at fault. He stated that “[a]
good airplane in the hands of a good pilot had no business
to be turned so suddenly and conclusively into a useless
tangle of fabric and machinery just because the pilot made
a miscalculation of speed and distance.”34 Years later he
stated that this thought was the “germ and genesis of the
Autogiro.”35

During his exhaustive search of the literature,36 Cierva, now

considered one of Spain's leading aeronautical engineers,
became familiar with contemporary speculation about the
helicopter. But he rejected this possibility as being too
complicated and unlikely to lead to success,37 but he
became intrigued with the concept of a rotating wing as a
means of dealing with airplane stall—the idea being that the
rotating wings, or rotors, would always be in motion
independent of the motion of the airplane itself. His C-3 had
stalled, he reasoned, when the aircraft lost flying speed and
fell below the limit at which sufficient lift was generated
(the stall speed). He further reasoned that if the wing could
be rotated and could generate lift, the speed of the aircraft
would not be relevant. Cierva would call the phenomenon of
a rotating wing generating liftautorotation,38 and it led to
the Autogiro. He had first demonstrated it with a helicopter
toy launched from the balcony of his parent's Madrid home
and watched it rotate as it descended. Each blade of the
rotor, if canted at an appropriate angle, would function as a
wing; in the case of autorotation, the air coming up through
the rotor would cause it to turn and provide lift. All that was
necessary was that the aircraft be powered to move forward
so that the airflow up through the rotor could be maintained
and lift provided by the unpowered, freely rotating blades.
If the forward power failed, the rotor blades would still
generate lift as air continued to flow up through the rotor
even as the aircraft settled to the ground. And of greatest
importance to Cierva, the autorotating aircraft could not
stall.
Having arrived at the idea of autorotation, Cierva
characteristically commenced in early 1920 an extensive
scientific investigation of autorotation. Autorotation had
been proposed in a paper in 1915 by Hodgson to the British
Institute of Automobile Engineers and had even been
described in a June, 1919, British patent application, No.
146,265, by the Argentinean of Italian descent, the Marquis
Raul de Pateras Pescara, then living in France and active in
helicopter development (although Pescara described
autorotation, he never made use of it). Additionally, the
French inventor Lucien Chauviére had claimed in 1917,
based on the earlier writings of Russian D. P. Riabouchinskii,
to have patented autorotation. There is no evidence that
Cierva was aware of these individuals or their ideas, and he
is honored for the discovery and application of autorotation.
He himself did not cite any of the other inventors, but
clearly understood and presented his discovery as
something new. He wrote:
My invention does not deny any of the advances of
aeronautical theory, nor does it dispute the credit due to the
achievements of the pass quarter century. In a thousand
details it does not materially differ from the airplane. But it
differs profoundly in a single important essential, which I
have attempted to define as the basic principle of flight. It
differs because it applies in a new way the idea of wings in
motion as the essential of the flying machine—the law
which permits man to fly in a heavy craft of wood, metal
and fabric.39
He began with models and progressed to full-sized
aircraft,40 each of which was tested in the newly
constructed wind tunnel at the Aeronautical Laboratory at
Cuatro Vientos. Cierva, à la Thomas Edison before him,
stated that “invention is more often in debt to persistence
than to inspiration,”41 and given that his first three Autogiro
designs failed, his persistence stood him in good stead.
Although little is known of the construction of his first
model, dubbed the C.1, it is generally assumed that it was
constructed at Getafe airfield near Madrid in the workshop
of Amalio Diaz Fernandez, the older brother of Cierva's
boyhood friend Pablo. Diaz was an experienced aircraft
builder, having constructed a fighter for designer Julio Adara
Tarradillos that had won a prize in the 1919 Spanish military
competition. Cierva made use of old airframes and
secondhand engines, primarily the fuselage, landing gear,
and vertical tail surfaces of a 1911 French Deperdussin
monoplane, powered by a sixty horsepower Le Rhône
engine, readily available as salvage from World War I, as he
did not care how the aircraft appeared—he was trying to
prove his theories and show the world a new way of flying.
The 772-pound aircraft retained the wings and standard
control surfaces of the monoplane, but mounted two
counterrotating, rigidly braced rotors, one on top of the
other, with a vertical control surface on the very top of the
rotor pylon. It looked as if it would never fly, and looks were
not deceiving—no matter how ingeniously its test pilot,
Cierva's brother-in-law Captain Filipe Gómez-Acebo Torre,
tried to coax it aloft, it refused to leave the ground. Analysis
clearly demonstrated that the rotor blades interfered with
each other as the lower rotor turned 50 rotations per
minute (rpm), less than half of the top rotor's 110 rpm. The
unceremonious result was an imbalance of lift that
consistently rolled the aircraft on its side, with unpleasant
but nonfatal results for the hapless but enthusiastic pilot.
But Cierva was undeterred—the C.1 confirmed his theory of
the autorotational abilities of an unpowered rotor.42
Rejecting the suggestion that the two rotors be linked by
gears to ensure identical rotation, Cierva did not hesitate to
go back to the drawing board, dedicated to the creation of a
safe aircraft that was less mechanically complex and
therefore more reliable.
The C.2, based on models that had been tested, was
constructed on an adapted Spanish Military Aircraft biplane
fuselage in a carpentry shop established for that purpose
and set up by Cierva, his brother Ricardo, and Pablo Diaz in
Madrid. On November 18, 1920, the three builders agreed
to establish a company for the manufacture of aircraft and
general engineering products. The C.2 abandoned the two-
rotor approach in favor of a large five-blade rotor, with
blades rigidly braced by high-tensile steel wire. Power had
been increased to 110 horsepower, metal fittings were
subcontracted to the Industrial College, and duralumin
spars for the rotor blades ordered from France. As the
delivery time from France stretched into the spring of 1921,
Cierva proceeded with the design of C.3, which was actually
completed and tested before the C.2. This timing
occasioned much subsequent confusion, as Cierva himself
refers to the C.3 as his “second” and to the C.2 as his
“third” Autogiro in his 1931 book.43
The C.3 was completed and ready for testing at Getafe
airfield in June 1921. Based on a “Hanriot fuselage,”44 it
also employed a single rotor, but with only three large
blades. The fabric-covered blades were very broad (had a
wide chord) and could be controlled by a warping (twisting),
which was achieved by the pilot, who could vary the
incidence, or tilt, of each blade as it revolved by means of a
coaxial shift that was attached to struts in each rotor blade.
But these cantilever blades, as a result of shifts in the
center of pressure as they revolved, could not achieve
stability with the changing speed of the aircraft; C.3 never
got more than a few inches off the ground before rolling on
its side. Cierva was persistent—the machine, extensively
tested by its new pilot, Lieutenant José Rodríguez Diaz de
Lecea, was damaged and rebuilt several times, and was
tried in nine different forms, to little success. Cierva had
almost concluded that rigid blades would not work—in fact,
the first rigid-rotor gyroplane would be fashioned by the
forgotten American rotorcraft pioneer E. Burke Wilford ten
years later, and effective control of rotor pitch would be
proposed by Ralph H. Upson in 1931—but Cierva had one
more aircraft to test.
The metal for the rotor blades finally arrived, and C.2 was
tested in early 1922. Although it achieved several hops, it
never got above six feet, and even though it seemed better
balanced than C.1 or C.3, it clearly experienced a loss of
control and a pronounced tendency to roll over. Rebuilt
three times, it was finally abandoned in April of 1923. While
the testing of C.2 proceeded in 1922, Cierva began
designing C.4 with grant money from the Spanish
government. Those funds allowed extensive wind tunnel
testing of his models45 at the Aeronautical Laboratory at
Cuatro Vientos under the supervision of Lieutenant Colonel
Emilio Herrera Linares.46 Those rubber-band-powered
models had their genesis in December 1920 and were based
on the C.2 five-blade rotor configuration, but with one
fortunate difference—the rotor blades had been constructed
of thin, flexible rattan (palm wood) by Cierva, his brother
Ricardo, and cousin Antonio Hernández Ros Murcia Codorníu
—that model flew! And flew well! But the C.2 and C.3 did
not, and this occasioned much thinking by Cierva as to why
the small model worked but the larger ones did not. He
eventually realized that the essential issue was
dissymmetry of lift—that is, the unequal lift generated by
the rotor blades as they move around the rotor disk (the
circular route of the blades). The rotor blades that are
advancing (moving in the same direction as the aircraft)
move faster than those blades that are retreating (moving
in an opposite direction from that of the aircraft). The
problem, then, was that the blades generated more lift
while advancing than while retreating, and this dissymmetry
of lift caused each of Cierva's first three models to turn over
as the aircraft twisted and turned in a gyroscopic effect to
balance the lift.
The moment of genuine revelation when Cierva realized the
answer, as discussed earlier, came at the Theater Royal in
Madrid during an opera performance of Aïda47 in January
1922. Cierva suddenly realized, that the model flew
precisely because the blades were made of a flexible
material that allowed lift to be balanced, effectively dealing
with dissymmetry. It was a remarkable rediscovery of the
concept of the flexible, freely flapping blade, an idea that
had been first mentioned by Charles Renard in 1904 and
later patented48 on October 29, 1908, by the French
aviation pioneer Louis Bréguet and in 1913 in Germany by
Hungarians Max Bartha and Josef Madzsar (patent number
249702).49 There is little doubt that Cierva independently
arrived at autorotation with flexible blades, the result of his
deep and insightful thought, engineering inspiration, and
thorough grounding in the mathematics of aeronautical
science. For that he was and continues to be justly honored,
and he was granted Spanish patent No. 81,406 on
November 15, 1922.
Cierva, seeking to protect his discovery of the flapping rotor
blade, secured several foreign patents, including the
following:
France No. 562,756, granted September 14, 1923
United Kingdom No. 196,594, granted June 30, 1924
Germany No. 426,727, granted July 27, 1925
United States No. 1,590,497, granted June 29, 1926
As important as these patents were, Cierva limited them to
the Autogiro and lost all protection they might have
afforded in England for subsequent rotary-aircraft
development. As observed by Cierva associate Dr. J.A.J.
Bennett:50
The Autogiro principle, which was concerned basically with
blade autorotation at a positive pitch angle, was covered by
Cierva's first application for a patent but, with little
knowledge of patent law at the time, he allowed this early
parent application to lapse in favour of the other relating to
a single rotor with articulated blades. Convinced that no
Autogiro could be successful without this particular feature,
he abandoned the possibility of securing a very broad
patent on the basic principle of the Autogiro. In trying to
reclaim later what he had lost, most of his subsequent
British patents were restricted in their application to
rotorcraft with autorotative blades, Cierva having
established a clear distinction between the Autogiro and
helicopter. In the United States, however, no such
distinction was made and most of Cierva's American patents
were considered to be applicable to helicopters as well as
Autogiros.(emphasis added)
But Cierva had not waited for the patent—construction of
the C.4 began in March 1922 even as C.2 continued to roll
over. The C.4 had a four-blade rotor (Cierva had been
experimenting with three- through five-blade rotors but
may have selected four blades due to the greater ease of
balancing lift, as each blade had one opposite in the rotor
disk), with the individual blades attached at the root (base)
with hinges that allowed them flap (i.e., to move up and
down as they rotated). As Cierva anticipated, the blades
assumed different angles to the horizontal rotor disk as they
rotated, in effect seeking a position that equalized lift and
effectively equalized the dissymmetry previously observed
with blades rigidly fixed to the hub. They were braced from
the top of the hub with steel cables and upward from the
bottom with rubber shock absorbers, restraints that allowed
flapping within a safe range. It was not a handsome
machine, with the fuselage and motor probably coming
from a scrap Sommer monoplane51—there is even some
speculation that C.4 was cobbled together from the remains
of C.3. Testing began upon its completion in April or May of
1922, and for a while it looked no different than its
predecessors. During the testing period, which extended
from June through January of 1923, pilots José María
Espinosa Arias (July–August 1922) and Lieutenant Alejandro
Gómez Spencer (June 1922 and September 1922–January
1923), C.4 crashed several times, as fifteen different
configurations were constructed and tried with constant
lesser modifications. Although the rotors worked and did not
force the aircraft to turn over, control now became an issue.
The solution to the difficulties was to prevent pilot
manipulation of the rotor and rely on the standard fixed-
wing controls on the wings and tail rudder. Cierva was
optimistic that he had solved all the problems, but C.4
protested one last time, when it rolled over on January 10,
1923—but at least it rolled in the opposite direction than all
other similar occasions!
NOTES

1. Peter W. Brooks, Cierva Autogiros: The Development of

Rotary-Wing Flight(Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian
Institution Press, 1988), p. 14.
2. “A half-forgotten phase in the history of aviation is the
story of the unique, even mysterious, Autogiro.” Charles
Gablehouse, Helicopters and Autogiros: A History of
Rotating-Wing and V/STOL Aviation, rev. ed.
(Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1969), p. 35.
3. See, for example, John Fay, The Helicopter, 4th ed.
(New York: Hippocrene Books, 1987), pp. 126–27;
Charles Gablehouse, Helicopters and Autogiros (1969),
pp. 1–7. Gablehouse further observes:
Oddly, the principle of autorotation seems to have been
known long before the first Autogiro took to the air. It is
thought that, as early as the Middle Ages, the masters
of windmills understood they could get the wind wheels
to turn into the airflow, rather than with it, by setting
the sails at a very flat angle to the wind. Another
example, further removed from the dream of rotating
wings, is the ability to tack a sailing ship well up into
the eye of the wind and still have the ship move
forward; the wind can actually be striking the sail from
an angle to the front, and yet the ship will be moving at
an angle more or less against the force of the wind. And
still another model is to be found in nature itself, in the
whirling flight of the maple-leaf (or sycamore) seedlet,
which has the form of a beautifully shaped single-blade
rotor. (p. 36)
 4. For an extensive theoretical discussion and
mathematical modeling of autorotation, see Wayne
Johnson, Helicopter Theory (Mineola, New York: Dover
Publications, 1980), pp. 10, 101, 105–14, 132–33, 282,
286, 295–96, 325–30;Gablehouse, Helicopters and
Autogiros (1969), pp. 36–38.
5. Fay, p. 80.
6. See, for example, George Townson, Autogiro: The Story
of “the Windmill Plane”(Fallbrook, California: Aero
Publishers; Trenton, New Jersey: Townson, 1985);
Cierva himself accepted the popular windmill
designation. Juan de la Cierva and Don Rose, Wings of
Tomorrow: The Story of the Autogiro (New York:
Brewer, Warren & Putnam, 1923), pp. 112–14; see also
Gablehouse, “A Spanish Windmill,” in Helicopters and
Autogiros (1969), pp. 34–67.
7. Cierva and Rose, pp. 112–13.
8. For a photograph of a recently restored Kellett K-2
Autogiro, see Michael O'Leary, “It's a Kellett!” Air
Classics 38, no. 6 (June 2002), pp. 68–72.
9. Federal registration designation, in most cases N-
numbers, for each Autogiro (the Cierva-licensed
models), Gyrocopter (as proprietary to the Bensen
models), autogyro (non-Cierva-licensed aircraft), or
gyroplane (dating from Ken Brock's break with Igor
Bensen in the early 1970s) will be given wherever
possible. Note that while the later “experimental,”
amateur-built category requires such registration,
“ultralight” aircraft, weighing 254 pounds or less, do
not.
10. See Frank Kingston Smith, Legacy of Wings: The Story
of Harold F. Pitcairn (New York: Jason Aronson, 1981);
Walter J. Boyne and Donald S. Lopez, Vertical
Flight(Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press,
1984); R. A. C. Brie, The Autogiro and How to Fly It
 (London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, 1933); Derek N.
James, Westland Aircraft Since 1915 (London: Putnam
Aeronautical Books, 1991: Annapolis, Maryland: Naval
Institute Press); Brooks; Cierva and Rose; John W. R.
Taylor and H. F. King, Milestones of the Air: JANE'S 100
Significant Aircraft (New York: McGraw-Hill Book
Company, 1969); Michael J. H. Taylor and John W. R.
Taylor, Encyclopedia of Aircraft (New York: G. P.
Putnam's Sons, 1978); Townson.
11. As a young man Samuel Pierpont Langley, an American,
had been a railway surveyor and civil engineer. He
would later achieve fame as an astronomer, but in the
1880s he experimented with model wings while at the
Smithsonian Institution.
12. Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim was a “colorful American who,
while resident in England, developed the renowned
machine-gun bearing his name. In England, too, he
built an amazing airplane…. the man must be admired
not only for his determination but for the brilliant
engineering achievement represented by the very light
steam engine he developed for his aeroplane.” John W.
R. Taylor and Kenneth Munson, History of Aviation (New
York): Crown Publishers, Inc. 1972), p. 41. See also
Edward Jablonski, Man with Wings (Garden City, New
York: Doubleday & Company, 1980); Philip Jarrett,
Ultimate Aircraft (London and New York: Dorling
Kindersley 2000), p. 157.
13. Adler was an electrical engineer and inventor, and his
name endures in history not only for his pioneering
flights, or hop, which he claimed to have made in secret
on 9 October 1890, but for his work in developing the
telephone. Taylor and Munson, p. 43.
14. Cierva's reference to and reliance on Chanute is not
surprising. Octave Chanute, an American railway
engineer, published a series of 1894 articles that were
reprinted in a book entitled Progress in Flying Machines.
It is generally acknowledged that it was this book that
stimulated the Wright brothers! Although he built
successful gliders, Chanute's greatest contribution to
aviation was as a collector and disseminator of
information.
15. See Cierva and Rose, p. 24.
16. The glider movement founded by Lilienthal swept
Germany and would, after the defeat of Germany in
World War I, become the foundation for pilot training of
the Luftwaffe prior to the German elections of 1933 that
thrust Adolf Hitler into power. C. R. Roseberry, The
Challenging Skies: The Colorful Story of Aviation's Most
Exciting Years 1919–39 (Garden City, New York:
Doubleday & Company, 1966). p. 213; see also Taylor
and Munson, p. 43.
17. “The name of Lilienthal stands as the greatest in the
history of practical flight before the Wright brothers, to
whose achievements, as already noted, his work led
directly.” Taylor and Munson, p. 43.
18. P. T. Capon, “Cierva's First Autogiros: Part 1,” Aeroplane
Monthly 7, no. 4 (April 1979): 200–205, 201.
19. “Santos-Dumont caught the imagination of the air-
minded world when, in his 110-ft (33.5 m) airship No. 6
[balloon], he flew from St. Cloud to Paris, round the
Eiffel Tower and back in 29 and 1/2 minutes on 19
October 1901. Blériot later wrote to Santos-Dumont,
 “For us aviators your name is a banner. You are our
Pathfinder.” Taylor and Munson, p. 53 (photo caption).
20. Taylor and Munson, p. 238.
21. Cierva and Rose, p. 26.
22. See Jablonski, p. 102.
23. Cierva and Rose, p. 34.
24. For a discussion of the originals of the first propeller,
see Leo J. Kohn, “Mr. Cierva and His Autogiros,” Air
Classics 15, no. 6 (June 1979): 87–93, 87.
25. Brooks claims, with reference to the January 1922
opera, that ”[a] windmill on the stage had hinged
blades“ (p. 40); even though Cierva relates the same
opera incident, he does not cite the stage windmill but
merely states that
I was attending the opera in Madrid when I suddenly
realized why the model would fly so well and the big
machines badly or not at all. My wife assures me that
my excitement at the moment was a little out of place;
I doubt that I heard the end of the performance. For it
dawned upon me that the construction of the model's
rotor blades held the secret of success for the Autogiro.
They were not rigid, but built of such flexible material
that they would bend easily in flight. In no other respect
was there any important or essential difference between
the model and the full-sized machines. (Cierva and
Rose, p. 97)
26. This is also documented without further references in
Warren R. Young, The Helicopters (Alexandria, Virginia:
Time-Life Books, 1982), p. 57, and Richard Aellen, “The
Autogiro and Its Legacy,” Air & Space Smithsonian 4,
no. 5 (December 1989/January 1990): 52–59, 54.
27. For a rare photograph of the BCD-1, see Capon, “Part
1,” p. 201.
28. Cierva and Rose, p. 39; Cierva, Juan de la, “The
Autogiro,” The Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society
(November 1930): 902–21.
29. In his 1931 book with Don Rose, Cierva himself
estimated total cost at $32,000 (p. 45).
30. Cierva and Rose, p. 46; for photographs of Cierva's
bomber, see Capon, “Part 1,” p. 202.
31. Cierva himself claimed that the C-3 was the second
trimotor plane to be built in the world, the first being an
Italian Caproni, which flew earlier but was powered with
two tractor motors, with the third motor being a
“pusher” type. Cierva and Rose, p. 46; Brooks, p. 16.
32. In the current world of the gyroplane, this engineering
approach is represented by the computer modeling
methods of American Martin Hollmann, Finland's Jukka
Tervamäki, France's Jean Fourcade, Scotland's Dr.
Stewart Houston, and to a more limited extent in the
1950s, that of Igor Bensen. In the Gyrocopter
movement created by Bensen, there was and continues
to be a great deal of “fly by the seat of your pants”
experimentation with little formal engineering analysis.
Chuck Beaty, participant in the American gyroplane
movement for over three decades and writer of
gyroplane engineering and technical analysis, has
observed that ”[t]he main problem is that so few
qualified engineers have taken an interest in
gyroplanes.“ Chuck Beaty, “Gyro Stability:
Understanding PIO, Buntover, and How Gyroplane
 Rotors Work,” Rotorcraft 33, no. 5 (August 1995): 18–
23, 23.
33. Cierva, “Autogiro, ” p. 964.
34. Cierva and Rose, p. 60.
35. Ibid., p. 61.
36. Devon Francis, The Story of the Helicopter (New York:
Coward-McCann, Inc., 1946), pp. 46–47.
37. Cierva stated: “From my study of aerodynamics I knew
so far no practical method had (or has) been found to
drive these horizontal windmills by an engine.
Mechanical difficulties have been insuperable, and even
when they are solved, very much greater power is
needed to drag a weight vertically as compared to
pulling it horizontally while its wings ride on a cushion
of air.” Ibid., p. 46.
38. For a graphic illustration of the autorotational forces
that lift the Autogiro, seeGablehouse, Helicopters and
Autogiros (1969), pp. 36–38.
39. Cierva and Rose, p. 74.
40. Hollmann states that Cierva “built test facilities with
wind tunnels. Hundreds of tests were performed, but
most were disappointing.” Cierva cited such tests from
mid-1921 on, although his first Spanish patent
application was applied for on July 1, 1920, and granted
on August 27, 1920. Although construction of the
closed-circuit wind tunnel at the Aeronautical
Laboratory at Cuatro Vientos was begun in 1919, it was
not commissioned until 1921, well after the granting of
Cierva's first patent. See Martin Hollmann, Flying the
Gyroplane (Monterey, California: Aircraft Designs, Inc.,
1986), p. 7; Cierva and Rose; Brooks, p. 357 n. 5. From
Francis, p. 48, quoting Cierva:
We built small models mounted on ball bearings and
placed them in a wind tunnel, in winds up to forty-five
miles an hour. We found that the rotating windmill
offered definite resistance to forward motion. Then we
inclined the windmill slightly, so that the plane of
rotation was more in the direction of the wind. We
found a definite and measurable tendency for the model
to rise. This was highly important, for it proved I was on
the right track. The lifting force of the wind, I now
knew, acted on the rotating windmill much as sit does
on the slightly inclined fixed wings of an ordinary
airplane.
41. Cierva and Rose, p. 96.
42. For drawings of Cierva's first four models, C.1–C.4, see
Fay, figs. 139–42;Brooks, pp. 35–45 (photos on 37–41,
43–44, and 46 and accompanying text);Capon, “Part 1,”
pp. 200–205.
43. Cierva and Rose, pp. 92–94.
44. Although Brooks reports this to be “possibly the
modified fuselage of an old 1911–12 French Type E
Sommer monoplane, probably originally imported into
Spain by Jean Mauvais in 1913” (p. 38), Cierva reports
this as a “Henriot fuselage” (Cierva and Rose, p. 92).
45. For a photograph of Cierva holding a model of the C.3
used in wind tunnel testing, see Capon, “Part 1,” p. 205.
46. P. T. Capon, “Cierva's First Autogiros: Part 2,” Aeroplane
Monthly 7, no. 4 (May 1979): 234–240, 236.
47. Young, p. 57.
48. French patent No. 395,576.
49. German patent No. 249702. E.K. Liberatore, Helicopters
before Helicopters(Malabar, Florida: Krieger Publishing
Company, 1998), p. 95.
50. J.A.J. Bennett, “The Era of the Autogiro (First Cierva
Memorial Lecture),” Journal of the Royal Aeronautical
Society 65, no. 610 (October 1961).
51. Cierva himself states that the C.4 was based on a
“Henriot fuselage” (Cierva and Rose, p. 92), an
obviously incorrect reference, and is corrected by others
toHanriot, which clearly refers to the French firm of
Aeroplanes Hanriot et Cie. SeeDavid Mondey (ed.), The
Complete Illustrated Encyclopedia of the World's Aircraft
(1978; updated by Michael Taylor, The New Illustrated
Encyclopedia of Aircraft, Secaucus, New Jersey:
Chartwell Books, Inc., 2000), p. 283, where it would
seem, based on the description of the firm's World War
I activities, that Cierva in Spain would hardly make use
of a plane that had been rejected by the French but was
primarily used by Italian and Belgian services. The
Sommer story is lent credence in that the BCD-1,
Cierva's first plane, was clearly based on a reassembled
Sommer flown by Jean Mauvais. Gablehouse,
Helicopters and Autogiros (1969). The previous edition
(Helicopters and Autogiros [1967], p. 38) repeats the
“Hanriot scout biplane used by the Allies in World War I”
version, but it is obvious from simultaneous references
to the Cierva and Rose book that Gablehouse is merely
repeating what Cierva has said. However, Brooks in his
book and Capon (“Part 1” and “Part 2”) state that the
C.3 and the C.4 utilized a Sommer monoplane fuselage.
Gablehouse (p. 41) states of the Cierva C.1–C.4 series,
“A number of test beds were built, using parts of World
War I airplanes such as the Hanriot scout, in order to
try out various rotors, blade settings, and
configurations,” thus lending credence that the C.4 was
a composite of several surplus planes and casting doubt
on Cierva's dubious assertion of the “Henriot” origins of
the C.4. In a slightly later passage in his coauthored
1931 book Cierva states ambiguously, “This fourth
Autogiro was a very simple machine. Its fuselage and
motor were an old airplane assembly.” Cierva and Rose,
p. 102.
 Chapter 2

CIERVA'S AUTOGIRO
To land in a vertical descent! Think of it! And not roll a foot
forward…
Captain Frank M. Hawks, “a colorful pilot in the leather
breeches and silk scarf tradition,” after flying an Autogiro
Cierva states1 that the first flight of C.4 was on January 9,
1923, at Getafe airfield, when (cavalry) Lieutenant
Alejandro Gómez Spencer, “a Spanish gentleman whose
surname and appearance both indicate an English ancestry
… one of the best known Spanish fliers,” guided the craft in
taxi tests during which the craft became airborne. But some
historians2 maintain that the first observed (and filmed)
flight of C.4 took place on January 17, 1923, when Gómez
Spencer flew six hundred feet at a steady height of thirteen
feet across the field. Additional flights took place on January
20 and 22 before assembled dignitaries, including official
observers from the Spanish Royal Aero Club and high-
ranking military officers, such as General Francisco Echague
Santoyo, then Spanish Director of Air Services and Don
Ricardo Ruiz Ferry, president of the Spanish Royal Aero Club
Commission. The January 20 flight was to prove of
particular significance—the C.4's engine failed at twenty-
five to thirty feet while rising and with its nose slanted
upward, a dire circumstance in any conventional aircraft.
But the Autogiro merely descended vertically, a slow settling
to the ground, and was undamaged due to its autorotating
blades. On January 31, Gómez Spencer flew the C.4 at the
Cuatro Vientos military airfield over a circular course of two
and a half miles before an even larger delegation of military
officers. It was an unqualified success, and the Autogiro was
on its way. That way would not be free from misstep,
however, and both commercial and military success would
eventually elude its hopeful advocates.
Cierva funded the construction of his next aircraft, the C.5,
in the workshops of the Industrial College, which had done
some of his previous subcontracting in early 1923, soon
after the C.4 had established autorotational flight. He was
anxious to explore different configurations, and this model
was larger and employed a three-blade rotor. Completed in
April of that same year, it was flown successfully by Gómez
Spencer, but it proved overly sensitive in its control system
and was destroyed while on the ground. The rotor blade, a
different section (shape) than used previously, suffered
from metal fatigue and failed. Cierva would not regularly
employ a three-blade rotor again until 1931; although he
would experiment with both two and three blades in 1927,
he adopted four blades on all subsequent designs, perhaps
because this allowed for a balanced allocation of stress.
By May of 1923, Cierva's wife Mária Luisa had borne the
second of his eventual seven children—and although his C.4
Autogiro was receiving much notice and growing public
acclaim, he was still being funded by his wealthy father and
living off a family allowance. It was evident that he would
continue in his aviation endeavor, but it was also readily
apparent that it would have to evolve into a business. He
could not continue to spend family resources in
development of the Autogiro; another source of funding
would have to be found. Cierva wrote the Westland Aviation
Works at Westland Farm, Yeovil, Somerset, in the fall of
1923, but although the company would build Cierva
Autogiros under license in the 1930s, it expressed no
interest in the letter from an unknown Spanish inventor. The
Spanish government, however, had previously provided
funding for the testing of one-tenth-scale models at the
Aeronautical Laboratory wind tunnel, and now General
Francisco Echague, who had been an impressed observer of
the C.4 flights on January 22, 1923, offered additional
government funding for construction of the C.6. It was later
suggested that the general had been misled by the wind
tunnel testing of the model, which inaccurately suggested
that the new Autogiro could theoretically have a much
greater speed than a comparable fixed-wing airplane. But if
the general made such a mistake, it surely was an
inadvertent result of his misinterpretation and not an
intended misrepresentation by Cierva. Even so, the decision
was fortunate, for the C.6 was to deliver the best
performance to-date.3
Even though 1923 was exceptionally exciting, busy, and
productive for Cierva, he still found time to answer a
handwritten letter from an American third-year high school
student. John M. “Johnny” Miller, reading the newspaper
accounts of the new Autogiro, wrote the inventor with little
expectation of a reply, but much to his amazement, a reply
did indeed come. Miller, writing almost seventy years later,
observed that the letter was in perfect English, leading him
to erroneously assert that Cierva had “been educated in
Oxford.”4
Although Miller is certainly wrong about Cierva's attending
Oxford and it is not possible to ascertain who actually
translated the letter he received, the significance of an
English reply should not be missed. Cierva's ability to speak
English would not be sufficient for a public address on the
principles of the Autogiro until 1930, but he either had the
ability to write perfect English or was willing to have his
letter translated. In either event, Miller received two letters
from the Spanish inventor “explaining his autogyro5 in
detail, including its aerodynamics and its possible
development into a future helicopter.”6 Those letters would
make an indelible impression on the young Miller, leading
him to an engineering education and a flying career that
began in 1924 and extended into the twenty-first century.
He would develop a lifelong fascination with the Autogiro,
would become the first private individual to place an order
when they became commercially available, and would be
famous for his Autogiro flying exhibitions in the 1930s.7
As the C.6 was a military project, it was constructed in the
Spanish Military Aircraft Works located at Cuatro Vientos
under the supervision of Captain Luis Sousa Peco. Utilizing a
surplus fuselage, tail, engine, and modified landing gear of
a British A. V. Roe & Co. Ltd. (“Avro”) 504K World War I
trainer, this was Cierva's first experience with the English
company that would eventually manufacture his Autogiros.
The first flights were made in February 1924 by Captain
José Luis Ureta Zabala of the Aeronautical Laboratory's
Experimental Squadron. The military evaluation was quite
positive, as the C.6 showed great improvement over its
predecessor, and the British finally began to take notice. In
April 1924 Captain Oliver Vickers, representing British
aircraft manufacturers Vickers Ltd., visited Spain and
watched a C.6 demonstration. His report was favorable, and
Vickers wrote to Cierva in May offering to do wind tunnel
testing of a model C.6. Cierva provided specifications, but
the English testing at Weybridge was to yield less favorable
results than the previous Spanish research. Testing of the
C.6 slowed in late 1924, when Cierva traveled to England on
family business and pilot Ureta was sent to a new
assignment, but Captain Joaquín Loriga Taboada arrived in
August and became enthusiastic about the new aircraft.
Following Cierva's return to Spain, new testing successfully
commenced on December 9, after a short pilot briefing
(there was no one to show him how to fly the C.6). An
additional flight was made on the 11th, but the third sortie,
on the 12th, was to prove a milestone, when Loriga flew
from Cuatro Vientos to Getafe airfield. The seven-and-a-
half-mile trip, completed in eight minutes twelve seconds
(average speed forty-eight miles per hour), was the first
cross-country Autogiro flight. Cierva, who would not gain
his pilot's license until 1927, followed as a passenger in
Fokker C.IV.
Word of the Spanish inventor's extraordinary aeronautical
innovation was spreading, and it burst upon the
international aviation community at the Ninth Paris Salon
Aéronautique8 in December. Loriga presented a film of the
C.6 to a meeting of the Société Française de la Navigation
Aérienne (SFNA), to considerable interest. Captain George
Lepère, who had already achieved a reputation as an
aeronautical engineer, was particularly enthusiastic. He
would play a significant role in the French development of
the Autogiro with others at Lioré et Olivier.9 The English
returned for another observation on January 16, 1925—a
decidedly serious effort led by Vickers Aviation Department
chief designer Rex Pierson. During that flight Loriga
experienced engine failure but was able to turn back to the
airport and safely land. Rather than being dismayed by the
unexpected landing that damaged a rotor blade, the
observers were decidedly impressed by the safety inherent
in the free-spinning rotor, as such a maneuver would have
been fatal in a fixed-wing aircraft. Even though Vickers was
not to consider acquiring an Autogiro license for another ten
years,10 news of the Autogiro had reached England from
Paris and from the local Spanish media, notice that would
bring Cierva to England by the end of the year and shift the
focus of Autogiro development permanently out of Spain.
Just prior to the arrival of the second Vickers delegation,
the British Commercial Attaché in Madrid had written to Don
Juan de la Cierva, inquiring about his son's invention and
requesting performance data of the latest flights. The elder
Cierva, being an experienced senior government official,
immediately recognized this for what it was—the first official
British interest in the Autogiro. The British government was
the first to express such an interest, but the rest of the
aviation world was also expressing interest. The C.6 had
been damaged in March of 1925, and while it was being
repaired, Cierva went to France to speak to the SFNA and to
show the C.6 films as Loriga had previously done. Returning
to Spain via England, he again met with Vickers but made
no further inroads. Even though his contacts and
discussions with the British civil aviation executives
continued to bring disappointment, the relationship with the
official government aviation authorities was assuming a
critical mass. Cierva met with H. E. Wimperis, director of
research at the British Air Ministry, who expressed serious
interest and solid encouragement. Of greater importance,
The Royal Aeronautical Society (TRAS) requested that he
lecture on the Autogiro. The aristocratic Cierva knew well
the aviation acceptance and status inherent in TRAS; he
eventually would give several lectures and be named an
associate fellow of the society. France was not long in
expressing its interest: before reaching Spain, Cierva again
returned to Paris to meet with Victor Laurent-Eynac, French
undersecretary of state for aeronautics, the most significant
government contact to date, and with General Fortant,
director of the Service Technique de l'Aéronauique, which
produced a request for an official demonstration at
Villacoublay.
That the military authorities were interested in the Autogiro
is not surprising. The great innovation in aviation in the
previous decade had clearly been occasioned by the world
war. Civil aviation was still in its infancy—routes and
mechanisms for profit had yet to be established in America
and most pilots earned their livelihood by barnstorming,
putting on exhibitions, taking people for rides, and an
occasional advertising assignment. The Air Commerce Act of
1926 that would bring order to the route structure in
America was still over a year away, and the plane that was
to revolutionize passenger service, the Ford 4-AT Tri-
motor,11 would first fly on June 11, 1926. Given that,
Cierva's interest in the military is also not surprising, and he
immediately sought permission from the Spanish military
authorities to use the C.6 for demonstration flights in
England and France in May and June—but this was not to
be. C.6 had been rebuilt after its March accident, was
committed to exhibit at the Fourth Automobile and Aero
Show at Montjuich (near Barcelona) the last ten days of
May, and is never known to have flown again.
An improved model, the C.6A, flew for the first time in early
June (the records indicate two dates for the first flight, June
6 and 8). The technology was improving, as the slightly
larger rotor ran smoother, an arrangement of wooden pegs
on the bottom of the blades allowed for a starter rope to be
used to spin up, or prerotate, the blades to assist in the
takeoff,12 and the aircraft incorporated wider landing gear
and a higher rotor pylon. Cierva had begun to confront the
issue early on of how to get the rotor blades spinning to the
necessary rpm to allow takeoff. While it was true that air
flowing up through the rotor blades, given the cant (tilt) of
the individual blades, would cause them to autorotate, this
was accomplished by running the aircraft up and down the
runway. Cierva would try a manual rope spin-up and also
prerotation by use of a box tail that directed the flow of air
from the propeller upward to the rotor blades to cause them
to spin. Eventually, Harold F. Pitcairn would channel power
from the engine to the rotor by means of a clutched
gearbox on the PCA-2—but that solution was still over five
years away.
 Harold F. Pitcairn and Juan de la Cierva, 1929
(Courtesy of Stephen Pitcairn, from Pitcairn Archives)

The C.6A was fine-tuned and demonstrated before King

Alfonso XIII, government officials, and foreign attachés at
Cuatro Vientos on June 24, 1925. Even though the king was
suitably impressed with pilot Loriga's flight, subsequently
appointing Cierva “Caballero of the Civil Order of Alfonso
XII” for his aviation achievements, and even though the
Spanish government subsequently allocated an additional
$34,000 toward Autogiro development, events were even
then occurring that would shortly take such activities out of
Spain.
Harold Pitcairn initially believed that Cierva was in England,
perhaps based on the comments of British aeronautical
engineer W[ynn] Laurence LePage, who had apparently
spoken to Pitcairn about the wind tunnel testing of Cierva
models performed by Vickers at Weybridge in January and
February of 1925. LePage, then associated with England's
National Physical Laboratory, was on loan to the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to assist them
in developing similar testing programs, and Pitcairn had
contracted with MIT for testing of his fixed-wing aircraft
designs. But the British officials were mystified as to why
the Americans had come to Weybridge seeking Cierva, who
was not nor had ever been resident in England. They
promptly informed the Americans of Cierva's address in
Spain, and Pitcairn promptly wrote Cierva on April 25, 1925,
requesting an appointment.13 This was not a casual contact
—Pitcairn was in England with his friend and chief engineer
Agnew Larsen, and he had a letter of introduction from
Heraclio Alfaro, a “distinguished Spanish engineer who had
learned to fly in France in 1911” who was well-known to
Cierva.14 Alfaro, destined to play a minor role in
development of the Autogiro in America, had designed a
fighter entered in the 1919 Military Aircraft Competition that
had seen the crash of Cierva's C-3 bomber.
The meeting between Pitcairn, Larsen, and Cierva took
place in May 1925 in Madrid. An interpreter was present, as
Cierva did not yet speak English with fluency. Captain Frank
T. Courtney, who was to have an exceptionally long and
distinguished flying career and who would become Cierva's
English military test pilot, described the Spaniard's ability
with the English language at that time thusly:
In London a few weeks later I had a phone call that Señor
de la Cierva would like to have a talk with me. At his hotel
the next day, after the usual preliminary chit-chat, we
settled down to a discussion. Cierva's English and my
Spanish didn't meet at any useful point, but we got along
fine in French. (He later learned to speak excellent
English.)15
The discussion during the brief meeting between Pitcairn,
Larsen, and Cierva was of a general nature as it passed
through a translator. Also, the American visitors were not
able to see the Autogiro in flight other than the C.6 film, as
C.6 was then under repair and C.6A was still being
constructed. Pitcairn and Larsen were very impressed with
the films of level, controlled flight—but, as suggested by
Pitcairn's biographer, they may have felt that Cierva was
deliberately being evasive. Later, when they had grown
close and Cierva conversed in excellent English with only
the slightest hint of an accent, Pitcairn apparently wrongly
concluded that the use of an interpreter in May of 1925 had
been a close-to-the-vest ploy, failing to recognize that
Cierva had managed to improve his English-language skills.
The Americans returned home to the business of developing
Pitcairn Aviation's aircraft. They were convinced that Cierva
had an innovative aviation achievement but were unsure of
what direction it would take. They resolved to watch for new
developments coming from the Spanish inventor.
The French government had postponed the projected
demonstration of the C.6A, preferring to wait for a more
powerful model powered by the 180 horsepower engine
manufactured by the Soc. Hispano-Suiza at Levallois-Perret,
Paris, in its large factory Bois-Colombes, an idea that was
perhaps suggested by Cierva himself. So Cierva turned his
attention to the English demonstration, which had been
scheduled for October. The C.6A, having been completed
and shipped from Bilbao to London, was ready, but the need
arose to replace Captain Loriga, who had contracted
pleurisy.
The C.6A has been reassembled at the Royal Aircraft
Establishment at Farnborough, but there was no one to fly
it. Cierva spoke with H. E. Wimperis, who suggested
Captain Frank T. Courtney. Courtney, then a test pilot for
the British de Havilland Aircraft Company, was highly
respected for his flying skill and was known as “the Man
with the Magic Hands.”16
Courtney had already seen the C.6 while delivering a fighter
plane to Cuatro Vientos earlier in the summer of 1925.
Viewing the C.6 in a hanger, he was highly dubious of its
flying ability. Assured that it had previously made several
flights, he could not imagine, nor could any aviator present,
how such a feat was possible. The officers related to him
that the C.6 was the invention of “an eccentric character
named Juan de la Cierva.”17 Courtney later wrote of his first
impression of the Autogiro: “Well, anyway, lots of funny and
useless things had been coaxed into the air at one time and
another—this was probably just another one!”18 But after
meeting with Cierva and finding him a “cultured, charming,
and serious gentleman of about my own age,” he listened
for almost three hours while Cierva explained the
aerodynamic principles of the Autogiro. Courtney then
concluded that Cierva was “no crazy inventor, but an
imaginative engineer who had braved repeated
disappointment and employed persistent ingenuity in
making the most important breakthrough in aerial
locomotion since the days of the Wright brothers.”19 He
agreed to be the test pilot and familiarized himself with the
aircraft on October 10, during which he spent about thirty
minutes practicing taxi runs and short hops. The first
demonstration flights took place on October 14, 1925,
before Sir Philip Sassoon, undersecretary for air. It was
successful, and a second demonstration was conducted on
October 19 before Secretary of State for Air Sir Samuel
Hoare, Chief of the Air Staff General Sir Hugh Trenchard,
Director of Civil Aviation Sir Sefton Brancker, and other
interested dignitaries. Brancker would have his first flight in
an Autogiro, a C.19 Mk.II (G-AALA) piloted by Arthur
Rawson, at Heston on January 7, 1930. He reportedly was
enthusiastic, but it would not benefit the cause of the
Autogiro, as he died in the crash of the British dirigible R
101 on a trip to India.20 And the queen of Spain came to
see what had become Cierva's triumph on October 28.
Cierva also gave the lecture he had previously been invited
to give before a large audience at The Royal Aeronautical
Society on October 22, 1925. As he felt that his English was
not adequate, his paper was read in translation by TRAS
Chairman Sir Sefton Brancker.21 It was well-received and
evoked great interest, particularly since the demonstration
flights had taken place on October 14 and 19. Test-flights
continued, usually with Courtney as pilot,22 but on at least
one occasion with RAF Squadron Leader Rollo A. de Haga
Haigh, evidencing an increasing interest by the military. The
military testing increasingly stressed the aircraft with
steeper angles of descent until it was damaged in a rough
landing at the end of October.23 Courtney later recounted
that the hard landing, the product of a near-vertical
descent, had collapsed the landing gear and left the
Autogiro “right side up however, and the rotor continued to
revolve tranquilly overhead. Through some stroke of luck,
the Autogiro had ‘landed’ behind a shallow hill, and only the
rotor remained visible from the official observation
location.”24 Courtney had actually been thrown from the
cockpit and found himself sitting unceremoniously but
safely on the ground. He was able to stand and regain his
composure so that by the time the official observers
appeared, he was able to “charge the whole thing off to
landing gear failure!” Repaired and modified with stronger
oleo landing gear adapted from an Avro 504N, the Autogiro
was soon ready for the tests before representatives of the
British Patent Office.
As the Autogiro was an entirely new flying craft, the British
Patent Office was initially skeptical and requested that tests
take place before its official observers.25 Cierva was keen to
gain patent protection—he would even trademark the term
Autogiro—so he readily acquiesced to the need for a
demonstration on November 11, 1925. It was a success,
and he was granted a patent. The impression on the
military observers was favorable, with senior officials calling
in late November for the English government sponsorship of
further development of three new types: (1) a more
powerful version of the C.6A, utilizing a locally produced
Armstrong Siddeley Lynx engine and a mechanical device to
spin up the rotor blades in place of Cierva's rope system;
(2) a small, agile, single-seat model; and (3) a research
vehicle, the design of which was to be developed by the
Aeronautical Research Committee. This represented a major
endorsement of the Autogiro, and the British government
guided Cierva into a licensing agreement with the significant
English aviation company, A. V. Roe & Co. Ltd. In January
1926, both Cierva and the Air Ministry ordered a C.6A from
A. V. Roe & Co. Ltd., the start of that company's
involvement with the Autogiro.
Cierva also sought out the French government regarding
the postponed demonstration. Courtney and two French
pilots, Ingenieur Cousin and Adjudant Moutonnier, flew the
C.6A at the Villacoublay airfield near Paris, to mixed
response in late January and early February in 1926. On
January 27 Courtney had the misfortune of being blown
over by a forty-two mph wind as he landed in a muddy
field. Later, while watching the newsreel films of the
accident, he stated that it looked like “a giant golfer gone
mad, the whirling blades were shown smashing into the
ground, distributing huge divots of wet earth and mud all
over our VIPs.”26 The impressions of the crash were
indelible and, even though the flight demonstrations were
judged as good or better than in England, the French
government decided against any further involvement. Even
though Cierva was awarded the Grand Prix Scientifique de
l'Air for 1925 by the Société Française de la Navigation
Aérienne, it would take three years before the French would
again become involved with the Autogiro. The C.6A returned
to England, where it was subsequently demonstrated before
Americans Harry Guggenheim and Rear Admiral Hutchinson
Cove during March and April.
One of those watching the October 1925 demonstration
flights at Farnborough was the holder of Aviator's Certificate
No. 24, who had soloed in a Blériot monoplane on
November 8, 1910, and who had later been secretary of
state for air—James G. Weir.27 He had been favorably
impressed by the C.6A demonstrations and brought it to the
attention of his brother, Viscount William Weir of Eastwood.
They consulted with Frank Courtney and with a banker who
was to become instrumental to bringing Cierva to England—
Sir Robert M. Kindersley28 of the London commercial
banking firm Lazard Brothers & Co. Ltd. Cierva's father had
previously dealt with the English banking firm in Madrid and
undoubtedly knew Sir Robert's son Hugh K. M. Kindersley,
who worked in the Madrid office and was fluent in Spanish.
Don Juan de la Cierva now took it upon himself to write
personally to Sir Robert, suggesting that the banking firm
could profit from consideration and backing of the Autogiro's
commercial potential. The English group, negotiating with
Cierva's father through the younger Kindersley, soon
reached acceptable terms and established the Cierva
Autogiro Company Ltd. on March 24, 1926. The goal of the
company was not manufacturing but development and
exploitation of Autogiro developments through licensing,
selling patents, and royalties. James Weir was named
chairman, Cierva became technical director, and the
Spanish-speaking Hugh Kindersley served as a director.
Although Lord Weir refrained from financial participation,
fearing that such activity would compromise his
governmental influence, thirty thousand pounds was put up
by James Weir, Hugh Kindersley, John Jacob Astor, and
several participating financial institutions. For his patents
Cierva was allotted twenty thousand preferred shares of
stock in the new company. The future development of the
Autogiro was now firmly in England, and it would remain the
locus of autorotation development until the establishment in
1929 of the Autogiro Company of America by Harold F.
Pitcairn.
But first, the Air Ministry took delivery of the improved
Autogiro built by Avro. As the C.6C designation29 suggests,
this model was based on the C.6A but in a single-seat
configuration and with a more powerful engine. Although
senior officials had recommended an English engine, a
locally manufactured French Clerget rotary was employed.
Cierva also received an Avro aircraft, the C.6D. It was a
two-seater more closely resembling the C.6A. The military
was enthusiastic about testing their new Autogiro and
arranged for the newly established Cierva Autogiro
Company to begin flying the C.6C in June 1926 at Hamble.
The pilot was, of course, Frank Courtney, newly appointed
technical manager. The flight-test went well, with
performance that improved on the earlier Spanish model—
so well, in fact, that the Royal Air Force decided to advance
their cause with a demonstration before King George V and
Queen Mary, the king and queen of Spain, and assembled
dignitaries at the Seventh RAF Display at Hendon on July 3,
1926.
This was the RAF showcase, and its senior officers surely
counted on a dramatic impression being made. It almost
didn't happen. Three days before the display, one of the
cables that held the rotors up when at rest on ground broke
while in flight.30 Upon landing after a test-flight, Courtney
was almost decapitated when the rotating blades sank lower
and lower until they hit the rudder in the aircraft's tail and
the prop in the front, finally slamming against the side of
the plane. The quick-thinking pilot had saved himself by
leaping from the Autogiro as the whirling blades came to
rest. The Autogiro was repaired in time for its royal
performance and fully justified the expectations of the RAF
—it was publicly acclaimed, with commentators even
projecting commercial applications that were as yet
unproven. All-in-all, it was an auspicious beginning to the
Autogiro's English career, but the C.6C would not have such
an end—it crashed again in September 1926 and then went
through a refit, with the long booms, which extended out
from the fuselage ending with the aileron control surfaces,
being replaced with short “stub” wings.
While this change may seem insignificant, it was the result
of Cierva's ongoing research that was now both theoretical
and practical. He had taken his first Autogiro ride in the
C.6D with Courtney on July 30, 1926, fittingly enough, the
first passenger in rotary aircraft in history. The second
passenger was H.J.L. (Bert) Hinkler, who would become
Cierva's test pilot after Courtney's departure. The flying
experience gave Cierva a foundation of experience that
would both contribute to his theoretical considerations and
lead to his becoming a pilot. He gained the Royal Aero Club
Aviator's Certificate (No. 8077) on January 20, 1927, and
his “A” license (No. 1035) on February 29, 1927, flying the
Autogiro a few months later.
Cierva, ever seeking to improve flight efficiency, had
calculated that an Autogiro with fixed wings generating 30
percent of the aircraft's lift would have a constant rotor
speed through much of the aircraft's speed range and be
more efficient. Although this innovation was apparently
successful and influenced future designs, the C.6C crashed
for the final time on February 7, 1927, when a rotor blade
fell off in flight and a second became detached just before
the aircraft hit the ground.31 Although Courtney was
fortunate (again) to suffer only slight injury when the
Autogiro was destroyed, it was the last straw—the two men
had come to a parting of the ways. Courtney later claimed
his difficulties with Cierva had begun the previous
September 5, during a demonstration of the C.6D before
German aviation officials and dignitaries at Tempelhof,
Berlin. During that demonstration a German journalist
named Kleffel was given a ride in the Autogiro, no doubt an
attempt to generate favorable publicity. It was a public-
relations technique later adopted by Harold F. Pitcairn in
America, who arranged for a ride for the first aviation editor
of the Washington Daily News, Ernie Pyle, at the
Washington National Airport. Pyle's testimonials would
appear in Pitcairn advertisements. Pyle would later become
one of the most famous war correspondents during World
War II. He was genuinely mourned by all of America when
he was killed on Ie Shima Island just off Okinawa in April
1945.
Courtney, examining the aircraft that had been reassembled
after being transported to Berlin, observed a distortion in
the metal at the base of the metal core of the rotor blade
(the “root” of the “spar”). He claimed that Cierva “declared
flatly that this could not possibly have been caused in flight
by aerodynamic loads; it must have been done when the
blades were crated in England.”32 But the pilot ventured the
opinion that the mechanical design was lacking in that
although the current flexible horizontal arrangement
allowed for the rotor blades to “flap” up and down,
producing equalized lift as the blades rotated, there was no
provision for the horizontal stress on the blade roots as they
moved around the rotor disk. Courtney felt that this stress
was causing the observed distortions in the blade root, a
metal fatigue that could potentially result in the blade
breaking off. The obvious solution was vertical drag hinging,
which would allow the blades to move slightly back and
forth in a lead-lag motion as they rotated, effectively
equalizing the fore-and-aft forces under drag loads as the
blades went from forward to rearward motion around the
rotor hub.
Cierva, however, would hear nothing of lead-lag drag hinges
and apparently did not take kindly to this suggestion by
Courtney—leading the pilot to conclude either that since the
idea did not originate with the proud inventor or that he had
never considered lead-lag drag blade hinging, it was
unacceptable. And indeed this may have been the case, as
Cierva did not consider modification of his rotorhead
necessary, and he would continue to design Autogiros
without lead-lag drag hinges until 1928.33 He could see the
pilot's agitation and offered him the opportunity to abandon
the German demonstration, but Courtney, installing a spare
set of blades that he figured would last for the Templehof
flights, triumphed before a crowd estimated in excess of
two hundred thousand people, resulting in enormous public
enthusiasm.
Courtney remembered what he had observed, however, and
on his own began to discuss with trained engineers the
necessity and feasibility of lead-lag drag hinges. Based on
his discussions he attempted to introduce Cierva to the
engineers, but the inventor would have nothing of it,
apparently concluding that such an arrangement would
introduce additional mechanical complexity into the
Autogiro. So the stage was set for the final crash of the
C.6C in early February of 1927 when a blade did indeed fall
off during the aircraft's landing. Courtney estimated that
had a second blade come off ten feet higher, he would have
died instead of finding himself in a hospital with only shock,
concussion and some broken ribs. He left the company and
shortly thereafter moved to America. He would next
encounter Cierva nine years later when, while on a visit to
London, he ran into him in the Hungaria restaurant on the
evening of December 8, 1936. The former aviation
colleagues shared some drinks and conversation and, by
Courtney's account, parted as friends. The next morning,
shortly after 10:00 A.M., Cierva would die in the crash of a
Dutch airliner. As Courtney ironically observed thirty-six
years later, Cierva “had devoted his life to the creation of an
aircraft that could not stall, and he lost it in an airplane that
stalled on takeoff.”34
Bert Hinkler, Avro's chief test pilot,35 had assumed official
responsibility for testing Cierva's Autogiros after Courtney's
departure, but by the latter half of 1927, there it no doubt
that much of the flying was actually being done by Cierva
himself even though he was probably not accepted by the
Air Ministry as an approved test pilot until, at the earliest,
mid 1928. The Air Ministry, in response to Courtney's final
crash of the C.6C, grounded all Autogiros and asked Cierva
to improve the rotor by incorporating vertical lead-lag drag
hinges. They were installed in the Avro C.6D model,
thereafter known as the C.8R, which was the first Autogiro
to receive a civilian registration—G-EBTW.36 On August 2,
1927, Cierva made his first flight in the C.8R as pilot, and
he was to fly a total of thirty-five hours of Autogiro test-
flights that year.
England was not, however, the only location that saw
autorotational development. Under a Cierva license, the
Spanish government had in 1925 awarded a sizable grant of
two hundred thousand pesatas to Dr. Jorge Loring Martinez,
a noted builder of aircraft, to construct a larger, heavier, and
more powerful Autogiro. That aircraft, dubbed the C.7, was
completed in October of 1926, in time to be exhibited at the
First Madrid Aero Show. Between October 27 and November
7, thousands of spectators viewed the C.7 and expressed
much admiration. It was an impressive sight, promising
even more outstanding rotary-wing achievements.
Unfortunately, when flown for the first time eight days after
the close of the Aero Show, the C.7 proved disappointing.
With all its impressive changes, this two-seat tandem open-
cockpit aircraft was found to be tail-heavy, necessitating
readjusting the weight distribution. Additionally, although
the initial construction lacked lead-lag drag hinges, Cierva
subsequently modified the C.7's rotor after Courtney's
accident to incorporate such hinges and installed two-wheel
landing gear. It first flew in modified form on May 19, 1927,
piloted by Reginald Truelove. He was an English pilot who
had moved to Spain and become Loring's test pilot. Of
greatest importance, Cierva flew as a passenger on several
occasions, making firsthand observations as to rotor
vibration, stability, and flight performance. Although the
Spanish government, disappointed in the C.7's
performance, apparently canceled an order for a second
aircraft, its significance should not go unappreciated. This
aircraft, far from England and the attention of the Air
Ministry, was the test platform for the development of lead-
lag drag hinges—a vital component on all future rotary
aircraft, including the helicopter.
The government's disappointment signaled, however,
almost the end of Autogiro development in Spain, as Cierva
shifted his efforts to England. H. M. Yeatman had designed
a special test platform at Hamble where rotors could be
mounted on top of a tower designed to facilitate rotation in
the wind for testing, effectively anticipating the testing rigs
later to characterize helicopter development. The Spanish
government would make a final development effort in 1929,
when Loring constructed the C.12 under a Cierva license
and under contract from the Aeronáutica Militar. That model
used an American Wright R-760 Whirlwind J-5 engine, first
placed in an Autogiro in late 1928 at the request of Harold
Pitcairn. Cierva used the C.12 in Spain to develop the
deflector tail for slip-stream rotor starting, a method by
which the prop flow was directed upward to spin the rotor in
preparation for takeoff. But the pattern of using Spanish
models for research and development would come to an
end with the C.12. England would be the center of Cierva's
efforts.
In England Cierva continued to improve the Autogiro, now
incorporating lead-lag drag hinges, first suggested by Frank
Courtney in 1925, into the rotor system of a subsequent
series of models and creating more effective systems for
bracing the rotors and achieving flight control. Becoming
more skilled as a pilot, he actively participated with Hinkler
in flight-testing, and on September 30, 1927, he made the
first cross-country flight in an Autogiro in England, flying
the forty-four miles from Hamble to Farnborough via Worthy
Down. Notably, Cierva had an accident in a model C.8V in
February of 1928 while acting as test pilot, as Hinkler37 had
resigned the previous month as Avro chief test pilot.
Although attributed at the time to insufficient rpm of the
rotors prior to takeoff, it was probably due to a gust of wind
catching the rotor blades and tipping the aircraft. But it did
serve to highlight ongoing stability problems and the issue
of spinning the rotor blades up to takeoff rpm—a problem
that would be solved by Harold Pitcairn. He would be the
first American to fly an Autogiro, initially in England, and
then in Pennsylvania. But the first person to fly this aircraft
in America would be the pilot who replaced Hinkler, RAF
Flight Lieutenant H.C.A. “Dizzy” Rawson, who flew the C.8R
from Hamble to the Royal Aircraft Establishment on June 2,
1928. Arthur Rawson would remain with the Cierva
company as chief test pilot until 1932, during which time he
would become the first person to accumulate one thousand
Autogiro flying hours.
Between Cierva and Rawson, 1928 was a banner year for
Autogiro development, testing, and notable achievements.
Cierva, ever mindful of publicity, had previously made sure
that he was photographed showing the aircraft to one of
Britain's famous female aviators, Lady Mary Heath,38 and
offering rides to journalists such as well-known aviation
writer Major C. C. Turner. But Cierva's greatest triumph
occurred when, on September 18, 1928, he flew from
London's Croydon airfield to Le Bourget in Paris with Henri
Bouché, editor of l'Aéronautique, as passenger. With stops
at Saint-Inglevert and Abbeville, it was the first
international flight by an Autogiro and secured for Cierva
the 1928 Grand Prix de l'Académie des Sports and the 1928
Lahm Prize presented by the Aéro Club de France. These
two prestigious aviation awards totaled forty-five thousand
francs, and the Union pour la Sécurité en Aéroplane
awarded an additional twenty thousand francs for the feat,
but the international public notice was worth even more.
The most significant event in the development of the
Autogiro, however, was undoubtedly the return of Harold F.
Pitcairn in July of that year.
NOTES

1. Juan de la Cierva and Don Rose, Wings of Tomorrow:

The Story of the Autogiro(New York: Brewer, Warren &
Putnam, 1931) p. 104; see also P. T. Capon, “Cierva's
First Autogiros: Part 1,” Aeroplane Monthly 7, no. 4
(April 1979): 200–205; Ibid., “Cierva's First Autogiros:
Part 2,” Aeroplane Monthly 7, no. 5 (May 1979): 234–
40.
2. See, for example, Peter W. Brooks, Cierva Autogiros:
The Development of Rotary-Wing Flight (Washington,
D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988), p. 43;
Charles Gablehouse, Helicopters and Autogiros: A
History of Rotating-Wing and V/STOL Aviation, rev. ed.
(Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1969), p. 38.
3. For a description of the C.6, see “Cierva C.6 Autogiro,”
Rotorcraft 28, no. 4 (June–July 1990): 53; Brooks, pp.
46–48; Capon, “Part 2,” p. 238.
4. John M. Miller, “The First Transcontinental Flights with a
Rotary-Wing Aircraft 1931,” Popular Rotorcraft Flying
30, no. 5 (August 1992): 11–19, 11.
5. Miller uses the term autogyro incorrectly. Although
Cierva originated the termAutogiro, Miller incorrectly
asserted in a letter to the author of February 28, 2001,
that “[w]hen I use the term autogiro I refer to the
Pitcairn products. That name is a copyrighted name by
Pitcairn. The generic name is autogyro.”
6. Miller, “First Transcontinental Flights,” p. 11.
7. See Brooks, p. 130.
8. For a description of the Paris Aeronautical Salon, see
“Salon Stars: A Selection of Types at the November
1936 Paris Salon Aéronautique,” Air Enthusiast, no. 91
(February–January 2001): 2–6 (note the Lioré et Olivier
C.34 Autogiro in the background of the photo on the
lower part of p. 5).
 9. For a description of his career Brooks, pp. 48, 89–91,
129, 164, 206.
10. This may have been due to the differences in the results
between the Spanish and English wind tunnel tests of
Autogiro models. The Spanish results of the tests at the
wind tunnel at Cuatro Vientos were suspected of
overstating the potential of the C.4 and were more
optimistic than the same tests performed by Vickers at
Weybridge in January and February of 1925 under the
direction of Captain P. D. Acland, managing director of
the Vickers aviation department.Brooks, p. 46 (Brooks
attributes the misstated Spanish results to “scale
effects” which led to exaggerated projections of
Autogiro speed).
11. Fredric Winkowski and Frank D. Sullivan, 100 Planes,
100 Years: The First Century of Aviation (New York:
Smithmark Publishers, 1998), pp. 48–49. See
alsoAircraft of the National Air and Space Museum, 4th
ed. (Washington, D.C., and London): Smithsonian
Institution Press, 1991), under “Ford 5-AT Tri-Motor.”
12. For a picture of the C.6A (also known as the C.6bis)
showing the men who would run with the rope to
prerotate the rotor blades at its English demonstration
at Farnborough, see Peter Almond, Aviation: The Early
Years (The Hulton Getty Picture Collection) (Köln,
Germany: Könemann Verlagssgesellschaft mbH, 1997),
pp. 342–43; see also Frank T. Courtney, The Eighth Sea
(New York: Doubleday & Co., 1972; also published as
Flight Path, London: William Kimber), pp. 159–60.
13. Frank Kingston Smith, Legacy of Wings: The Story of
Harold F. Pitcairn (New York: Jason Aronson, 1981), p.
67.
14. Brooks, p. 139.
15. Courtney, p. 162.
16. Warren R. Young, The Helicopters (Alexandria, Virginia:
Time-Life Books, 1982), p. 58.
17. Brooks states that Courtney was told that the C.6 had
been “built by a nut called Cierva,” but this is clearly an
unjustified exaggeration; nor does Courtney refer to the
C.6 as “crazy looking.” Compare Brooks, p. 53, with
Courtney, p. 162. It is difficult to understand the source
of Brooks's material, yet it is an understandable
exaggeration—Courtney was skeptical and would never
establish other than a minimally cordial working
relationship with Cierva that would not last beyond
February 1927. And Courtney would continue to
bemoan the fact that Cierva only mentions him once in
his 1931 book (see Cierva and Rose).
18. Courtney, p. 162.
19. Ibid., p. 163.
20. C. R. Roseberry, The Challenging Skies: The Colorful
Story of Aviation's Most Exciting Years 1919–39
(Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1966),
pp. 2–4, 354.
21. Brooks, p. 55; Cierva would read his own paper in
English on February 13, 1930, before TRAS.
22. For a photograph of Juan de la Cierva, Frank Courtney,
and British Air Minister Sir Samuel Hoare at
Farnborough in 1925, see Courtney, p. 160.
23. After the Autogiro had experienced its rough landing,
and that incident was obscured in the successful
completion of the tests, Cierva presented Courtney with
an expensive gold cigarette case inscribed with “…
recuerdo de unos experimentos que nos han hecho
amigos para siempre.” Courtney, p. 166.
24. Bill Hannon, “Those Infuriating ‘Palm Trees,’” Popular
Rotorcraft Flying 7, no. 6 (November–December 1969):
30.
25. Although Cierva is silent about this in his 1931 book
with Rose, Courtney lectured on it almost forty years
later, claiming that the patent office had initially refused
Cierva's application, with the observation that the
Autogiro “couldn't possibly work.” Hannon, p. 30.
26. Courtney, p. 169. The assembled dignitaries included
Pierre Etienne Flandin, the Spanish ambassador, and the
Belgian and Italian military attachés.
27. He was a prominent Scottish industrialist who had risen
to the rank of brigadier general at the end of World War
I.
28. Sir Robert later became Lord Kindersley and served as a
director of the Bank of England.
29. The C.6C was also given a non-Cierva manufacturer's
designation of Avro Type 574 and was given the military
serial J8068.
30. Frank Courtney, writing in his autobiography almost
forty-six years later, claims that this accident happened
the day before the royal demonstration, but given the
damage, it is unlikely that the necessary repairs could
have been made by the next morning. Brooks's account
of a three-day interval between accident and display is
far more credible. Compare Courtney, p. 170, with
Brooks, pp. 62–63.
31. For a photograph of the destroyed C.6C, see Courtney,
p. 161.
32. Compare Courtney, pp. 170–71, with Brooks, pp. 171–
72.
33. The C.10 and C.11 designs of 1927 and 1928 did not
have any vertical hinges.
34. Compare Courtney, p. 170, with Brooks, p. 175.
35. For a description of Hinkler's test-flying, see A. J.
Jackson, AVRO Aircraft Since 1908 (London, England:
Putnam & Company, 1962) under each Avro Cierva
Autogiro model.
36. For a photo of G-EBTW in flight, see Gablehouse,
Helicopters and Autogiros(1969), p. 46 (Gablehouse
identifies G-EBTW as a C.8, and this is certainly correct,
as the C.6D had by then been fitted with lead-lag drag
hinges and had been redesignated C.8R). See also
Brooks, p. 69.
37. For a rare picture of Hinkler flying with a passenger in
the C.8V, see Juan de la Cierva, “The Autogiro: Its
Future as a Service Aeroplane,” United States Naval
Institute Proceedings 54, no. 8 (August 1928): 696–
701, 697.
38. That photo is reproduced in Almond, p. 343. Lady Heath
is unidentified, but seeRoseberry, p. 427, where Lady
Heath is identified and shown wearing the same hat and
with Cierva. She completed her record flight from Cape
Town to London in 1928 and thoroughly charmed the
public by refusing to wear masculine attire like Amelia
Earhart did, but flying in an afternoon gown and high
heels! The most famous English aviatrix, she was the
wife of Lord James Heath and held the first transport
license ever granted to a woman in England. Her
husband's status and position had undoubtedly helped
change the law specifically for her. See Susan Butler,
East to the Dawn: The Life of Amelia Earhart (New York:
Da Capo Press, Inc., 1999), p. 212.
 Chapter 3

CIERVA AND HAROLD F. PITCAIRN

The Navy is very interested in the possibilities of the
autogiro. We have ordered one so that experiments may be
carried out toward determining its adaptability to naval
needs. The ability of the autogiro to land within a limited
space its ability to hover over one point should make it
extremely useful for reconnaissance work over bad country
where adequate landing fields do not exist. There can be no
doubt but what the development of the autogiro is the
outstanding achievement in aviation during the past year.
Rear Admiral W. A. Moffett, Chief of the Bureau of Naval
Aeronautics, speaking at the White House at the ceremony
awarding the Collier Trophy on April 22, 1931
Harold F. Pitcairn returned to England in July 1928 with the
aim of more closely examining the Autogiro, which had,
according to its press notices, advanced considerably since
his last encounter with Cierva in 1925. Both the daily
newspaper and, perhaps of greater importance, the
American military journals began to take notice of Cierva's
aerial achievements from the first demonstrations in
England.1 Although Pitcairn's aviation company was
successful, with an airmail route spanning the Atlantic coast
from the northeast to Florida and westward to Atlanta,
Georgia, he was aware that there was an ongoing
consolidation that would leave Pitcairn Aviation vulnerable
to one of the nascent industry giants: the Aviation Company
of America, North American Aviation, General Motors, and
the Ford Motor Company. The larger companies were buying
up smaller airmail carriers and preparing to make the
massive investment necessary to initiate passenger service.
Because he had always been interested in rotary-wing flight
and had in fact received the first of his patents for rotary-
wing aircraft in 1925 and because he had been
experimenting with rotors powered by compressed air,
Pitcairn decided to come to Europe to see the new Autogiros
for himself. He was then able to fly the C.8L-II after only a
short briefing by Cierva's chief test pilot, Arthur Rawson.
Pitcairn made several landings, including steep descents
and short takeoff rolls; he was impressed and was also
amazed at how slowly the craft could fly under complete
control, speeds at which a fixed-wing airplane would stall
and fall from the sky. He immediately offered to purchase a
C.8, providing that it could be Americanized with an
American-built Wright 220 horsepower J-5 engine that
would turn the propeller in a clockwise direction, perhaps
influenced by Charles Lindbergh's use of the Wright engine
in the Spirit of St. Louis. Assured by the engineers that the
rotor would function regardless of propeller spin, the order
was made and he committed to sending a Wright engine for
installation. Pitcairn, the businessman and aviation
strategist, proceeded to engage Cierva and his associates,
including James Weir, in discussion as to what form an
American license might take. Even though his brief C.8
flights had gone extraordinarily well and he was genuinely
enthusiastic, his aviation and business experience
suggested a cautious approach. He negotiated an option for
the American licensing and manufacturing rights to Cierva's
inventions and patents and proposed a reciprocal licensing
of all future Pitcairn patents on rotary-wing inventions to
the English company. Further, Pitcairn also proposed that
his American company would now be named the Pitcairn-
Cierva Autogiro Company of America.
Cierva agreed to the option, and Pitcairn returned to
America to arrange for the shipment of the Wright engine.
Of greater importance, he engaged in extensive
consultation with his attorneys, the Philadelphia patent-law
firm Synnestvedt & Lechner, who were tasked with an in-
depth investigation of the current status of rotary-flight
patents in America. Reassessing the state of his business
affairs and evaluating the productive capacity of his factory,
Pitcairn hired Edwin Asplundh, who had gained a reputation
as a production genius, in preparation for expansion of the
facilities in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania. Pitcairn, accompanied
by patent lawyer Ed Davis, returned to England to finalize
the licensing and partnership arrangements. They returned
on December 11, 1928, on the SS Aquitania with signed
agreements calling for a payment of $300,000 and, of equal
importance, the crated C.8W (the Wreferring to Wright
engine) and Cierva pilot Arthur Rawson. Pitcairn had flown
the C.8W in England before it was disassembled and crated,
and he was anxious to fly it in America. The Autogiro was
even then gaining additional notoriety in England, when
Cierva, who had gained his pilot's license in 1927, flew to
Paris on September 18, 1928, with passenger Henri Bouché,
editor of L'Aéronautique— the first rotary-wing crossing of
the English Channel. The Autogiro would soon gain similar
notice in America.
Reassembled at Bryn Athyn and given the registration
number NC418, the C.8W was first test-flown by Rawson on
December 18, 1928, and was then flown by Pitcairn,
although there is some confusion as to when the Pitcairn
flight actually occurred. Pitcairn company historian Carl
Gunther claims2 that Pitcairn flew immediately after Rawson
on the December 18, but the Autogiro Company of
America's 1932 publication maintained that the first flight
occurred3 on both December 18 and 19! Assuming that the
18th is correct, it was twenty-five years and a day since the
Wright brothers first flew—the age of rotary-wing flight had
come to America. And America noticed—the flights from the
Pitcairn airfield in Bryn Athyn gained increased public notice
of the strange aircraft, and the army and navy, well-familiar
with the dispatches describing Cierva's English
achievements published in the United States Naval Institute
Proceedings,4 requested demonstration flights. Additionally,
interest was expressed by the Post Office Department, the
Department of Commerce, and the National Advisory
Committee for Aeronautics (NACA).5 But Harold Pitcairn
resisted all entreaties—he wanted to gain more experience
and make a decision whether to exercise his option. He was
also painfully aware that should anything happen to the
single flying American Autogiro, it would certainly retard, if
not actually doom future development.
Flying the Autogiro,6 Pitcairn made comparative flight-tests7
against his successful Pitcairn PA-5 Mailwing—flown by
Pitcairn Aircraft chief pilot James G. “Jim” Ray—in takeoff,
climb, speed, and control aspects. Although the C.8W had
generally good handling characteristics, Pitcairn and his
associates immediately noted that at high diving speeds the
rotor slowed and developed excessive and rough blade
flapping. The tests were analyzed by Pitcairn, Ray, and
associates Agnew Larsen and Paul Stanley, and they began
suggesting ways to alleviate the problem (which was solved
by the end of 1929 by changing the wing configuration) and
improving the Cierva model. Pitcairn was in a precarious
situation—the clock was running on the Cierva option, the
definitive legal opinion from Synnestvedt & Lechner was not
yet ready, and he was being pressed by Clement Melville
Keys to sell the Pitcairn Aviation interests. But it all came
together—the opinion letter from the attorneys, carefully
worded and even more carefully researched, stated in
unambiguous terms that the Cierva patents were favorable
for going ahead with the business deal. It was what Harold
Pitcairn had been hoping to hear—by transatlantic calls and
telegrams, negotiation began between the Cierva and
Pitcairn groups. It was a heated exchange, with significant
differences of opinion regarding royalty payments for use of
patents and corporate governance issues, but in the end it
was obvious that both parties wanted it to work. Cierva sent
his managing director, Colonel John Josselyn, to negotiate
the final terms; Josselyn arrived at Bryn Athyn with an
unrestricted power of attorney, and it was obvious to all
that he would not leave without concluding the deal. The
final agreement was signed on February 14, 1929, by which
Pitcairn acquired the American rights to all Cierva's patents
and inventions for $300,000. Pitcairn became a director of
the English company, and Cierva became a director of the
Pitcairn-Cierva Autogiro Company of America. It was
intended that the Pitcairn-Cierva Autogiro Company, like the
Cierva Autogiro Company Ltd., would be a research and
development company that would hold and license the use
of Pitcairn-Cierva Autogiro patents for manufacturing by
others.
Harold Pitcairn undoubtedly took a deep breath. Along with
his close associates, he had estimated the first year's
budget for the new company—it was a staggering one
million dollars, and that did not even include the payment
to Cierva. It was obvious that money would have to be
raised to nurture this new enterprise. Pitcairn's answer was
to enter into serious negotiations with C.M. Keys to sell
Pitcairn Aviation's eighteen hundred miles of federally
subsidized mail routes. Those routes were continuing to
grow and Pitcairn had just successfully exhibited his new
PA-Super Mail-wing airplane at the National Air Show in
Detroit, and rumors were already circulating of a Keys-
Pitcairn merger. Throughout these sensitive negotiations
Pitcairn successfully concealed his deal with Cierva and
interest in the Autogiro, but official pressure proved too
much and he felt he could no longer ignore the requests for
public demonstration. On May 13, 1929, Pitcairn flew the
C.8W from Pitcairn Field at Bryn Athyn to Langley Field,
Virginia, via Washington, D.C. He demonstrated the
Autogiro before the annual NACA conference and then went
on to the United States Naval Base at Norfolk, Virginia,
where he showed the aircraft's unique flying characteristics
before an enthusiastic audience of senior military officers.
But of particular note was the reaction of those who
observed this unique machine flying over Philadelphia,
Wilmington, Baltimore, Washington, and Richmond—
everywhere Pitcairn flew people stopped what they were
doing, came outside, and gazed up at what local papers
termed the “wonder-plane.” It was the first cross-country
flight in America and the longest Autogiro flight to date. To
top it off, Orville Wright inspected the Autogiro and
expressed his admiration. It was, by all accounts, a
triumph, and it was soon repeated. After returning to Bryn
Athyn to let the engineers inspect the aircraft, Pitcairn was
off again to Washington, D.C., to demonstrate its flying
abilities before the Spanish ambassador and dignitaries,
government officials, and members of Congress. His
demonstrations were met with public acclaim and served to
reinforce his decision to go ahead with Autogiro
development, but the problem of financing such an
undertaking still remained.
Harold Pitcairn, ever the sharp businessman, decided to
move the negotiations with Keys along by nurturing the
rumors then rife that he was considering a merger with one
of Keys's competitors. Merger-mania was then sweeping
American aviation, and Pan America, Texas Air Transport,
St. Tammany, and Gulf Coast, Colonial were all rumored to
be considering joining with Pitcairn's Atlantic coast routes,
and he did nothing to deny the circulating stories. He
deliberately let slip in conversation with Keys that his new
aircraft design, the PA-6 Super Mailwing, was selling well
and that even more powerful planes were on the drawing
board and that he intended to exhibit the PA-7 Super
Mailwing at the 1929 National Air Show in Detroit. The
seemingly casual remarks were intended to make Pitcairn
Aviation even more desirable. But Keys and his associates
were delaying, forcing Pitcairn to be even more creative in
his attempts to move the negotiations to a successful
conclusion. He asked his close associate Geoffrey M. Childs
and his wife to take a European vacation, and he made sure
that pictures of the smiling, confident executive were
published in the business press with captions proclaiming
that the Pitcairn Aviation official was going to Europe to
ascertain new developments in passenger service that could
be adapted to America. The final straw for Keys was the
Post Office Department report for May, which indicated that
Pitcairn's routes had made a $34,000 profit. After
consulting with his associates, Keys requested a meeting
with Pitcairn.
Keys took no chances—he invited Pitcairn to come to his
New York office and there, surrounded by the evidence of
his success and corporate power, told his guest that the
board had authorized an offer of $2,500,000. Pitcairn put on
his best poker face. It was a spectacular sum—not more
than the airline routes were worth for future expansion, but
certainly more than he expected from a sharp businessman
such as Keys. Not wanting to appear overly eager, Pitcairn
departed for the return trip to Philadelphia. Although he
stated that he needed to consult with his board, he had
already decided to accept. The deal was finalized less than a
week later on June 12, 1929, with the signing of documents
and a certified $500,000 check. Final payment was made in
mid-September—seven weeks before the October 29 stock
market crash on “Black Friday.” He had the funding for the
Pitcairn-Cierva Autogiro Company.
That Harold Pitcairn would become involved in aviation was
not obvious. His father, John Pitcairn, was born in
Johnstone, Scotland, on January 10, 1841. His family
immigrated to America five years later. Growing up in the
industrial town of Pittsburgh, John left school by fourteen
and went to work at the Pennsylvania Railroad with his
older brother Robert. He rose quickly and was soon in
charge of the Philadelphia branch, a position in which he
became friends with such business leaders as John D.
Rockefeller, Richard Mellon, Henry Clay Frick, and Andrew
Carnegie. In midlife he became a devoted follower of the
Swedish revelator, Emanuel Swedenborg and the New
Church, which embodied Swedenborg's teachings of
meditation on the word of God, responsibility to family, hard
work, and society. Above all, the New Church emphasized
the proper use of one's God-given gifts. John Pitcairn
founded the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company with Captain
John B. Ford on the nearby Allegheny River and served as
its president from 1896 until 1906. Under his leadership the
company experienced great growth, and by 1900 it
produced 65 percent of American plate glass. At his death in
1916 he left an estate with an estimated value of between
$60 and $270 million dollars8 for his widow and three
surviving sons. Two sons had died in infancy, and his only
daughter, Vera, had died six years earlier at the age of
twenty-three. Also at the time of his death, the New Church
Cathedral, which he had endowed and for which he had
donated land in Bryn Athyn, was in the early stages of
construction and would be completed by his oldest son.
His oldest son, Raymond (1885–1966), was a successful
lawyer, businessman, musician, civic leader, and noted
Abraham Lincoln scholar. In 1914 he set aside his legal
career to complete the New Church Cathedral. It was an
original, innovative, beautiful, and inspirational building, so
much so that Raymond was elected to the American
Institute of Architects on its merits. The middle brother,
Theodore (1893–1973), inspired to live a life of religious
pursuit, theological studies, missionary work, and the
ministry, became a priest in the New Church. Theodore's
wife, Maryke Urban, whom he had met while on an overseas
mission, aided his ministry as he preached the Swedenborg
faith in Basutoland, South Africa. He returned to Bryn Athyn
to the cathedral but eventually fell out with its leaders and
doctrines. Breaking away, he took his followers with him
and founded a new church on his own property, funding it
with proceeds from the sale of his art collection. His Monet,
which he had purchased for $11,000, sold for $1.4 million,
establishing the record for such art at the time.
The youngest of John Pitcairn's children was Harold
Frederick Pitcairn, born in 1897. Harold took an early, and
not entirely approved of, interest in aviation. Inspired by
the first flight of the Wright brothers in 1903, he began
flight training as an air cadet in the last days of World War
I, and he would eventually earn a pilot's license signed by
Orville Wright. During his flight training he had met a
talented engineer, Agnew Larsen. They had combined
talents to produce “a series of clean, efficient aircraft that
were to be of great significance to air transportation.”9 This
was the Mailwing series that Pitcairn would tout to Keys and
for which he is justly famous, as it was ideal for the
emerging government-subsidized mail route system, with a
baggage compartment economically sized for the small mail
loads that initially characterized such service.
The construction was also innovative, with the unique use of
stronger square tubing for the fuselage and quick-change
engine mounts. Pitcairn Aviation's mail route system was
efficiently planned and well-staffed, and it provided quality
flight training. Even if Pitcairn had not gone on to the
Autogiro, the Mailwing and the airmail route system he
created would have earned him inclusion in the Aviation Hall
of Fame. But after selling Pitcairn Aviation's airmail routes,
plans, and airports to Keys, he threw himself into the
development and promotion of the Autogiro. The results of
the next sixteen months would earn him and his associates
the Collier Trophy,10 the most prestigious award for the
greatest aviation achievement for the year.
The Pitcairn-Cierva Autogiro Company's first licensee was
Pitcairn Aviation Inc., which was to develop and
manufacture Autogiro models based on both Cierva and
Pitcairn patents. The latter company, owned by Pitcairn,
immediately began an evaluation of the C.8W with the aim
of developing an American model, as the Guggenheim Safe
Airplane competition had been announced for the fall of
1929 and Pitcairn thought that an American Autogiro had a
good chance of winning. Paul E. Garber, curator of aviation
artifacts for the Smithsonian and after whom its complex at
Silver Hill, Maryland, would eventually be named, wrote
Pitcairn. Citing the importance of the first Autogiro in
America, Garber requested that it be donated to the
national aviation collection. Pitcairn was flattered and
immediately accepted, recognizing that such an accolade
acknowledged the important nature of his aviation endeavor
and placed the C.8W with Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis and
the other historic American aircraft.
When the evaluation of the C.8W was complete, Pitcairn
presented it to the National Air and Space Museum of the
Smithsonian Institution on July 17, 1931. It was accepted
by Dr. Charles Greely Abbot, secretary of the Smithsonian
Institution, when Jim Ray landed on the National Mall on
July 22, 1931.11
The initial intention of the Pitcairn design team was much
like that for the earlier Cierva designs, to modify an existing
fixed-wing configuration. That aircraft, the PCA-1, employed
the Mailwing welded chrome-molybdenum, steel square-
tube fuselage that had proven itself on the demanding night
airmail flights with a widened landing gear to increase
stability. It also had plywood-covered strut-braced thirty-
three-foot wings with upturned tips, and a boxlike tail
derived from the Cierva designs (known as a “Scorpion
tail”), a tiltable horizontal system constructed to channel
the prop wash up into the rotor blades to aid in gaining the
rpm necessary for takeoff. It was, as were the mail planes,
an open-cockpit, two-seat, three-passenger design with a
rotor pylon above the forward seat consisting of four tubular
struts extending almost to the engine mount and anchoring
just in back of the forward cockpit. It was larger than any
Autogiro built, and the passengers rode in the forward
cockpit while the pilot flew from the rear. The RB-55 rotor
blades were supplied by the Cierva Autogiro Company and
had been manufactured by Avro. Although Pitcairn remained
optimistic that the PCA-1 would be completed in time to
enter the Guggenheim Safe Aircraft competition on October
10, it proved more difficult than anticipated, and the aircraft
was not ready. It was an ambitious attempt to create a
large aircraft and was considerably larger than even the
C.19 Mk.II (G-AAKY) that Cierva himself brought to America
in August for the Cleveland Air Races of 1929. The new
American PCA-1 had been covered with doped linen and
then hand-rubbed to a glossy black finish. It was an
impressive, innovative undertaking—one that unfortunately
did not fly nearly as well as it looked.
Early in the PCA-1's ground testing, it was evident that the
larger scale of this first American prototype produced
serious vibration problems because of an unbalanced rotor
configuration. But the very complexity of the rotor hub and
suspension systems of the individual blades made diagnosis
of the problem difficult. As Pitcairn and his development
team solved one vibration problem, another would emerge.
Still it looked as if the aircraft might be ready for the
Guggenheim competition, until a new difficulty was
recognized—the flight requirements for the competition had
been written for an eight-to-one angle of glide (i.e., go
forward eight feet for each foot of descent). Such was the
characteristic of a fixed-wing aircraft, conditions totally
inapplicable to the Autogiro, but the competition committee
steadfastly refused to alter the requirement. Had the
prototype been ready to fly, Pitcairn intended to enter it
anyway, hopeful that its unique rotary-wing performance
would impress the judges, but that never happened. The
vibration problems with the rotor blades had clearly not
been solved as the date of the competition approached,
forcing Pitcairn to withdraw his entry, but he continued
experimentation on the prototype. New rotor designs were
tried, weights were adjusted to fine-tune the center of
gravity of the fuselage, and various blade lengths were
tried. It was an intensive effort that relied in part on
Cierva's mathematical models and theoretical analyses, but
the pragmatic experimentation was leading Pitcairn and his
team to formulate new and innovative theories. There was a
growing confidence that the American group was gaining a
serious, in-depth understanding of this new aircraft as each
problem was solved, but the feelings were clearly mixed
when Cierva demonstrated the C.19 Mk.II in Cleveland
before wildly enthusiastic crowds.12 Even as he cheered the
Spanish inventor, Pitcairn quietly vowed that next year, it
would be an American-created and registered Autogiro that
would thrill the spectators—but it would not be the PCA-1.
In early October, with a more conventional tail structure and
other improvements, the prototype was crash-landed by
Cierva a few days after its first flight. It was moved to the
old Pitcairn factory in Bryn Athyn for reconstruction, but it
was consumed in a fire on November 18, 1929, which
gutted the factory just three weeks after the stock market
crash. It was an inglorious end to the first American
Autogiro design, but its legacy and lessons had already
been incorporated into the next Pitcairn model, the PCA-1A.
The PCA-1A incorporated a lighter duralumin tube
construction with a stronger, braced wing structure. The
landing gear was redesigned with low-pressure Akron tires.
That this model was ready for flight-testing in late October
was a clear indication that the Pitcairn team was
successfully integrating the ongoing experience, the result
being increasingly confident construction. Cierva, still in
America, flew the PCA-1A in late October. The PCA-1A's end
was far better than its predecessor's, as Harold Pitcairn
presented it to the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, and it
hung in exhibition for twenty years in the institute's
museum. Finally removed from exhibition in 1954 and
crated, it was presented to the Smithsonian Institution and
placed in the Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration and
Storage Facility at Silver Hill. It was loaned to the American
Helicopter Museum and Education Center in West Chester,
Pennsylvania, with the understanding that it would first be
restored by Harold's son Steve Pitcairn.13
That restoration effort, led by Mike Posey, who was assisted
by Steve Pitcairn, James Cole, and Joseph Rommel, was
completed in March 2000, and the PCA-1A was finally
placed on exhibition on October 4, 2000. At the dedication,
Dr. Dominick Pisano, chairman of the National Air and Space
Museum, stated that it was the finest restoration of an
Autogiro he had ever seen. Viewed by thousands of visitors,
it occupies an honored position as the oldest surviving
American Autogiro.
The PCA-1 was flown for several months as a test platform.
Pitcairn never applied for an Approved Type Certificate
(ATC), as it was never intended for production. The three
Pitcairn Autogiro pilots, Jim Ray, Jim Faulkner, and Harold
Pitcairn, analyzed the flight experience and suggested
improvements and modifications. The results of those
lessons were incorporated into the ongoing development of
a commercial Autogiro, but first a third experimental aircraft
was constructed, the PCA-1B. It was similar to the earlier
prototype aircraft, incorporating a light but strong
duralumin tube fuselage and cable-braced fabric wings with
the now-familiar upturned tips for increased stability. The
box-deflector tail of the earlier models was replaced by a
more traditional vertical tail unit. Pitcairn characterized the
deflector box tail as “un-American,” which would lead to the
distinctly American development in 1930–31 of a
mechanical system clutched to the engine for prerotation.
Called the Black Ship, the PCA 1B was flown by Cierva
before he returned to Europe in the first part of November
1929, and it was later demonstrated at the 1930 National
Air Races at the Curtiss-Reynolds Airport in Chicago.
Although the British Cierva C.19 Mk.II was also flown,
Harold Pitcairn could not have but felt pride and a sense of
accomplishment when the PCA-1B and prototype PCA-2
thrilled the crowd—it had been almost a year since he had
vowed to have an American Autogiro flying. There was a
certain irony in that the Pitcairn aircraft had flown to
Chicago from Willow Grove, 650 miles, taking six hours and
fifty minutes to make the trip at an estimated speed of
about one hundred miles per hour, while the Cierva machine
had been hauled on a truck.14 It was then the longest
Autogiro cross-country flight and revealed areas that
needed improvement, such as adjustments in the cabling
system that suspended the blades and kept them from
drooping at low speeds and striking the aircraft
superstructure. These cables were found prone to fatigue
after a few hours. That problem was remedied with elastic
links at the rotor hub cable attachments to control slack
while in flight. Additionally, the PCA-2 prototype was
modified with the addition of hydraulic dampers on the
interblade bracing cables and redesigned oil hydraulic
dampers by Houdaille-Hershey.
The PCA-1B, like its developmental predecessors, was a test
platform for various modifications, chiefly experimentation
with different angles of wing incidence to determine the
most efficient configuration. Additionally, as its flights were
noted by the press and public to acclaim and amazement,
Pitcairn was gauging marketing potential in preparation for
introducing the first certified Autogiro intended for sale—the
PCA-2. The PCA-2 had been produced at the new factory in
Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. Pitcairn had purchased land in
February 1926 and started construction in May 1929, with
the factory becoming his major production facility after the
fire in November that had destroyed the Bryn Athyn facility.
Although the PCA-2 was the first model specifically designed
for Autogiro flight, it drew heavily on Pitcairn's previous
airmail plane design. Unlike the three PCA-1 developmental
prototypes, the PCA-2 had a fuselage of welded steel tubes
rather than duralumin because, in consideration of the
commercial intent for the model, steel was easier to repair
and modify. It was a three-passenger model with two seats
in the side-by-side front cockpit, and it differed from its
American predecessors in that the front cockpit was close to
the aircraft center of gravity, a significant factor in creating
flight stability.
First flown in March of 1930, the prototype (X760W) had a
gross weight of 2,750 pounds (increased in actual
production to 3,000 pounds), featured a familiar 225-
horsepower Wright R-760-E Whirlwind J-6–7 engine,15 and
had thirty-foot wings that were upturned at the tips. The
tilting box tail had completely disappeared, and the
simplified tail of the PCA-1B was used, except that it now
lost its fin extension to the back of the rear cockpit that had
looked so dashing on the research aircraft. The PCA-2 also
featured a significant advance in Autogiro technology, the
mechanical prerotator. The four-bladed rotor was positioned
on a pylon located above the front cockpit on a metal
tripod. The front of the forward tripod leg extended to a
point midway between the cockpit and the engine mount,
with the remaining legs extending to points on the right and
left of the fuselage between the front and rear cockpits. But
slightly in front of the forward rotor pylon spar and parallel
to it was a mechanic connection extending between the
rotor head and the engine. This engine drive for rotor spin-
up had been designed by Pitcairn associate Agnew E. Larsen
with the help of Heraclio Alfaro and Jean Nicol of Jos. S.
Pecker's office (later the Machine and Tool Designing
Company and Autogiro Specialties Company) which
manufactured the forty-eight-pound clutch and engine drive
in late 1929 to early 1930. It was initially capable of
spinning up the rotor blades to eighty to ninety rpm in thirty
to forty seconds, enabling the aircraft to take off with only a
short taxi run to accelerate the rotor to takeoff speed.
This impressed Cierva, who would promptly incorporate it
into the next English Autogiro. The performance of this
device was later improved with a more efficient gearbox and
clutch to prerotate a larger rotor to 125 rpm, which allowed
for more dramatic takeoffs with very short ground runs.
Jim Ray commented after the first flight that the PCA-2 had
performed flawlessly, with a smooth rotor spin-up, a climb
out free from rotor vibration, and extremely stable flight. He
expressed the belief that a fixed-wing pilot could transition
to the Autogiro with less than an hour's instruction and that
a novice could become a proficient pilot in half the time it
took to solo in an easy fixed-wing trainer. It was exactly
what Pitcairn wanted to hear, and the advertising for the
PCA-2 would highlight and headline the ease of flying. It
would, however, be a promise unfulfilled for many, but that
was in the future—in the interim a new and potentially
serious impediment emerged. Confronted with the first
rotary aircraft designed for commercial sale, the United
States Department of Commerce admitted that no
performance standards existed to guide the Approved Type
Certification.

The government policy would therefore be that the

development of such standards would both proceed from
and apply to the PCA-2, as it was the first Autogiro
submitted for the ATC. The PCA-1 series had not had this
kind of certification, as it was for research and development
and not intended for commercial sales. The government
specified that the certification process for the PCA-2 would
require a series of flight-tests extending over the next year.
In fact, the PCA-2 would be granted an ATC on April 2,
1931.
Pitcairn shrewdly used the government flight-tests to gain
public notice, featuring the Autogiro, accompanied by the
PCA-1B as a chase plane, flying over New York City and
around the Statute of Liberty. Jim Ray had even flown 2,500
miles from Willow Grove to Miami and back in January
1931. He landed often on small, rough fields and in a
variety of weather conditions, all of which was part of the
certification process. He also gained much public notice at
the All-American Air Races and the dedication of the new
United States Navy Air Field.

In a staged performance worthy of P. T. Barnum, Ray even

landed in a Miami public park and was photographed
receiving a parking ticket from the chief of police, who
promptly received a ride in the Autogiro. The public
response was favorable, and the Autogiro flights sometimes
had the effect of stopping traffic and always of being noted
in the press.
The reception at the National Air Races in Chicago in late
August had been an undeniable triumph, and Pitcairn had
even arranged for the PCA-1B and PCA-2 prototype to fly
over Chicago—in contrast with the Cierva model, which
never left the exhibit area—to great acclaim and some
traffic difficulties, as people stopped to look up at the new
rotary aircraft. The public appearance of the American
Autogiro had been so successful that Pitcairn announced the
production version of the PCA-2, with the larger, 300-
horsepower Wright R-975-E Whirl-wind J-6–9 engine, to be
manufactured by the newly formed Pitcairn Autogiro
Company.
The first production PCA-2 had flown on November 1, 1930
and although not yet certified, Pitcairn began taking
deposits. The more publicity generated by the flights of the
certification model, the more public interest was generated.
The larger engine produced a maximum speed of 118 miles
per hour, a cruising speed of 98 miles per hour, and rate of
climb of 800 feet per minute, even though the aircraft
weight had increased to three thousand pounds. Pitcairn
also changed the name of the Pitcairn-Cierva Autogiro
Company to the Autogiro Company of America (ACA) in
January 1931, with Pitcairn as president and Agnew Larsen
as chief engineer. The American acclaim had also not gone
unnoticed by others, and the ACA granted manufacturing
licenses to Buhl Aircraft Company of Detroit, Michigan, in
March of 1931, and later to the Kellett Aircraft Corporation,
a company formed by W. Wallace Kellett, his brother
Rodney, C[harles] Townsend Ludington, and his brother
Nicholas. W. Wallace Kellett and C. T. Ludington had
previously had aircraft dealerships at the Philadelphia Pine
Valley Airport and had been associated with Amelia Earhart
in the New York, Philadelphia and Washington Airway
Corporation (NYPWA).
Even given the advent of the Great Depression, Pitcairn had
reason to be optimistic about 1931. In December of 1930
Cierva had published16 a well-received article entitled “Uses
and Possibilities of the Autogiro” in the American magazine
Aero Digestwith a representation of a PCA-2 flying over New
York on the cover. Furthermore, Amelia Earhart had become
interested in the Autogiro. She had, after a single fifteen-to-
twenty-minute flying lesson by factory test pilot J[ohn] Paul
“Skipper” Lukens,17soloed at the Pitcairn Aviation field at
Willow Grove on December 19, 1930, thus becoming the
first woman Autogiro pilot. Advertising for the Autogiro and
the PCA-2 was just beginning, and Pitcairn's offices soon
received deposits and advanced orders from individuals and
corporations seeking the convenience, safety, and publicity
that seemed to accompany almost every Autogiro flight.
The public's enthusiasm for the Autogiro was further
encouraged in March of 1931 when David S. Ingalls, the
navy's only World War I ace and assistant secretary of the
navy, published an article inFortune entitled “Autogiros:
Missing Link,” asserting that “Inventor Cierva and
Impresario Pitcairn offer the most promising new flying
machine in the thirty-year history of aviation.”18 It was
heady praise, bolstered by the news that Pitcairn and his
associates had been awarded the prestigious Collier Trophy
for the greatest achievement in American aviation for 1930.
Although Pitcairn had wanted Cierva to attend,19 it was
President Herbert Hoover's schedule that dictated the timing
—which occurred on April 22, 1931, at the White House.
Hoover, previously secretary of commerce under President
Calvin Coolidge, had followed the development of the
Autogiro and, keen to see an Autogiro, personally requested
that ceremony be held on the back lawn of the White House
so that an aircraft could land and demonstrate its unique
flying capabilities.
It was a publicity triumph, and Pitcairn made the most of it.
As that was in many ways the most significant moment in
the development of the Autogiro in America, an account of
it introduces this book—but it was not the only Autogiro
event to capture public attention that April. Although it is
likely that only the most attentive readers noted the brief
announcement that the PCA-2 had received ATC 410 on
April 2, 1931, the world took notice of Amelia Earhart's
altitude record on April 8, 1931.20
Pitcairn's intent was to fan the public fires of Autogiro
interest, and he set about the task with a creative ingenuity.
He arranged for journalists to take rides in the PCA-2 and
then used their columns in advertising to tout the
revolutionary nature of Autogiro flight.
Ernie Pyle had become the aviation editor for
the Washington Daily News in March 1928 and won a
devoted following with his human interest stories describing
World War I pilots who constantly scrambled to make a
living as cargo and mail pilots and as barnstormers who
“gypsied from field to field, delighting crowds with wing-
walks and offering thrill seekers their first flights for fees of
a dollar a minute.”21 Pitcairn arranged for Jim Ray to take
Pyle for a ride, and the newsman, in turn, praised the
Autogiro's performance in a column dated September 26,
1930. Pyle quoted a flying companion (the front cockpit of
the PCA-2 was a two-seater) as exclaiming, “That's the kind
of plane for you and me, Ernie, one that comes straight
down and slow,” and went on to comment, “That expresses
the whole thing. It's a great piece of machinery.”
Such journalistic attention and acclaim attracted all sorts of
aerial adventurers, with proposals that ranged from the
preposterous to the intriguing. Each was considered—a
typical example was the proposal put forth by the well-
known California author and adventurer Richard Halliburton,
who would publish books entitled Flying Carpet andRichard
Halliburton's Book of Wonders that would continue to
engage the imaginations primarily of young boys for
decades.22 Halliburton telegraphed Pitcairn on November 1,
1930, proposing that a PCA-2 Autogiro be made available
for a “vagabond flight around the world by aeroplane.”23
Halliburton intended to fly a Lockheed airplane called
theFlying Carpet, sponsored by the Shell Oil Company, and
had contracts to produce ten articles for the Ladies Home
Journal and a book for Bobbs-Merrill Company. His appeal
to Pitcairn was direct:
The Journal has a circulation of three million and goes into
three million high class American homes. Each article will be
read by seven to ten million people.
My three previous books have been in turn read in ten other
countries. As they cost $5.00, they are bought by people
with money…. [the] Autogiro ship would fix the attention on
my flight, a cause a sensation wherever I landed. This flight
is by no means just an ambition, but already a fact
financed, equipped, piloted, publicized, waiting only for an
extra gas tank to be installed to give me 15 hundred miles
radius, but with your new feature, I can pilot my “Flying
Carpet” with far greater safety into many more outlandish
places, and enjoy the advantage of having the greatest
possible public interest behind me. It would promote your
new ship, and my new book to the utmost.
Pitcairn politely declined the offer, recognizing that the
certification process would take considerable time and, of
greater importance, that a support network did not exist for
the PCA-2. The Autogiro's future could only be advanced
when aviators could rely on its safety, supported by a
system for service maintenance and repairs. But there is
little doubt that the possibility of publicity was appealing.
Publicity stunts were designed to catch the public's fancy. In
addition to Ray's parking ticket in Miami, Pitcairn had the
pilot land in the parking lot on the east side of the U.S.
Capitol to pick up Senator Hiram Bingham and fly him to a
golf outing at the Burning Tree Country Club24 outside
Washington, D.C. Pitcairn also had the PCA-2 photographed
landing on the lawns of country estates, with many images
of the aircraft landing at his own Bryn Athyn home,
Cairncrest, and flying off to hunting or fishing camps. His
advertising agency commissioned paintings, used for
magazine and sales-brochure illustration, featuring the
Autogiro landing at the country estate, at the foxhunt, at
the Dude Ranch, and on the country club landing field
having just deposited a handsome couple heading for the
tennis court.25 But perhaps the most ambitious attempt to
garner public attention was that to have Amelia Earhart
make the first transcontinental flight in an Autogiro in June
1931. It did not, however, work out as Pitcairn hoped.
NOTES

1. See, for example, “Autogiro Gives Air Stability,” United

States Naval Institute Proceedings 51, no. 4 (April
1925): 852–54; “De La Cierva Autogiro Achieves More
Success,” United States Naval Institute Proceedings 52,
no. 275 (January 1926): 142–43.
2. You are correct that Rawson was first to fly the C-8 on
December 18, 1928. In fact this was the main reason
Cierva sent Rawson along with Pitcairn to make sure
that reassembly was done correctly. I was told by one of
Pitcairn's employees who was there that Rawson was
willing that Harold be first to fly it, but Harold felt that
in keeping with Cierva's wishes Rawson should be first
to check it out, even though Harold had several hours
flying it in England. The procedure was also very much
in keeping with the way Harold would have proceeded
had it been his invention someone else would purchase
and fly…. It is fact that Harold did fly it right after
Rawson's check ride on the 18th. It is easy to imagine
Harold's excitement to try out the new toy.
Carl Gunther, letter to author, October 26, 2001.
3. As stated by the Autogiro Company of America itself in
1932 and again in 1944. See The Autogiro
(Philadelphia: Autogiro Company of America, 1932), p.
15;Some Facts of Interest about Rotating-Wing Aircraft
and the Autogiro Company of America (Philadelphia:
The Autogiro Company of America, 1944), p. 12
(caption to top photo). But this cannot be regarded as
definitive, as the 1932 publication contradicts itself in
stating on p. 31, “It was flown for the first time over
American soil by Mr. Pitcairn, at Bryn Athyn, on
December 18, 1928.”
There is also some confusion about the pilot in the first
flight. Frank Kingston Smith apparently is not the only
source for the claim that Pitcairn made the first flight on
December 18. The 1932 and 1944 publications by the
Autogiro Company of America cite the 19th and, being
silent as to the pilot, neither attributes that flight to
Pitcairn. Brooks and Townson date that flight on the
19th, and each relates that Cierva pilot Arthur Rawson
first made a test-flight after the C.8W had been
reassembled—a sensible procedure probably agreed
upon by both parties—and in describing the first
flight(s), Smith at first relates ambiguously that “the
first Autogiro made its first flight. Harold Pitcairn was
the first American pilot to fly it,” which, while factually
true, obscures the fact that Rawson made the first
flight. The accompanying photo on the same page (149)
is captioned, “An historic photograph: the first rotary-
wing flight in America, with Harold Pitcairn flying the
Cierva C-8 Autogiro at Willow Grove in December,
1928,” which is also historically accurate—it was the
photo of Pitcairn's first American flight—but clearly not
the first American flight. That honor had been claimed
by Rawson. And while Legacy of Wings remains an
 affectionate tribute to Harold F. Pitcairn with much
useful information, it must always be read with caution,
stemming from the author's apparent dedication to
depicting his subject in the most favorable light. See
Peter W. Brooks, Cierva Autogiros: The Development of
Rotary-Wing Flight (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian
Institution Press, 1988), p. 77; George Townson,
Autogiro: The Story of “the Windmill Plane” (Fallbrook,
California: Aero Publishers, 1985), p. 15; Frank
Kingston Smith, Legacy of Wings: The Story of Harold F.
Pitcairn (New York: Jason Aronson, 1981), p. 149.
4. For military notice of the Autogiro after Pitcairn's visit in
July 1926, see Juan de la Cierva, “The Autogiro: Its
Future as a Service Aeroplane,” United States Naval
Institute Proceedings 54, no. 8 (August 1928): 696–
701; “‘Autogyro’ Flies from London to Paris,” United
States Naval Institute Proceedings 54, no. 11
(November 1928): 1010; Lieutenant Commander (CC)
William Nelson, “The Autogiro as a Military Craft,”
United States Naval Institute Proceedings 57, no. 8
(August 1931): pp. 1092–1095; “The Navy's Autogiro,”
pp. 1118–1119.
5. For a history of the NACA, see Charles Greeley Abbot,
Great Inventions, vol. 12 (Washington, D.C.:
Smithsonian Institution Press, Inc., 1932, 1934, 1938,
1943, 1944), pp. 233–38; Frank A. Tichenor, “Air: Hot
and Otherwise,” Aero Digest 17, no. 7 (December
1930): 40, 124–134.
6. For a photo of the C.8W flying over Bryn Athyn, see
Townson, p. 13; Smith,Legacy of Wings, p. 158.
 7. For a photograph of the two aircraft in the tests, see
Smith, Legacy of Wings,pp. 152–53.
8. Kathryn E. O'Brien, The Great and the Gracious on
Millionaires' Row (Utica, New York: North Country
Books, Inc., 1978), p. 83.
9. Aircraft of the National Air and Space Museum, 4th ed.
(Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press,
1991), see “Pitcairn Mailwing.”
10. For photographs of Harold F. Pitcairn posing with the
Collier Trophy in front of the PCA-2 at the White House,
see Frank Kingston Smith, “Mr. Pitcairn's Autogiros,”
Airpower 12, no. 2 (March 1983): 28–49, 36.
11. Walter J. Boyne, The Aircraft Treasures of Silver Hill
(New York: Rawson Associates, 1982), pp. 134–35;
Brooks, pp. 190–91. For a photograph of the acceptance
of the C.8W by the Smithsonian, see “The Autogiro.”
Autogiro Company of America. 1930, 1932 p. 29 (1932
ed.)
12. For photographs of Cierva's demonstrations of the C.19
Mk.II (G-AAKY) at the National Air Races in 1929 in
Cleveland, see Edward Jablonski, Man with
Wings(Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company,
1980), p. 273.
13. For a description of the Pitcairn restoration and
American Helicopter Museum exhibit, see “Exhibit
Spotlight: Pitcairn PCA-1A,” Vertika 7, no, 2 (October
2000): 5.
14. Pitcairn had also hoped to have the PCA-2-30 Autogiro,
constructed for Heraclio Alfaro, at the National Air
Races, but it had been destroyed while in flight to
Chicago.
15. Brooks, Townson, and Townson and Levy agree that this
was the engine of the prototype PCA-2, which was later
upgraded for production to the 300 horsepower Wright
R-975-E Whirlwind J-6-9 engine. See Brooks, pp. 125–
 28;Town-son, p. 140; George Townson and Howard
Levy, “The History of the Autogiro: Part 1,” Air Classics
Quarterly Review 4, no. 2 (Summer 1977): 4–18, 15.
However, Frank Kingston Smith, in describing the first
flight by Pitcairn pilot Jim Ray of the PCA-2, seemingly
confused the prototype with the production model,
ascribing the larger engine to that first flight. See
Smith, Legacy of Wings, pp. 169–70.
16. It is interesting to note that Cierva's article on page 35
was immediately followed on the next page by an article
by Don Rose, as Cierva and Don Rose would collaborate
on the 1931 book Wings of Tomorrow: The Story of the
Autogiropublished in New York by Brewer, Warren &
Putnam.
17. Alternatively attributed as Pitcairn chief pilot Jim Ray.
18. David S. Ingalls, “Autogiros: Missing Link,” Fortune
March 1931, 77–83, 103–4, 106, 108, 110.
19. Cierva had, by early 1931, left England to return to
Spain, then in political turmoil, to attend to the safety of
his wife and six children. While Cierva did not share in
the Collier Trophy, he received the British Royal
Aeronautical Society Silver Medal that year. Brooks, p.
129.
20. For a picture of Amelia Earhart with the factory PCA-2
after achieving the altitude record, see Mary S. Lovell,
The Sound of Wings: The Life of Amelia Earhart (New
York: St. Martins Press, 1989), photo 30.
21. See James Tobin, Ernie Pyle's War: America's
Eyewitness to World War II(Lawrence Kansas:
University Press of Kansas, 1997), p. 19.
22. Many years after his death, however, it would be
asserted by literary researchers that Halliburton had
not, in fact, done the daring feats described in his many
books. Such posthumous assertions aside, however, it
cannot be denied that Halliburtonwas a credible and
recognized adventurer of the time.
23. That telegraph is currently in the possession of Michael
Manning. Thanks are due to Deane B. McKercher for
making a copy available to the author.
24. See Smith, Legacy of Wings, p. 192; for an additional
photograph of golfers with the Autogiro, see George
Pynchon Jr., “Something about the Autogiro,” Town &
Country 86, no. 4062 (August 15, 1931): 46–47, 46.
25. For copies of the advertising paintings, see Warren R.
Young, The Helicopters(Alexandria, Virginia: Time-Life
Books, 1982), pp. 62–63.
 Chapter 4

PITCAIRN AND AMERICAN AUTOGIRO

DEVELOPMENT
One of his great charms was his modesty. He never
promised more than he could fulfill and he was that very
unusual type of inventor: the man who knew more about
the theory and practice than anyone else. He had the
courage of his convictions and learned to fly his own
machines, not merely tolerably, but extremely well. No
better way of honouring his memory could be imagined
than to carry to its ultimate solution the great work which
he started.
John Fay, The Helicopter
Harold Pitcairn and Amelia Earhart's husband, George
Palmer Putnam, had seen to it that the world-record for
altitude flight in April was well-covered by the news media,
which was always eager to cover the achievements of the
photogenic Amelia. Such acclaim met each party's needs,
and they sought to capitalize further with the first
transcontinental flight. Seeing a publicity bonanza, the
Beech-Nut Packing Company offered Earhart the use of its
previously ordered PCA-2 if she would fly it coast-to-coast
with the company logo painted on its side and would
engage in accompanying promotion efforts, and she
promptly canceled her order in favor of the Beech-Nut
Autogiro. However, as Beech-Nut was scheduled to receive
the thirteenth production model, Earhart, superstitious
about such things, requested that she receive a lower
number and in fact received C/n B-12 (NC10780). She thus
displaced United States Marine Corps Reserve Lieutenant
John Miller, who had been the first individual to order a
PCA-2 and for whom C/n B-12 had been confirmed!
John M. “Johnny” Miller, who would become a legendary
pilot with an exceptionally long career that spanned eight
decades (he was still flying at ninety-seven!) had been lured
to aviation by the time he was five years old, watching
Glenn Hammond Curtiss on his flight down the Hudson
River from Albany to New York City on May 29, 1910. The
flight, the first inside NYC limits and taking just over three
hours, would win for Curtiss the $10,000 prize offered by
the New York World and inspire the young Miller for a
lifetime devotion to aviation. Having viewed the pioneer
American aviator when he landed on the road across from
the Miller farm to refuel the famousHudson Flyer, Miller
would later write, “[t]hat was the day, at age four and three
months, when I lost interest in becoming a steam
locomotive engineer.”1
By the time he was ten, Miller was hanging around the
Curtiss Flying School at Mineola, New York, on Long Island.
In 1915 the young boy met Ruth Law, a famous early
woman pilot. She would be first woman to loop a plane,2
but on that day in 1915, when she encountered the ten-
year-old Miller, she talked about aviation and let him sit in
the seat of her Wright Model B. It made an indelible
impression on the future pilot, who still described it almost
ninety years later!3
By 1931, with a mechanical engineering education at Pratt
Institute of Technology, Class of 1927, and seven years of
flying experience, Miller had become the first individual to
purchase a PCA-2 for a cash price of the then sizable
$15,000 plus “a little extra for an auxiliary fuel tank and
emergency flare racks for night flying.”4 Upon ordering he
had been informed that he would receive production model
C/n B-12 in April 1931, a delivery date later postponed to
May. At the time of his order, C/n 13 was in the production
line, but no order had yet been received.5 Upon receiving
confirmation of his PCA-2 order, Miller immediately began
planning a transcontinental trip,6 a daring undertaking, as
no one had previously attempted such a long flight.7 This
flight was to be in conjunction with a series of exhibition
flights, and Miller kept Pitcairn sales and production
officials, including Edwin T. Asplundh, fully informed of the
flight plans.
Miller was understandably surprised in early May when he
read in the New York Timesof Beech-Nut's intent to sponsor
Amelia Earhart's transcontinental flight! Flying to the
Pitcairn Willow Grove field, he quickly discovered that the
company had inserted Beech-Nut's order ahead of his and
that he would now receive C/n B-13 (NC10781). This was
clearly an attempt by the company to facilitate Earhart's
flight, and he later claimed that “the mechanics and the test
pilots leaked the information to me that the sales manager
had decided that he would rather have Earhart make the
first transcontinental flight for better publicity coverage.”8
Miller knew that he was regarded merely as an “unknown
professional pilot without such publicity as Beech-Nut could
provide.” He also learned from the Pitcairn company pilots
that Earhart's final check ride was being delayed until her
aircraft could be finished and that “she told them [Pitcairn
personnel] that she was not interested in all the
aerodynamics and short landing procedures,” but “she just
wanted to fly it across the continent and then fly around the
country for a Beech-Nut advertising campaign.”9
Miller, resorting to subterfuge in the face of the company's
manipulation, announced that “if Amelia wants to make the
flight she is welcome to it” but that he had to be in Omaha
for the Air Races by May 17 or he would suffer a financial
loss. He took a room at a nearby tourist home and, waiting
to take delivery of his Autogiro, received a check ride in the
PCA-1B with factory pilot “Skip” Lukens. Lukens took Miller
on a single checkout ride, with five checkout practice
landings. Miller, then given use of the aircraft for practice
during May 9 through 12, made 110 practice landings with a
total of 5.5 hours of flying logged. This averaged out to
flights of about three minutes along with practice in low
cloud banks with the turn indicator. Finally, on May 14,
1931, he took delivery of his Autogiro, which he would
name, presumably after the recentFortune magazine
article,10 the Missing Link. After five short test hops, Miller
promptly left and headed west in PCA-2 (NC10781).11
An experienced professional and aerobatic pilot, Miller had
gained extensive knowledge of the aerodynamics of the
Autogiro from conversations with Jim Ray, Skip Lukens, Jim
Faulkner, and Pitcairn chief engineer Agnew Larsen. He
would need all of his abilities for the trip west. Although the
normal cruising speed of the Missing Link was 100 mph,
Miller flew at 90 mph to conserve fuel and break in the new
engine. The Wright R-975-E, 330-horsepower, air-cooled
radial engine consumed eighteen gallons per hour, so Miller
could fly for only three hours at a time, at which point he
would have only fifteen minutes of flying time on his fuel
reserve. Navigation was by magnetic compass, following
landmarks such as rivers or roads, and the pilot hoped that
when a landing had to be made, there would be an airfield
where the Rand McNally road maps showed one—it was not
always the case. Miller discovered this on the second day,
during which he flew from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to
Chicago. He had flown 11.3 hours in seven hops, intending
to land at Maywood Air Mail Field, but that airfield had been
abandoned; its replacement, later known as Midway Airport,
was not yet finished or marked on the maps. Miller arrived
at the site of the older field after dark and, after a perfect
landing at the old site, he located the new field, to which he
immediately flew, as he would have to refuel before
continuing on. He napped on a workbench and, after
refueling, left for Omaha at first light. He had not even
eaten. He then flew an additional seven hops, 7.2 hours
flying, and after arriving at the site of the Omaha Air Races,
flew an additional 2 hours and made fourteen
demonstration flights.
Miller remained in Omaha from May 16 to 19 and then left
for San Diego. Headwinds kept him from reaching Clovis,
New Mexico, on May 26, so he landed en route and installed
extra fuel tanks on the front seat during the night. The next
day he reached the New Mexico town, but strong headwinds
on the way to El Paso consumed extra fuel, forcing him to
land eighteen miles short of his destination. On May 28 he
began the last leg of the journey from Lordsburg, New
Mexico, before first light and, after flying four hops for 8.9
hours, landed at North Island Naval Air Station, San Diego,
California. The first Autogiro transcontinental flight had
taken a total flying time of 43.8 hours and was without
mechanical incident. The aircraft had performed flawlessly,
with the most difficult aspects of the journey for Miller
seemingly to get used to the shadows of the blades passing
over his head and the severe sunburn he incurred.12 He
began the return trip on June 21 after demonstrating the
Autogiro for Navy officers and other interested parties and
arrived back at the Pitcairn factory at Willow Grove on June
30, 1931. The factory mechanics, interested in evaluating
how the PCA-2 had performed, gave it a thorough
inspection—it needed only an oil change!
Miller would go on in 1932 to fly hundreds of hours in his
PCA-2, thrilling crowds with his performance of the loop and
other aerobatic maneuvers.13 At Pitcairn Field on October
13, 1931, Canadian pilot Godfrey W. Dean had made the
first loop in an Autogiro, a particularly challenging and
impressive maneuver given the aerodynamics of the
aircraft's rotor, but Miller was the most widely known pilot
to perform this maneuver. He first proposed a loop in public
at the 1931 National Air Races but was prevented by the
Pitcairn company, which assured the air races organizer Cliff
Henderson that it would prove fatal. Miller learned from
Pitcairn pilots that they had been forbidden from looping,
but the 1932 National Air Races at Cleveland were a
different story. Miller was confident he could do the loop—
he did it before an enthusiastic crowd on August 27 and
continued to do it in his daily performances for the next
seven days, but then tragedy happened. On September 3 as
he landed and reached for the rotor brake, his aircraft was
struck by a pre–World War I Curtiss pusher flown by Al
Wilson. Wilson had elected to end his performance by
“buzzing” the PCA-2, unaware that since the Autogiro had
made a steep descent, there was a residue column of air
from its rotor. Wilson's plane hit the downdraft of air and
dived into the ground, resulting in Wilson's death and doing
much damage to the Missing Link.It took twenty-seven days
before it could fly again, costing Miller appearance fees, but
he knew he had gotten off lucky—his friend was dead.
Miller stated seventy years later that “the PCA-2 still had
the original air in one of its tires when sold with 2000+ hrs
flying time. It was a first class aircraft and the safest in
history, in my considered judgment the only INHERENTLY
safe aircraft.”14 He received the Sikorsky Award for his part
in the evolution of the helicopter and a certificate of honor
from the National Aeronautic Association for his
contributions to aviation, and he was made an honorary
fellow in the Society of Test Experimental Pilots for having
“promoted the moral obligation of the test pilot to the
safety of the aerospace world.”15 His fellow society
members included General Jimmy Doolittle, Howard
Hughes, Charles Lindbergh, and Igor Sikorsky. A modest
man, Miller replied when questioned in 1996 as to how he
felt he would be remembered: “I didn't go after records or
the publicity. I just went out and did the work.”16 But
Amelia Earhart and her husband George Palmer Putnam
were very interested in the publicity, and they and the
Pitcairn executives who had tried to arrange for her cross-
country flight to be the first, were in for a surprise!
After much preparation and orchestrated publicity, Earhart
left Newark on May 29, 1931, and headed west.
Accompanied by mechanic Eddie Vaught17 and making as
many as ten landings per day, she proceeded along the
northern mail route to Oakland, California. At each stop she
lifted children to see the cockpit, shook hands with
spectators, gave interviews, and often gave out samples of
the Beech-Nut chewing gum. Arriving on June 6, 1931, in
Oakland, she discovered much to her amazement and her
husband's mercurial anger,18 that Miller had arrived in San
Diego on May 28. Thus deprived of the transcontinental
record, Earhart and her husband decided that she would
claim a record by returning to the East Coast. This was not
to be, as she had the first of her three Autogiro crashes in
Abilene, Kansas, on June 12, 1931. Returning by the
southern route, she crashed while taking off, having failed
to rise quickly enough. The PCA-2 dropped thirty feet, hit
two cars, and damaged its rotor and propeller. Earhart
stated, “The air just went out from under me,” and added,
“Spectators say a whirlwind hit me. I made for the only
open space available.” And ever conscious of Pitcairn
Aviation, she also added, “With any other type of plane the
accident would have been more serious.”19 She and the
accompanying mechanic were unhurt, but her attempt at
the cross-country return was ended—she returned to the
east coast by train.20
The Aeronautic Branch of the Department of Commerce,
renamed in 1934 the Bureau of Air Commerce, did not
accept her version of the incident and issued her a formal
reprimand for “carelessness and poor judgment,” based on
a report made by the local inspector R. W. Delaney. The
government had intended to ground Earhart for ninety
days, but her friend Senator Hiram Bingham pleaded her
case and secured a lesser penalty, a formal reprimand from
Clarence Young, then assistant secretary of commerce for
aviation.
Amelia Earhart's second Autogiro crash is known of from a
single source, a letter21 to author Susan Butler from Helen
Collins MacElwee, sister of Amelia's New York, Philadelphia
and Washington Airway Corporation colleague Paul Collins.
Paul Collins and his sister Helen witnessed the second
accident. After a “rather erratic” Autogiro flight she made
after taking off from the airfield in Camden, New Jersey, she
“finally landed on a fence. Amelia stepped out frustrated
and furious, and announced, ‘I'll never get in one of those
machines again. I couldn't handle it at all.’ ”
Earhart's third accident in an Autogiro occurred during her
subsequent Beech-Nut tour while at the Michigan State Fair
in Detroit on September 12, 1931. Attempting a slow
landing in front of the grandstand, she failed to level off and
dropped twenty feet to the ground. She wrote her mother,
“My giro spill was a freak accident. The landing gear gave
way from a defect and I ground-looped only. The rotors
were smashed as usual with giros, but there wasn't even a
jar.”22 Although she did additional flying for Beech-Nut, her
significant contact with the Autogiro finished with the end of
1931. She was already planning the solo trans-Atlantic flight
of May 20 and 21, 1932, which would win her the National
Geographic Society Special Medal, the first awarded to a
woman pilot.
With the perspective of over seventy years, it is readily
apparent that Earhart's involvement with the Autogiro was
relatively insignificant. The general consensus was that she
was an “impatient” pilot and that her accidents were the
product of lack of training and attention to detail. The crash
in Kansas appears to have resulted from forcing takeoff
before the rotors had achieved high enough rotation, while
the one in Detroit was the result of not having spent enough
time practicing landings. To be sure, the Autogiro, despite
Pitcairn's public claims of ease of operation touted in
virtually every advertisement and public pronouncement,
was a difficult aircraft. Amelia's friend, pilot Blanche Noyes,
hired to fly a PCA-2 for an oil company, ridiculed Pitcairn's
claim that “a ten-year-old boy” could fly an Autogiro. She
related in her Oral History (which is part of a collection at
Columbia University)23 that the factory PCA-1B was called
the Black Maria because so many pilots had accidents. So
the report of Earhart's declaration after her second accident
rings true, supported by an observation inFortune in 1932,
from an article assessing a year's Autogiro progress: “It is
reported that Amelia Earhart, since her two crashes, opines
that it is as hard to make a perfect landing with an autogiro
as it is to make a perfect drive on the golf course.”24
In many ways Earhart's lasting and most serious
contribution to the Autogiro may have been the article
published in Cosmopolitan magazine in August 1931.25 It
predicted that the day was fast approaching when “country
houses would have wind cones flying from their roofs to
guide guests to the front lawn landing area” and Autogiro
hunting and fishing trips for the weekend would be
common, as well as quick sorties to golf and aviation
country clubs and a new convenient way to commute to
work. This article almost exactly mirrored the images
conveyed in Pitcairn advertising,26 and Carl R. Gunther,
Pitcairn Aircraft Association archivist and historian, has
suggested that the Cosmopolitan article was probably
written not by Earhart, but by either Pitcairn Aircraft or its
advertising agency. That agency also authored many
dramatic advertisements for American magazines, such
asTown and Country, with spectacular Autogiro photographs
and copy, and promotional brochures designed to inform
and intrigue the affluent.27 The result was a public-relations
bonanza!
Based on the successful publicity and the seeming public
acceptance of the PCA-2, Harold Pitcairn had cause for
optimism at the end of 1932. Even if Amelia Earhart's
Autogiro reputation had dimmed, Captain Lewis A. “Lew”
Yancey, flying the PCA-2 owned by the Champion Spark
Plug Company, was having a stellar year. He completed the
first Autogiro flight from Florida to Cuba in late January
1932 and then proceeded via San Julian to Merida, Mexico,
a distance of 385 miles, 135 over water, still the longest
over-water flight of an Autogiro.28 Yancey then continued on
to Chichén-Itzá, where he participated in exploration of
Mayan ruins. This had previously been proposed by
Professor C. W. Grace of the Municipal University of Wichita,
Kansas, who had seen Johnny Miller when he was in Wichita
during May 22–24 (Miller was having a gas tank leak
repaired during the transcontinental flight, and it was during
this stopover that he officially christened the PCA-2 Missing
Link).29

Grace had written the Autogiro Company of America (ACA)

on June 6, 1931, informing company officials of the Grace
Mayan Expedition and requesting “all the available
information concerning your plane” and inquiring as to
“[w]hat kind of deal would you be willing to make on a
plane of this kind for exploration purposes? Quote your
lowest possible price first.”30 R.W.T. Ricker, replying for the
company on June 11, 1931, referred Professor Grace to the
American licensees, Pitcairn, Kellett, and Buhl (noting that
“Buhl Aircraft has not yet begun its development work”) and
suggested that the Professor “write them direct for the
information.”31 While Pitcairn was unable to quote any
terms, as he was back ordered for the $15,000 aircraft, and
it appears that Grace did not pursue the inquiry, Yancey and
Miss Champion did take part in Mayan exploration under the
supervision of Dr. Sylvanus G. Morley, director of scientific
work for the Carnegie Foundation.32

This resulted in spectacular publicity for both the Autogiro

and its sponsor, Champion Spark Plugs. The Associated
News Service “Latest World Events In Pictures” had carried
a photograph of Yancey's January 21 landing in Cuba,33 and
the photographs of his low flight past the great Maya
pyramid of Chichén-Itzá34 and before the ancient Temple of
Tigers35 received wide acclaim. To top it off, Yancey broke
Amelia Earhart's altitude record, with a flight reaching
21,500 feet over Boston, Massachusetts, on September 25.
In a lighter manner the Autogiro had been the subject of a
popular series for teenagers describing the adventures of
Andy Lane36 and was incorporated into “Uncle Don's Radio
Club,” where host Don Carney arrived nightly to the studios
of WOR in New York in his Autogiro.
Cierva returned at the end of 1931 for his third visit to
America to consult with Pitcairn, and the occasion became
yet another publicity triumph for the ACA. Disembarking
from the SS Aquitania, Cierva was met by Jim Ray landing a
PCA-2 on a near-by New York pier, a well-orchestrated and
“thoroughly photographed event.”37

After Cierva cleared U.S. customs, Ray placed the inventor's

bags beside him in the front cockpit and flew steeply away
from the end of the pier. It was an astonishing aviation feat
that could not be duplicated by any other American aircraft.
Less than forty-five minutes later, Pitcairn was offering his
guest a class of wine in Bryn Athyn. Cierva had come to
discuss advances in Autogiro development, as it was now
evident that the PCA-2 had effectively solved the problem of
prerotation with its mechanical coupling of the engine and
rotor, but there were other serious issues that led Cierva to
leave his family during the Christmas season and come to
Pennsylvania. Harold and Clara Pitcairn were gracious hosts
and made a point of including Cierva in all of the family
celebrations, shifting the focus of the first days of the visit
from business to socializing and effectively moving the
relationship between the two men from entrepreneurial
colleagues to fast friends.
In the last days of 1931 Pitcairn and Cierva were in Saint
Clair, Michigan to fly the first “pusher” Autogiro created by
ACA licensee Buhl Aircraft.

The Buhl Aircraft Company 38 had became the third licensee

of the ACA in March 1931 (the first was Pitcairn Aviation,
and the Kellett brothers of Philadelphia the second). Located
in Marysville, Michigan, Buhl was a successful fixed-wing
manufacturer and part of a large financial, manufacturing,
and real estate organization39 headquartered in nearby
Detroit. The company, founded as the Buhl-Verville Aircraft
Company in 1925 with Lawrence D. Buhl as president and
A. H. Buhl as vice president, was well-financed and
described itself in a letter to Geoffrey S. Childs of the ACA
on March 23, 1931, as consisting of “members of the Buhl
family [who] all are extremely wealthy individuals in
addition to their holdings in the above mentioned [family]
companies.”40
The Buhl Autogiro design team consisted of chief engineer
Etienne Dormoy,41 assistant chief engineer R. V. Doorn and
nine other engineers.
The ACA also claimed that Dormoy “worked in conjunction
with Agnew E. Larsen, chief engineer of the Autogiro
Company, and Joseph S. Pecker, chief engineer of the
Autogiro Specialties Company, to complete the necessary
preliminary studies and special parts design” but
acknowledged that “[t]he final design was altogether the
work of the Buhl group.”42 The goal of the Buhl engineering
team was to adapt a “pusher” configuration, with the engine
located to the rear of the Autogiro. The company's goals for
the new model were centered on visibility, accessibility,
comfort, and safety,43 a design clearly similar to Cierva's
unbuilt patented design study for the C.21 of 1930.44 The
Buhl was initially powered by a 165-horsepower Continental
radial air-cooled engine and specifically intended to “get the
younger generation flying.”45The “pusher” engine placement
offered unparalleled visibility,46 eliminated the propeller
blast, provided for convenient conversation between pilot
and passenger, and minimized exposure to motor heat and
the odor of gasoline.
The design team adopted the Pitcairn rotor hub that ACA
would use on its smaller PAA-1 Autogiro then in
development, and forty-foot-diameter rotor blades,47 often
mistakenly reported as either forty-two or forty-eight feet.48
The aircraft initially had a loaded weight of 1,850 pounds,
later increased to 2,000 pounds (compared to the 3,000-
pound loaded weight of the PCA-2), and employed the now-
standard Cierva-type four-blade rotor mounted on top of a
tripod pylon just in back of the rear cockpit and
incorporated a Pitcairn PCA-2-type engine-powered spin-up
drive. The top of the pylon also attached to the upper steel-
tube boom that supported the tail. Two other booms
extended from the fuselage below the engine mount from
either side to secure the tail, creating a “cage” for the
propeller and additional safety. The pilot and passenger sat
in a tandem arrangement in a nacelle created by a steel-
tube framework covered by fabric, from which fabric-
covered wings extended on either side, with upturned
wingtips as in the PCA-2.49
The Buhl was first flown by the company test pilot James
“Jimmy” Johnson on December 15, 1931, and it was
immediately noted that the aircraft seemed underpowered.
Thirteen days later, on December 28, Cierva himself
confirmed that observation when he flew the Buhl. Pitcairn
and Cierva had been welcomed in Grosse Point by Henry
Ford and General William “Billy” Mitchell, and Cierva is
reported to have given flights50 to Mitchell and Edsel Ford in
the Buhl. The prototype remained the only one ever built,
as Buhl experienced financial difficulties in 1932 and ceased
aircraft production. The financial difficulties experienced by
the company precluded the costly development and testing
necessary for certification.
The single Buhl model was confirmed in possession of the
Hiller Aviation Museum in California in 2003, awaiting
restoration.
Pitcairn and Cierva shared the prestigious John Scott Award
on January 15, 1932, for the invention and development of
the Autogiro.51 That award was given by the board of
directors of City Trusts of the City of Philadelphia in accord
with a trust created in 1816 by John Scott, a chemist
working in Edinburgh, Scotland. The award was “to be
distributed among ingenious men and women who made
useful inventions,” and the citation was “for the invention of
the Autogiro, its improvement and development as a
propelling and stabilizing force for heavier-than-air craft,
and its introduction into America.”52 Additionally, Pitcairn
and Cierva were invited to meet with President Hoover in
Washington to discuss the Auto-giro.53 But it was not all
honors and socializing—Cierva had come to confer on the
state and future directions of Autogiro development. ACA
had constructed fifty-one Autogiros by the end of 1931.
Twenty-one of these were commercial PCA-2s, with an
additional three in an experimental military version
designated by the navy as the XOP-154 (denoting
ExperimentalObservation–Pitcairn), one of which was field-
tested by the United States Marine Corps (USMC) in
Nicaragua.55
An additional aircraft, dubbed the Pitcairn-Alfaro, had been
constructed by Heraclio Alfaro, the only such Pitcairn
Autogiro constructed outside the factory since the original
C.8W. Alfaro had apparently hoped to become Pitcairn's
chief engineer, but failing in that goal,56 he had proposed to
construct an innovative variant of the PCA-2, which was
originally dubbed the PC-2-30 but is more generally referred
to as the PCA-2-30.57 The contract for its construction had
been signed in 1929, and the aircraft was delivered to
Pitcairn Field in July of 1930. It featured considerably novel
construction, with an advanced rotor design mounted on the
now-standard tripod pylon with friction dampers at the
blade roots. But its most innovative characteristic was
clearly the extensive use of Bakelite, an early plastic
compound. The rotor blades had been manufactured by the
Formica Company and were covered in Micarta, as were the
stabilizer and rudder, while the wings and ailerons were
covered in Formica. It was first flown as an experimental
prototype (X759W) on July 18, 1930,58 and observers noted
that the aircraft, even at its minimum flying weight of 1,385
pounds, lacked commercially viable flight performance. The
PCA-2-30 was both underpowered and overweight, an
unfortunate combination that was to prove almost fatal for
pilot Skip Lukens. The rotor had been increased from thirty-
four feet to thirty-eight feet in an attempt to increase lift,
and plans were made to fly it at the National Air Races in
Cleveland. The aircraft never made it, crashing on takeoff
on August 21 at Butler, Pennsylvania. It was theorized that
moisture had condensed inside the Micarta-covered blades
and that the added weight from the accumulated moisture
prevented the rotor from getting enough speed. In any
event, the company abandoned the experiment and
although Alfaro wanted to rebuild, Pitcairn did not feel there
was enough promise to continue.
ACA had continued through the 1931–32 period to develop
new models. Even as the PCA-2 worked its way through the
certification tests and was marketed to the public, Pitcairn
had overseen the development of a smaller model, the PAA-
1. The designation reflected the change of the company's
name—the first two models were PCA, indicating the
Pitcairn-Cierva origins of the company, but after the
licensing company changed the name to Autogiro Company
of America, the models were designated PAA, for Pitcairn
Aircraft [Company] Autogiro, the manufacturing company.
When, in 1933, Pitcairn Aircraft became the Pitcairn
Autogiro Company, the model designation became PA. Often
characterized as “a scaled-down PCA-2,”59 as it was two-
thirds the size of the larger craft, the prototype PAA-1
(X10770) had been seen by the public at the March 1931
Detroit Aircraft Show and had gained Department of
Commerce ATC No. 443 on August 7, 1931.60 With its initial
125-horsepower Kinner B5 engine, the flight-testing
revealed the aircraft to be underpowered, but the flaw was
soon remedied, and the PAA-1 proved popular. It was
cheaper than the PCA-2 and, even though it only cruised at
a relatively modest seventy-six mph (as opposed to the
PCA-2's eighty-seven- to eighty-nine-mph cruising speed),
garnered many orders and became Harold Pitcairn's
personal aircraft. It had a range of 250 miles and allowed
the pilot to land at otherwise inaccessible locations.
Pitcairn sold forty-six Autogiros in 1931 and could not help
but be optimistic—even though the country was in the grips
of the Depression. Purchasers included the Detroit News,
the first newspaper to acquire a rotary aircraft. It made 730
flights before being presented to the Henry Ford Museum61
in 1934. Other business purchasers included the Beech-Nut
Packing Company (two aircraft), Coca-Cola, Standard Oil
Company of New York (SOCONY) and Ohio, the Horizon
Company, Curtiss-Wright, Puget Sound Airways, Tri-State
Airways (Gilbert Flying Service, Valley Stream, New York),
Champion Spark Plug, and Johnson & Johnson. The Horizon
Company PCA-2 alone flew 550 hours in seven and a half
months in 1931, and the PCA-2s operated in all forty-eight
states. The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
purchased one and began a five-year investigation of its
aerodynamic characteristics. Of greatest import, the United
States Navy had purchased three PCA-2s and assigned each
to a specific role.
One was sent to Anacostia Field near Washington, D.C., in
early 1931, where it was flown by David Ingalls, assistant
secretary of the navy for aeronautics. Ingalls was so
impressed that he would write the article for Fortune in late
March dubbing the aircraft the “Missing Link.” Ingalls's flight
of the XOP-1 was at the specific request of President
Hoover, and Ingalls not only demonstrated the XOP-1 at the
presidential retreat but he also flew with the president's son
and namesake, Herbert Hoover Jr., as passenger.62
That same XOP-1, flown by Lieutenant Alfred M. Pride USN,
made three landings and takeoffs from the aircraft carrier
USS Langley in an aviation first off the coast of Norfolk,
Virginia, on September 23, 1931.63 The second XOP-1 was
tested with pontoon floats as a seaplane, a natural use by
the navy. The third was sent to the United States Marine
Corps, which planned to test it in Nicaragua in the Spring of
1932 for combat effectiveness. All of this civilian success
and military acceptance must have been encouraging to
Pitcairn at the end of 1931, who could not know that the
Autogiro would consistently fail to find a military mission in
America.
The smaller PAA-1, called by Fortune the “Pitcairn sport
model,”64 was purchased primarily by individuals, although
some businesses, such as the Des Moines Register and
Tribune, Atlantic Seaboard Airways, Autogiro Specialties
Company, and New England Giro, also bought it. And the
good news did not end there—the Pitcairn organization had
also developed a third prototype model in 1931, the PA-18.
It was positioned between the large and expensive PCA-2
and the smaller PAA-1, with a slightly larger size but a
much more powerful 165-horsepower Kinner engine, 36
percent more powerful than the PAA-1. This increase of 40
horsepower made the PA-18 an outstanding performer, with
a top speed of 100 mph and a cruising speed of 80 mph,
and it would prove an almost immediate success. This
“improved and enlarged version of the PAA-1” initially flew
on March 1, 1932, and received ATC No. 478 on April 7 of
the following year. Nineteen PA-18s were sold between April
1932 and July 1933. The price was reduced from May 1932
onward to $4,940 due to slow sales in light of the
deepening Depression. One of the first models (NC12678)
became the personal aircraft of Ann Strawbridge65 of the
Philadelphia Strawbridge and Clothier department store
family. Originally preserved by F. Sewerka, it is currently
owned by Kate and Jack Tiffany of Spring Valley, Ohio, and
is being restored to flying condition by Leading Edge
Aircraft. Also, by the end of 1931 almost a hundred pilots
had flown the Autogiro in America, and two, E. E. Law and
Harold's nephew Nathan Pitcairn, had received the first
Autogiro-only pilot licenses.
So when Pitcairn finally sat down with Juan de la Cierva at
Cairncrest after the holiday celebrations at the end of
December 1931, they shared the good news that seemingly
came from all quarters. And Cierva could not help but be
impressed. Not only had Pitcairn won the Collier Trophy, but
the range of American Autogiros seem well-positioned for
economic success, and Cierva took note of the
manufacturing acumen and marketing savvy of this brash
American. He was particularly impressed by the way in
which Pitcairn and his associates had solved the problem of
rotor prerotation with the PCA-2's mechanical coupling of
the engine to the rotor by means of a shaft and gearbox
just in front of the forward rotor pylon. Cierva had himself
attempted unsuccessfully to develop such a mechanical pre-
rotation device. The C.10, a small experimental single-seat
Autogiro, had been ordered from builder George Parnell66 in
late 1926 but never flew—piloted by Flight Lieutenant H. A.
Hamersley, it overturned and was damaged while
attempting to takeoff on April 26 of that year. Slightly less
than two years later, in February of 1926, Cierva had
crashed the C.11, a larger experimental two-seat aircraft,
known as the Parnall Gyroplane after its builder. It would be
rebuilt with a smaller rotor, the wings moved forward, and
an inverted V-strut bracing of each wing to the fuselage,
and in that configuration it would successfully fly in October
1929. A year later it would be rebuilt again, this time at
Hamble with a rotor spin-up drive from the engine. That
drive, supposedly designed by engine designer Major Frank
Bernard Halford,67 did not prove successful. Demonstrated
on January 8, 1930, it proved too heavy at 165 pounds, and
its failure left Cierva in a quandary. Ever since the 1924
C.6bis, the rotor had been started by men pulling on ropes
attached to knobs and wound around the rotor hub, much
like a child's spinning top.68 That solution was inefficient,
and the aircraft was forced to taxi up and down the airfield
until the airflow through the rotor had speeded up the
blades to the 120 to 130 rpm sufficient for takeoff. This was
spectacularly ungainly and the source of constant
complaint, so Frank Courtney had even attempted to
achieve sufficient rotation by winding a cable around the
C.6C's rotor hub, staking the other end to the ground, and
taxiing down the runway. While the blades did spin up as
the staked cable rotated the rotor hub, the cable snapped
off at the end and, just barely missing the pilot's head, cut
the rudder in two. Needless to say, that method was
abandoned after a single trial! Cierva had also patented, in
January 1929, a rotor-starting device based on compressed
air, steam, or water pressure, which would accelerate the
blades from nozzles attached to some or all of the blade
tips. The idea had been briefly tested and rejected as
impractical given the current state of technology.
But Cierva's thoughts were not on prerotation, for as the
Spaniard sat with the Pitcairn team, he had a dramatic
announcement. The English company had begun working on
the next evolutionary stage of the Autogiro, which would
remove the wings and create an aircraft that bore almost no
resemblance to its airplane ancestor—direct control!
NOTES

1. Letter from John M. Miller to the author dated February

28, 2001.
2. Edward Jablonski, Man with Wings (Garden City, New
York: Doubleday & Company, 1980), p. 103.
3. Miller, letter to author.
 4. John M. Miller, “The First Transcontinental Flights with a
Rotary-Wing Aircraft 1931,” Popular Rotorcraft Flying
(August 1992): 11–19, 11–12.
5. Miller, letter to author.
6. Thus Frank Kingston Smith's suggestion that “[w]hen he
[Johnny Miller] learned that Earhart had been advanced
ahead of him on the production and delivery line, he
took off for the West Coast without fanfare and beat her
by two weeks” is, in its implication, incorrect. Frank
Kingston Smith, Legacy of Wings: The Story of Harold F.
Pitcarin (New York: Jason Aronson, 1981), p. 183. Miller
had long planned his trip and had, in fact, contracted
for air show performances at the Omaha Air Races on
May 17, 1931. His sudden departure for the West was
not occasioned by the announcement of Earhart's flight
but the need to fulfill a previous commitment. He then,
of course, continued on to the West Coast.
7. See also John M. Miller, “The First Transcontinental
Rotary-Wing Flight: Part 3,”Vertika: The Newsletter of
the American Helicopter Museum and Education Center
8, no. 1 (February 2001); Ibid., “The First
Transcontinental Rotary-Wing Flight” Vertika: The
Newsletter of the American Helicopter Museum and
Education Center 7, no. 2 (October 2000).
8. Miller, “First Transcontinental Flights, p. 12; Miller, letter
to author.
9. Miller, letter to author; Pitcairn mechanic and pilot
George Townson also claimed to have “had words” with
Earhart the day of her altitude-record flights and that
“she was an impatient pilot.” George Townson,
conversation with author, 27 March 2001.
10. David S. Ingalls, “Autogiros: Missing Link,” Fortune
(March 1931): 77–83, 103–4, 106, 108, 110.
11. Frank Kingston Smith incorrectly asserts that Miller flew
the “Silverbrook Coal PCA-2 a week before [Earhart].”
 Smith, p. 188. It is difficult to know how this attribution
could be made, as the pictures of Fred W. “Slim” Soule
flying the Silverbrook Coal Company PCA-2 (NC10786)
and Johnny Miller flying the Missing Link (NC10781) are
on facing pages (182–83).
12. For a picture of Miller with a severe sunburn at the
completion of the first transcontinental flight, see Miller,
“First Transcontinental Flights,” p. 16.
13. A copy of the poster advertising the “First Trans-
Continental Autogiro” exhibition flights by Lieutenant
Johnny Miller for a dollar a flight in the “Windmill Safety
Plane” can be found in Henry Serrano Villard and Willis
M. Allen Jr., Looping the Loop: Posters of Flight (Hong
Kong: Palace Press, International, n.d.), plate 91. It is
there erroneously attributed to have been in 1930 but
obviously originates after Miller's transcontinental flight
of May–June 1931. The original is in the San Diego
Aerospace Museum.
14. Miller, letter to author; see also Miller, “First
Transcontinental Flights, p. 19.
15. Bud Walker, “People and Planes: Captain John Miller,”
Aviation History 7, no. 2 (November 1996): 14, 16, 18.
16. Ibid.
17. Alternative, reported as Eddie Gorski. Susan Butler, East
to the Dawn: The Life of Amelia Earhart (New York: Da
Capo Press, 1999), p. 258.
18. “Amelia was disappointed and George was furious. His
overreactions were well known but could be alarming to
anyone witnessing them for the first time.” Mary S.
Lovell, The Sound of Wings: The Life of Amelia Earhart
(New York: St. Martins Press, 1989), p. 170.
19. New York Times, June 20, 1921.
20. Lovell is incorrect in stating, “A replacement autogiro
was hurriedly shipped to her [after the Abilene, Texas,
crash] and Amelia continued her trip to Newark without
further incident.” Lovell, p. 171. See Smith, Legacy of
Wings, p. 189: “Unfortunately, she [Amelia Earhart] had
to complete her transcontinental trip by rail.”
21. Butler, p. 260.
22. Jean L. Bakus, Letters from Amelia: An Intimate Portrait
of Amelia Earhart(Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press,
1982), p. 117.
23. Oral History Collection, Columbia University, vol. 1, pt.
3, p. 17.
24. “Autogiros of 1931–1932,” Fortune 3, no. 3 (March
1932): 48–52, 50.
25. Amelia Earhart, “Your Next Garage May House an
Autogiro,” Hearst's International combined with
Cosmopolitan 91, no. 2 (August 1931): 58–59, 160–61.
26. See Warren R. Young, The Helicopters (Alexandria,
Virginia: Time-Life Books, 1982) pp. 62–63.
27. For examples of the ACA advertisements, see George
Townson, Autogiro: The Story of “the Windmill Plane,”
(Fallbrook, California: Aero Publishers; reprint, Trenton,
New Jersey: Townson, 1985) p. 151, 154–55.
28. “Captain Yancey Explores Mayan Ruins by Autogiro,”
Autogiro News, January 1932, p. 3.
29. The Wichita christening of the Missing Link related in
conversation with author on November 12, 2001.
30. June 6, 1931, letter from Professor C. W. Grace to
Autogiro Company of America (author's collection).
31. Autogiro Company of America reply to Professor C. W.
Grace of June 11, 1931 (author's collection).
32. “Captain Yancey,” p. 1.
33. Associated News Service, “Latest World Events in
Pictures” poster, vol. 19, no. 13 of January 29, 1932.
34. Peter W. Brooks, Cierva Autogiros: The Development of
Rotary-Wing Flight(Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian
Institution Press, 1988) p. 130; for a photograph of
Yancey in flight before the great Maya pyramid, see
Smith, Legacy of Wings,p. 208.
35. “Captain Yancey,” p. 2.
36. Eustace L. Adams, The Flying Windmill (New York:
Grosset & Dunlap, 1930).
37. Smith, Legacy of Wings, pp. 194–95 (photo caption on
195).
38. See Brooks, pp. 145–47; Townson, pp. 17, 84, 86–87,
96; Smith, Legacy of Wings, 196–97.
39. Buhl letter of March 23, 1931, to Geoffrey S. Childs of
the ACA.
40. Buhl, letter to Childs.
41. Buhl, letter to Childs, p. 2; see also Autogiro News,
published by the Autogiro Company of America August,
1931, p. 1; Townson, p. 17 (but who mistakenly reports
the designer's first name as André). Brooks, whose
research sets the standard, here mistakenly reports this
as “Dormay” (p. 146).
42. Autogiro News, Autogiro Company of America, October
1931.
43. “Preliminary Announcement: The Buhl Autogiro”
(hereinafter “Preliminary Announcement”); Buhl letter
of October 21, 1931, “Supplementing Our Recent Letter
Which Answered Your Inquiry about the Buhl Autogiro”
(hereinafter Buhl Supplement).
44. Cierva patented this side-by-side two-seat “pusher”
Autogiro on February 11, 1930, but the design was
never produced. Brooks, p. 160.
45. Buhl, letter to Childs, p. 2.
46. The “pusher” configuration would be adopted only one
more time, the PA-44, two of which were constructed by
Pitcairn for the United States Air Force. Generally known
by its military designation, the YO-61, it looked much
like the developing helicopter, with a fuselage nose of
transparent plastic, which was also utilized for the doors
and roof, a design calculated to yield maximum
visibility. The tail, as with the Buhl a decade before, was
mounted on out-riggers. Townson, p. 84.
47. See, for example, Brooks, p. 146; Townson, p. 84
(citing a “letter from Roger Ward, production manager
 for Autogiro Specialties, acknowledging an order for a
set of 40-foot diameter blades”).
48. While Townson mentions the forty-eight-foot rotor
diameter without further citation, the Buhl company
originally cited a forty-two-foot rotor diameter. See Buhl
Supplement. This forty-two-foot figure was repeated by
the ACA in itsAutogiro News of October 1931.
49. For a picture of the Buhl, see Brooks, p. 147; George
Townson, and Howard Levy, “The History of the
Autogiro: Part 1,” Air Classics Quarterly Review 4, no. 2
(Summer 1977): 4–18, 14; Smith, Legacy of Wings, p.
197 (picture with Etienne Dormoy [there misspelled as
“Dorman”] and James “Jimmy” Johnson).
50. Brooks, p. 147.
51. For a photograph of Cierva and Pitcairn receiving the
John Scott Medal, see The Autogiro, Autogiro Company
of America. 1930, 1932 p. 37 of 1932 ed.
52. Ibid.
53. Smith, Legacy of Wings, p. 197. For a photograph of
that meeting on January 21, 1932, with President
Hoover, which Cierva, Pitcairn, Edwin T. Asplundh,
Geoffrey S. Childs, Colonel Clarence M. Young, and Luis
M. de Irujo attended, see Autogiro News. Autogiro
Company of America. February 1932 p. 2 (photograph
caption).
54. For a picture of the XOP-1, see Townson, p. 33.
55. At least one author, George Townson, maintains that the
USMC tests of the XOP-1 in Nicaragua were not fair. See
Townson, p. 30. For an opposing analysis, see Charles
Gablehouse, Helicopters and Autogiros: A Chronicle of
Rotating-Wing Aircraft (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1967),
pp. 51–54.
56. Alfaro would later join the fourth ACA American
licensee, L. W. Steere Engineering Company of White
Plains. Steere bought a Pitcairn PAA-1 Autogiro
(NC11626) but failed in subsequent Autogiro
development. Townson, p. 18.
57. For a photo of the PCA-2-30, see George Townson and
Howard Levy, “The History of the Autogiro: Part 2,” Air
Classics Quarterly Review 4, no. 3 (Fall 1977): 4–19,
110–14, 11.
58. Townson, p. 17. Brooks's assertion that the first flight
took place on August 18, 1930, is obviously incorrect
given the extensive experimentation with blades
subsequently made in an attempt to increase the power
and improve flight characteristics, and particularly given
that all authorities agree that the aircraft was destroyed
in a crash on August 21, 1930. Brooks, p. 139.
59. Townson, p. 17.
60. The best source of information on the PAA-1 is Brooks,
pp. 142–44. Note thatFrank Kingston Smith incorrectly
asserts that the PAA-1 gained the ATC in July. Smith,
Legacy of Wings, p. 201.
61. For a photograph of the Detroit News PCA-2 with its
distinctive red-and-yellow marking, see Bob Ogden,
Great Aircraft Collections of the World (New York:
Gallery Books, 1988), p. 154.
62. For a picture of Assistant Secretary of the Navy for
Aviation David S. Ingalls setting out for the presidential
retreat on the Rapidan, see George Pynchon Jr.,
 “Something about the Autogiro,” Town & Country 86,
no. 4062 (August 15, 1931): 46–47 (photo on p. 47).
63. For a rare photograph of the XOP-1 landing on the USS
Langley in September 1931, see Frank Kingston Smith,
“Mr. Pitcairn's Autogiros,” Airpower 12, no. 2 (March
1983): 28–49, 32.
64. “Autogiros of 1931–1932,” Fortune (March 1932): 48–
52.
65. Although not identified in the photo, Ann Strawbridge
can be seen in the front cockpit of NC11678 with a
passenger in the rear cockpit. As this is identified at
Wings Field, near Ambler, Pennsylvania, it is likely that
she is actually flying the aircraft. Unlike the PCA-2,
which was flown from the rear, the PA-18 featured dual
controls. But see Townson, p. 46, where he identifies
Strawbridge but claims she is the passenger, with Paul
“Skip” Lukens as the owner and pilot of NC12678. As
Brooks identified the Pitcairn Aeronautical Corporation
as the owner, it is possible that Strawbridge had not yet
acquired the aircraft and was merely getting a flying
lesson.
66. David Mondey, ed., The Complete Illustrated
Encyclopedia of the World's Aircraft(Secaucus, New
Jersey: Chartwell Books, Inc., 1978) p. 396.
67. Brooks, p. 83.
68. See Peter Almond, Aviation: The Early Years (The
Hulton Getty Picture Collection)(Köln Germany:
Könemann Verlagssgesellschaft mbH, 1997), p. 343
(photograph of Cireva Autogiro in 1925 clearly shows
the line of four men holding the rope on the left side of
the image, preparing to spin up the rotor).
 Chapter 5
DEVELOPMENT OF THE DIRECT
CONTROL AUTOGIRO
Juan de la Cierva will be known to enduring fame as the
outstanding pioneer in the field of rotary wing aircraft…. All
helicopters and similar types of craft that have shown
promise of practical performance incorporate some of the
principles and inventions developed by Cierva.
Harold F. Pitcairn, “Juan de la Cierva: In Memoriam”
Cierva's brilliant insight had been to see the airplane wing
differently than those who had developed the airplane.
Airplane wings stalled when the air passing over the wing
failed to generate enough lift at slow speed, and Cierva
reasoned that stall could be effectively dealt with if the wing
itself moved. His rotor was a moving wing, and indeed his
Autogiro was effectively stall-proof. But although the
Autogiro could remain airworthy at slow speeds, the
traditional wing-based ailerons, elevators, and rudder
controls became ineffective, and although professional,
experienced pilots could maintain control even while
landing, inexperienced fliers were encountering conditions
in which the lack of flight control spelled disaster. And
although there were few fatal accidents, gusts of wind often
led to the Autogiro tipping over, an expensive proposition
for the pilot whose rotor pounded itself into wood chips.
Cierva reasoned that the solution to this problem was to
remove flight control from the wings and tail and to place it
directly with the rotor hub itself. He called this direct control
and claimed that he had been inspired with the solution
while attending the London Opera House one evening when
he noted the umbrellas carried by pedestrians, their black,
shiny domes glistening under the streetlights and theater
marquee. During the performance he visualized the rotating
rotor disc as an umbrella and, in a moment of insight,
realized that if the rotor disc was seen as attached to a hub
that could move, moving that hub would tilt the rotor just
as moving the umbrella handle tilted the umbrella domes.
Development of this mechanical system would allow the
pilot to achieve direct control by moving the rotor head by
means of a control rod attached to the hub, effectively a
hanging control-stick.
Rushing to his London quarters after the opera, Cierva had
by dawn sketched a universal joint mounting for a flexible
rotor hub and the attached control-stick. In one evening he
reasoned that the control surfaces of the wings were now
irrelevant, as direct-control would allow the pilot to directly
change the rotor lifting force. His application of cyclic pitch
control, is today found in almost every helicopter, and it
eliminated the need for wings.
But Cierva had an even grander vision, which he now
shared with his American colleagues. Having conceived of
flexible rotor disc control, Cierva also proposedcollective
control to simultaneously vary the previously fixed pitch, or
angle of incidence, of each individual rotor blade. This was
known since at least 1924 with the work of the Marquis Raul
de Pateras Pescara, an Argentinian of Italian descent. The
Autogiro had impressed all with its ability to land in a small
space, but that impressive ability was not mirrored in the
takeoff. Although the mechanical prerotator significantly
shortened the takeoff run, it did not allow for true vertical
ascent. Cierva now proposed to combine prerotation with
cyclical pitch control to achieve true vertical, orjump,
takeoff. Always the theoretical scientist, he had calculated
that a strong set of rotor blades in a flat pitch (i.e., with no
incidence to the horizon) could be accelerated to at least
125 percent of the rpm necessary for liftoff, a condition
known as over-spinning. Collective pitch would then
simultaneously allow each individual blade to be angled to a
lift-generating pitch, and the kinetic energy stored in the
blades from the over-spinning would be expended in lift,
causing the Autogiro to “jump” into the air, with the
propeller driving the craft forward before the lift was fully
expended. Given the PCA-2's ability to achieve the
prerotation, it was obvious that if the formidable
engineering challenges could be overcome to develop and
integrate the collective and cyclic pitch control systems, the
Autogiro would enter a new and dramatic phase. It was
perhaps the finest moment of collaboration between the two
aviators—Pitcairn's practical achievements coming together
with Cierva's theoretical visions.
But as company owner and president, Pitcairn also realized
that what was being proposed had profound implications for
the Autogiro business. A functional-direct control, jump
takeoff Autogiro would make each of his previous models
obsolete. But it was obvious that once conceived, nothing
could stop the development of the more advanced Autogiro
configuration, and that even the rumor of such a
development might impact the market for his existing
aircraft. (Fortune had already stated that “[t]he autogiro is
still using airplane type controls. A new type of control,
better fitted for the autogiro, may eventually make the
autogiro easier to handle than the airplane or its present
self.”) As Cierva embarked for the return voyage to England
on February 14, 1932, both engineers were committed to
the same development direction and parted as colleagues
and good friends. It was only later that Pitcairn learned that
Cierva had informed his London associates of his ideas prior
to coming to the United States and that the English
company had been working on direct control and the
mechanics of the jump takeoff even as he and Cierva
enjoyed the Christmas holidays and a Bryn Athyn January.
In the midst of the real friendship between two aviation
pioneers and avowed collaborators, the seeds of distrust
had been sown.
Pitcairn's optimism about the Autogiro's future was to prove
unjustified—there were dark clouds on the horizon, as very
real safety concerns were beginning to emerge.Cierva's
article “The Uses and Possibilities of the Autogiro” in the
December 1930 Aero Digest, with its dramatic cover
showing the PCA-2 flying over a metropolitan city, excited
the public's imagination, as did David Ingalls's “Missing
Link” article in the March 1931 issue of Fortune. These
articles and the spate of Pitcairn Autogiro advertisements
called attention to the power and potential of the Autogiro,
touting its safety and ease of flight-training, promising a
virtual revolution in American aviation. Furthermore, an
accompanying article in the December 1930 Aero Digest
trumpeted the safety of the Pitcairn Autogiro for the
neophyte, claiming that “a novice … is placed in much the
same position as when learning to drive a motor car.
Mistakes are not necessarily dangerous. If he becomes
confused, he can stop and let the ship land itself.”1 But the
March 1932 Fortune article “Autogiros of 1931–1932” took a
far darker tone than that of a year earlier.
Obviously autogiros are not flying every corner of the sky.
Obviously, too, consciousness of the autogiro has come up
over America's horizon. The autogiro has hopped on the
lawns of the White House, the Capitol, and the Smithsonian
Institution, where the first autogiro to fly in this country
delivered itself to the very portals within which it is now
immortalized. It has alighted on golf courses, on the piers
of ocean liners, and once, when it ran out of gas, it settled
at night into the back yard of a farmer. And some sixty-one
commercial (as opposed to experimental) autogiros have
been sold today as compared to one a year ago.2
And the left-hand black-bordered column of that article was
entitled “Worst Autogiro Accidents” and listed ten different
accidents, including Amelia Earhart's Abilene crash, a brief
account of Blanche Noyes's withdrawal from flying the
Standard Oil Company of Ohio's PCA-2 after two hard
landings, and accidents by private and military pilots.
Although the end of that accident report stated that “ [i]n
all cases the occupants of the machines were able to walk
away from the accidents,” it could not have been of much
comfort to Pitcairn. And the center of the last page of the
article featured, in a heavy black-bordered box, a riveting
photo captioned “Behold the first commercial autogiro to be
totally destroyed—but not in a flying accident. This big
Pitcairn machine, belonging to United Aircraft, was idling on
the ground … when a backfire started a blaze.” The news
photograph showed the PCA-3, which was the first
(NC11671) of two PCA-2s fitted with 300-horsepower Pratt
& Whitney R 985 Wasp Junior engines in a special order for
United Airports, a subsidiary of the United Aircraft and
Transport Corporation. As it was merely a version of the
PCA-2, it was speedily granted an ATC on August 25, 1931,
but was destroyed in a fire less than a month later. The
photo, showing a fuselage on fire and smoke billowing from
the cockpit, viscerally reinforced the theme of the article—
while Autogiros accidents were not fatal, they were costly,
and the aircraft had not lived up to its promise of safe
aviation.
The perception of the unsafe nature of Autogiro aviation
was reinforced the following year with the most deadly
Autogiro accident in history. There is no mention by Brooks
of the pilot or passengers, but sixty-three years later3 John
Miller relates that after the 1933 International Air Races at
Chicago
Vincent Bendix invited the participants to gather at his
estate at South Bend for a dinner and party, offering free
fuel to those who flew in…. As I took off and turned south to
go around the south end of the lake [Michigan] I saw
Charlie [Otto] take off in his PCA-2 and head straight across
the lake. The wind was practically calm there…. Due to the
unexpected headwind I did not have enough fuel to make it
to South Bend, so landed at the Department of Commerce
emergency field at McCool, Ill. where I knew that I could
get fuel out of a barrel in the little airway beacon shed. It
was a very hot and humid day and we sweated at the job of
getting about 15 gallons out of the barrel with the help of
the man in charge of the field. Then we continued on to
South Bend…. On arrival over the field Charlie's PCA-2 was
not there. Flying across the lake with minimum fuel he
could not be aware of his low ground speed. He ran out of
fuel and went down in the lake. He and his two passengers
were lost. One passenger was a well-known free-fall
parachutist, Spud Manning, whom I had taken up over the
air show to 15,0000 ft several times and knew well. (Free-
fall jumps were new and spectacular at the time and Spud
Manning was the pioneer of that sport).
The March 1932 Fortune observed that for all of its sales,
the Autogiro had failed to achieve economic success. It
pointed out that the PCA-2 then sold for the hefty price of
$15,000, “whereas an airplane of similar size and power
might cost $11,000 … and the Pitcairn sport model for
$6,750—and here is the real difficulty. An airplane to yield
the same service might cost only $1,500.”4
Fortune also noted that the Kellett Aircraft Corporation
Autogiros were experiencing accidents. Rather than follow
the Cierva or Pitcairn designs, Kellett initially had attempted
an original design, the K-1X. Fred Seiler, Kellett chief
engineer, created the final design, a small one-seat
gyroplane initially powered by a forty-horsepower Szekely
three-cylinder engine, later replaced by a five-cylinder, air-
cooled Velie M-5 radial engine yielding sixty-five horsepower
and a unique one-piece thirty-two-foot, six-inch laminated
spruce rotor. The aircraft had no fixed wings but a large
horizontal tail with control surfaces combining elevators and
ailerons. The fuselage, constructed by the Budd Company of
Philadelphia, was of spot-welded strip steel covered with
fabric. The aircraft was extremely light, variously reported
at between 775 and 900 pounds. The rotor head was also
unique, having bearings that allowed the one-piece rotor to
teeter like a seesaw.5 Testing had begun on October 14,
1930, but was discontinued on December 3 of that year
because, although the gyroplane could be taxied at sixty
mph, it never left the ground. The company then
abandoned its own designs, and in 1931, Kellett purchased
a license from Autogiro Company of America.
The first product was the Kellett K-2 (sometimes known as
the KA-1), and although it was based on the established
Cierva and Pitcairn designs, the company had not
completely given up on its attempts to innovate. Kellett
chief engineer W. Laurence LePage, who had previously
participated in the design of the Pitcairn PCA-1 experimental
Autogiros, produced an open-cockpit, side-by-side two-
seater with a larger rotor blade area (the chord of the blade
was twenty-three inches rather than the eighteen inches
utilized by the Pitcairn machines) and simplified landing
gear. The fuselage was gas-welded steel tubing with a
slightly faired streamlined shape, a light wood tail, and a
cabin wrapped with doped airplane fabric, which could be
fitted with a coupé top. It was lifted by a standard four-
blade Cierva rotor on top of what became the characteristic
Kellett rotor pylon—one forward strut in front of the cockpit
and two lighter rearward struts attached just behind the
cockpit.6 The K-2 utilized a forty-five-pound pre-rotator
clutch and gearbox developed by the Autogiro Specialties
Company of Philadelphia, which had achieved a market
niche supplying hubs and parts to Pitcairn, Kellett, and
Buhl. The K-2 first flew on April 24, 1931, with Pitcairn pilot
Jim Ray. Cierva subsequently flew the K-2 at Philadelphia on
December 30, 1931. Its design was of such a proven nature
that it received an initial ATC 2-431 in Group 2 on May 27,
1931, certification that was upgraded to ATC 437 on July
17, on July 17, 1931.7 The K-2 had been flown under the
original ATC by Gilbert Budwig, the chief of the department
of commerce, who had noted that the Kellett model lost
aileron control at low speeds and in a slow rate of climb.
Approval was given for ATC 437 on the company's promise
that it would take corrective action. Immediately upon
receipt of an ATC, the K-2 entered into production with
several advanced sales, as well as being demonstrated to
the United States Army in the autumn of 1931. Twelve of
the 1,556-pound K-2s would eventually sell for $7,885.
Initially powered by a 165-horsepower Continental A-70-2
engine, the models sold after July 1932 would be modified
with a 210 Continental R-670 engine and sold as a K-2-A. It
was quickly followed by the K-3, an improved version that
featured the Kinner C-5 210-horsepower engine and a more
rounded shape on the elevators and stabilizer.
The K-38 received ATC 471 on March 26, 1932, after having
been exhibited at the 1932 Detroit Air Show. Optional
equipment included a coupé top and a safety nose skid to
protect the propeller. It could take off with a run of only 165
feet and land in 5 to 35 feet. The K-3 was the first American
Autogiro to gain international exposure, as a K-3 delivered
to Argentina in that year became the first Autogiro in South
America. Overseen by Mr. Leigh Wade, Kellett
representative, and flown by Philadelphia pilot Edward E.
Denniston at the Punta India Military Airport,9 Buenos Aires,
Argentina, the K-3 created much public and military
interest, and it was not lost on the audience that it had
initially been the product of a Spanish inventor. That aircraft
was soon followed by three additional K-3s. And although
the U.S. military had rejected the K-3 for insufficient
performance after demonstrations at Wright Field, Dayton,
Ohio, two were ordered by the Japanese war ministry
through Okura & Company for army evaluation. They were
paid for by public contributions and named at their
dedication on April 16, 1933, by Major General Rensuke
Isotani, representing the war minister, as Aikkoku (Patriotic)
81 and 82. These overseas sales lead to increasing
disagreement between the Kellett company and the
Autogiro Company of America, as the latter maintained that
international sales to foreign governments violated the
terms and conditions of its licensing agreement.10
The Japanese navy was also then testing two Cierva C.19
Mk.IV aircraft (G-ABXE and G-ABXD). A third Cierva model
(G-ABXF) was operated by the Tokyo newspaper Asahi
Shimbun, which had acquired the Cierva for aerial
photography and to get news stories from otherwise
inaccessible locales. Although it proved inadequate, it flew
almost 250 hours by 1940, mostly for advertising purposes,
and a few times each year thereafter for demonstrations
and annual certification tests, until it ceased flying with the
end of World War II in August 1945.11
The Cierva C.19 series had been developed as a production
aircraft intended for commercial sales in 1928 to capitalize
on the boom in private flying then materializing in the UK
after the C.17 had proven unsuccessful. The C.19, built at
Cierva's order by Avro with the design team under the
direction of Charles Saunders and Reg Calvert as chief
designer and Henry Dyer as chief draftsman, was not
initially successful. Being an original Autogiro design not
based on preexisting World War I aircraft designs,
immediate problems emerged, as the only prerotating
device then available was the box “scorpion” tail. Intended
as a small, low-powered aircraft with an 80-horsepower
Armstrong Siddeley Genet II engine, the heavy deflector tail
made it seriously underpowered. The power issue was
resolved by substituting a more powerful 105-horsepower
Genet Major five-cylinder engine, the model then being
denoted the C.19MII, and it went on to become the first
widely used Autogiro in its MkIII configuration. It would
become the first Autogiro (G-AALA) to successfully compete
in a race, with Reginald A. C. “Reggie” Brie taking second
place, at ninety-three mph, in the Skegness Air Races on
May 14, 1932.12
The two-seat C.19MkII had a welded steel tube fuselage, a
fixed spindle rotor, and conventional airplane controls with
strut-braced small stub wings with upturned tips, utilizing
the now-standard Cierva four-blade rotor. Its loaded weight
was 1,400 pounds, with a maximum speed of ninety-five
mph, and it was on exhibit at the Seventh International
Aero Exhibition at Olympia between July 16 and 27, 1929,
arriving a mere eight weeks after the start of its design.
The MkI had gained its Certificate of Airworthiness, the
equivalent of the American ATC on August 2, 1929. Cierva
had brought a C.19MkII to American and demonstrated it to
Pitcairn on August 20 at Willow Grove, where it had been
reassembled. That Autogiro, G-AAKY,13 briefly became the
most famous rotary-wing aircraft in America when Cierva
flew it before the a hundred thousand people who came
daily to the National Air Races in Cleveland, Ohio, from
August 24 through September 2, where Pitcairn was
exhibiting the prototype PCA-2 and the PCA-1B. During that
period, with the technical assistance of Pitcairn engineer
Paul H. Stanley (who had joined the Pitcairn company the
same day as the first American Autogiro flight in December
1928), Cierva had also done the final editing of his
“Engineering Theory of the Autogiro.” Cierva would later, in
1934–35, author “Theory of Stresses in Autogiro Rotor
Blades.” Neither of his essays would be published, but they
were circulated and read by rotary-wing aircraft designers
and were of considerable influence for future designs.
The impact of the introduction to the C.19MkII was that the
Americans became thoroughly familiar with its capabilities
and had briefly considered the C.19 when deciding to
develop a lighter “sport Autogiro.” But, critical of the
deflector tail and understandably preferring a mechanical
solution, the Pitcairn engineering team had elected to
pursue the development of the PAA-1. Cierva, upon his
return to England in early 1930, had gone on to develop the
C.19 in various configurations that were then widely sold,
including models to Singapore, Germany, Sweden, Australia,
and Spain in addition to those in Japan in 1932. The French
Lioré-et-Olivier also acquired a license to build the C.19 but
apparently never did so.14 Cierva pilot Reggie Brie also
demonstrated a C.19Mk.IV in Denmark but no sales
resulted.15
Cierva had started an Autogiro flying school at Hanworth in
May 1932 under the management of Reggie Brie and with
Alan H. Marsh as chief flying instructor. Marsh had
previously been instructor at the Hampshire Aeroplane Club
and trained Cierva to fly in 1927. He would formally join
Cierva Autogiro Company as assistant to Brie on April 5,
1932, and remain for eighteen years, until his untimely
death on June 13, 1950, in the crash of the Cierva Air Horse
helicopter. As Cierva intended to sell the C.19 to a wider
audience, the school was intended to furnish pilot training
and did so initially with a C.19MkIV (G-ABUD)16 and then
with a second aircraft (G-ABUF). The first of hundreds to
learn the skills of flying the Autogiro was sixty-eight-year-
old J. A. McMullen. By the end of 1932 six men and five
women (including the wife of James Weir) had soloed.
The German involvement with the C.19 came in early 1931
when Professor Heinrich K. J. Focke of Focke-Wulf
Flugzeugbau A. G. of Bremen inquired of a license to build
the C.19MkIV through the German Cierva Company, formed
by O. J. Merkel in July 1931 for such licensing purposes.
The actual license agreement was been signed in December
of that year and the first German model completed in May
1932. That model was first flown by Cierva pilot Arthur
Rawson and Cierva in June 1932. Rawson would then leave
the company, being replaced as chief pilot by Reggie Brie.
After a disagreement with his board of directors in 1933 in
light of the changing political circumstance in Germany,
Focke left the company and established Focke-Achgelis
G.mbH to specialize in the development of rotary-wing
aircraft. His experience with the Cierva model would lead to
the first successful helicopter in 1936 and, of greatest
import for autorotational aircraft, the FA-330 rotary-kite
almost a decade later.
In addition to the exported Kellet K-3s, one would briefly
become the most famous Autogiro in the world when its
corporate owner, the Pep Boys chain of stores, lent it to
national hero Rear Admiral Robert E. Byrd for his second
Antarctic Expedition in 1933–35. The “Pep Boys Snowman”
K-3 Autogiro (NC12615) was a converted K-2 that the
company had used for advertising purposes, and it is
certain that Pep Boys had been impressed by the publicity
realized by Champion Spark Plugs from the involvement of
Lew Yancy and Miss Champion in the Mayan explorations in
the Yucatán the previous year. The company made the most
of the publicity, even featuring a photo of Admiral Byrd
christening its Autogiro at Camden, New Jersey.17The
Snowman left Boston in October 1933, securely placed
aboard Byrd's supply shipRuppert. It was unloaded in the
Bay of Whales after a largely uneventful journey on January
28, 1934, and flown to the expedition's forward base at
Little America by pilot W. S. McCormick. By the end of
January the K-3 had been employed for reconnaissance of
sea ice by McCormick with Byrd as passenger—both were
impressed with the performance. That Autogiro, unlike the
Cierva and Pitcairn models, was ideally suited to such
exploration, as the side-by-side seating allowed for easy
communication and the optional coupé top facilitated flying
in the cold climate. Byrd was reported as observing: “I was
greatly impressed with the virtues of the autogiro. With its
singular hovering instincts and its nearly vertical landings, it
is the perfect instrument for short-range reconnaissance in
the polar regions.”18 On March 24 the K-3, flown by
McCormick and Byrd, struck out in the face of strong winds
to find one of the expedition's missing fixed-wing aircraft.
After sighting the missing aircraft, McCormick landed to
check the condition of the two marooned pilots. The K-3
then returned to base to brief the leaders of the dogsled
teams who would come to rescue the stranded airmen, and
the subsequent rescue gained much notoriety and public
acclaim. Flying resumed in early September, and weather
permitting, the K-3 was used for measuring the
temperature of the upper air, but the aircraft crashed on
September 28, 1934, as it took off. It fell from a height of
approximately seventy-five feet and was completely
destroyed. McCormick survived but was found unconscious,
in shock, and with a broken arm. Investigation revealed
that drifting snow had weighted down the rear of the
fuselage and shifted the center of gravity.
Kellett had changed the company's name to the Kellett
Autogiro Company and went on to develop one more
prototype two-seater in June 1933. Modified from the K-2,
and called the K-4, it was awarded ATC No. 523 on
December 27, 1933, but never went into production and
was the last model produced without direct control, as by
mid-1933, Cierva, Pitcairn, and Kellett were turning toward
direct control. The press had reported in late March 1932
that Cierva had flown the “first wingless aircraft,” an
otherwise obscure reference, but Pitcairn and his associates
immediately understood its significance—Cierva was making
advances in direct control!

Upset that Cierva had not shared that information with him
during his visit, Pitcairn, Ray, and Larsen visited England in
early 1933 to gain a firsthand understanding of recent
developments. What they saw was a modified early C.19
model with a spindle rotor head that could be tilted to
achieve lateral and longitudinal control by means of an
upside-down (hanging) control-stick. Development had not
proceeded very far, and the direct control C.19MkV had only
flown a few feet off the ground, with no cross-country
flights. Both Pitcairn and Ray flew the experimental Autogiro
and found that significant vibration made it necessary to
grip the hanging control-stick with both hands, but it was
apparent that Cierva had made significant theoretical
progress on direct control and it would only be a matter of
time until the technology caught up. Larsen also met and
discussed direct control with Georges Lepère, chief of
French Cierva licensee Lioré-et-Olivier, who was even then
designing the C.L.10 direct control model, in consultation
with Cierva, to be based on the C.19MkIV. All of this
contributed to the American dedication to embark on direct
control. And although the Americans returned home sure
that they were not far behind in developing direct control,
Pitcairn became even more suspicious of the English
company and could no longer say with certainty that it
remained a collaborator. It was beginning to resemble a
rival, which would cause the Americans to view European
Autogiro development with a growing degree of suspicion.
Even as the Pitcairn engineering team solved the complex
series of problems that emerged as direct control research
advanced, he was careful to heed the advice of his patent-
law firm, Synnestvedt & Lechner, and file a continual stream
of applications. The name of his manufacturing company
had changed in January 1933 to Pitcairn Autogiro Company,
and his engineering team had already assigned the
designation of PA-22 to the coming direct control model, but
first there was another matter to be dealt with—the PA-19
cabin Autogiro.
Even as Pitcairn continued research on direct control, he
had taken note of the comments made at the end of the
1932 Fortune article, which stated that “[t]here are other
important elements of comfort, however. First the obvious
one of providing autogiros with cabins.”19 The London Times
had reported on February 10, 1931, that Pitcairn intended
to build a five-passenger cabin Autogiro and Robert B. C.
Noorduyn had joined the Pitcairn company as executive
engineer in February 1932 at the commencement of the PA-
19 project.20 This model was to be the largest Autogiro ever
constructed, equaled only by the C.34 prototype
constructed in France by Société Nationale de Constructions
Aéronautiques (SNCASE) in March 1939, which never
advanced beyond the testing phase, no doubt because of
the coming of war, but the C.34 was observed to have poor
flying characteristics. The stated goals of the PA-19 were
strength, reliability, ease of maintenance, comfort,
appearance, and luxury. The prototype PA-19 (X13149,
later NC13149)21 was first flown by Jim Ray in September
1932 and was awarded ATC No. 509 on June 23, 1933.
When introduced to the public on October 19, 1932, the
“cabin” Autogiro was received with acclaim. It “rivaled the
luxurious comfort of fine automobiles,” suitable for women
in skirts and older passengers.22 And even though the PA-
19 rivaled the passenger airplanes in terms of comfort, a far
cry from the basic open-cockpit models, only five were built
and it was not an economic success.
While its sheer size was impressive, weighing with
passengers and cargo a massive 4,640 pounds, it was the
appointments and quality of construction that most
impressed. Passengers entered the PA-1923 by walking up a
retractable stairway through a wide door into a plush five-
passenger cabin. Powered by a 420-horsepower Wright R-
975-E2 engine and utilizing a large fifty-foot, seven-and-a-
half-inch rotor, the performance of the PA-19 was as
outstanding as its appearance. With a strong fuselage of
welded steel tubing, it cruised at 100 mph and could reach
a top speed of 120 mph. The prototype had a fore-and-aft
tilting spindle that began to achieve direct control. This “tilt-
adjusting” movable rotor head was the product of the
ongoing direct control research and was operated by a
crank in the ceiling of the cabin. Changing the angle of the
rotor disc allowed the Autogiro to adjust to a greater range
of center of gravity. The PA-19 flew well and had been
thoroughly soundproofed with “Dry Zero” insulation
blanketing. Ventilators provided for passenger comfort, and
the cockpit was outfitted with a dazzling array of
instruments. Pilots found it easy to fly with an adjustable
seat for the primary pilot and a partially movable seat for
the copilot. The control wheel and yoke were in a “throw-
over” format and could be easily adjusted, allowing either
pilot to fly the aircraft. The PA-19 also innovated a complete
standard electrical system.
Pitcairn was optimistic by the favorable reception and
foresaw a long production run, lowering the cost of each
model. To encourage immediate acceptance he ordered that
five be constructed and priced the PA-19 at $14,500, but
only four orders materialized. Even before certification, the
Year-Round Club in Florida ordered a PA-19 in February,
followed by an order for two models by the Honorable A. E.
Guinness of the United Kingdom. One of those, exported in
1935, was registered G-ADAM and allegedly crashed at
Newtonards in Northern Ireland the same year. The second,
registered as G-ADBE, later crashed at Gatwick and was
stored until 1950 and finally broken up for scrap. The forth
PA-19 was sold to Colonel R. L. Montgomery, a “wealthy
Philadelphia sportsman” who flew it between his
Pennsylvania home and Georgetown, South Carolina
retreat. It eventually ended up with the U.S. Department of
Agriculture. The remaining PA-19 was retained by the
factory and was featured in what, after the 1931 White
House landing, must be regarded as the second most
dramatic moment in Autogiro history.
In 1933 Cierva returned to America for his forth, and last,
visit. Arriving on the SS Parison May 16, 1933, he was met
by Pitcairn and Jim Ray at Newark Airport in the PA-19 and
whisked to Bryn Athyn. He came to see the PA-19 and to
consult with the Americans about ongoing direct control
development and to receive the Daniel Guggenheim Gold
Medal “for his development of the theory and practice of the
Autogiro.” Although Cierva had received the 1932
Fédération Aéronautique International (FAI) Gold Medal on
January 11, 1933, and would receive the Elliott Cresson
Medal24 from Philadelphia's Franklin Institute in October of
that year “in consideration of the original conceptions and
inventive ability which have resulted in the creation and
development of the Autogiro” (along with medals for Orville
Wright and Igor Sikorsky), there can be little doubt that the
greatest honor he received was the Guggenheim Medal for
“the World's most notable Achievement in Aviation.”

It had only been awarded three times previously: to Orville

Wright, to Frederick W. Lanchester, who had authored the
vortex theory of flight in 1894, and to Ludwig Prandtl who
further developed the vortex theory during World War I.
Cierva was thus joining an immortal and exclusive
community of theoreticians whose work had made flight
possible. The medal was awarded on June 28, 1933, during
a ceremony at Soldiers Field in Chicago during Engineers'
Day at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, the Century of
Progress Exposition and could not have been more
dramatic. Next to the exposition, where later Meigs Field
would be located, was a large sports arena called Soldiers
Field. On June 28, with thousands in attendance, Jim Ray
flew Harold Pitcairn and Juan de la Cierva to Soldiers Field
in the PA-19. It is hard to image how a greater impression
could have been made—the crowd stood and cheered, the
newsreel camera rolled, and flashbulbs went off as the large
Autogiro landed within ten feet of its touchdown. It was a
shining moment of triumph but could not erase the
darkness that was falling upon commercial Autogiro
development in the United States.
The United States Army had judged the Kellett K-2 to be
underpowered for military use, and the Pitcairn PCA-2,
dubbed the XOP-1 in its Navy markings, had not faired well
either. While the XOP-1 had successfully landed on the USS
Langley, the tests by the United States Marine Corps in
Nicaragua in the Spring of 1932 had not gone well at all.
While the local population cheered the XOP-1 when it
appeared at Zacharias Field near Managua on June 28,
1932, seeing it as a triumph of Spanish invention, the
military evaluation board was less than impressed. The
original intent had apparently been to evaluate the Autogiro
in combat operations against guerrilla chief Augusto Cesaer
Sandino, but the board of review decided to evaluate the
XOP-1 in comparative trials against a USMC Vought O2U-1
fixed-wing airplane. Tests revealed the obvious—the
Autogiro could climb at a much steeper angle and fly at a
considerably slower speed, but could neither carry the same
load nor match the speed or climb of the fixed-wing aircraft.
The board concluded that the advantages offered by the
XOP-1 did not sufficiently offset its disadvantages25 and no
further military orders materialized. And the Depression
effectively doomed the PA-19: Joe Jupiter, writing in volume
6 of “U.S. Civil Aviation,” stated that:
With such credentials the Pitcairn PA-19 took its place on
the market of 1933; based on its ability and outstanding
utility the PA-19 should have found instant favor, but being
confronted with the depth of a national depression was
more than a craft of this type could bargain for. There was a
token interest, of sorts, but financial difficulty at the Pitcairn
plant finally halted its production and further development.
Actually, the cabin-type PA-19 was an aircraft too far ahead
of its time.26
Hollywood discovered the Autogiro but it had nor resulted in
a bonanza of sales, as it had been a mixed bag. Actor
Edmund Lowe, the romantic adventurer, abducted social
butterfly Claudette Colbert, flying her in a PCA-2 (NR784W)
to a remote hunting lodge in the 1932 Paramount feature
The Misleading Lady. While Jim Ray flew and the Autogiro
performed, the aerial footage, much of it at night, did little
to show off the aircraft and even less to save what was
otherwise regarded by the trade publication Variety as
“lightweight stuff of conventional pattern.”27 But if that
movie failed to capture the audience, the 1933 Paramount
film International House pandered to growing fascination
with the Autogiro in a decidedly different and even less
effective fashion. In that generally forgettable film,
alternatively remembered as a “wacky Dada-esque
Hollywood farce about an incredible array of travelers
quarantined in a Shanghai hotel where a mad doctor has
perfected television,” the leading actor was vaudeville
juggler William Claude Dukenfield, acting under the name
W. C. Fields. He played Professor Henry R. Quail, pilot, con-
man and alcoholic aviator. Although the movie is usually
remembered, if at all, for the Cab Calloway performance of
the marijuana classic “Reefer Man,” it featured footage of
the Kellett K-3 (NC12691) with the optional coupé top. And
while the flying scenes were probably impressive to the
Depression-era film-goer, any such impact was undoubtedly
undercut not only by the drunken pilot meandering all over
a world map in search of Kansas but also by his final arrival
in the fictional Wu Hu, China, in a large simulated “prop”
Autogiro (sporting the real Kellett K-3 registration
NC12691), named the Spirit of Brooklyn, from which
emerges an automobile! The movie also reflected the
general lack of knowledge about rotary-wing aircraft in the
dialogue between “Dr.” George Burns and “Nurse” Gracie
Allen. “Doctor,” she asks, “what is the difference between a
helicopter and Autogiro?” If the audience hoped to learn
more from this answer, they were disappointed, as Burns
replied, “You can't play a helicopter.”
But the third Depression-era movie to feature an Autogiro
was one of the most famous movies ever made, and, even
though it has less than a minute of the same Kellett K-3
(NC12691) that had appeared in International House a year
earlier, probably came closest to the Pitcairn visual ideal of
amateur flying to the country club. It Happened One Night,
the first film to win the four major Oscars (Picture, Director
—Frank Capra, Actor—Clark Gable, Actress—Claudette
Colbert, and a fifth to writer Robert Riskin), however,
presents a particularly unappealing image of the Autogiro
pilot. The Clark Gabel hero is an “ordinary man suffering
from unemployment” and it is “only such a man … who can
offer a woman an exciting, real, vital relationship.”28 A
reporter, he meets fleeing heiress Colbert and accompanies
her on a cross-country journey to marry “King Westley, the
autogyro ace,”29 who is portrayed as “an effete money-
hungry playboy, without a muscle, or, it seems, an ounce of
blood in his veins.”30 The Autogiro footage comes towards
the very end of the film with a K-3 slowly banking into a
descent and gentle landing on the broad field in back of the
country club, which has been decorated for the wedding. As
King Westley exits from the aircraft in formal dress with his
silk top hat and cane, the view pans slowly around the
Autogiro, showing the unidentified Kellett pilot crouching in
the cabin. At the moment of truth in the wedding ceremony,
Colbert jilts King Westley to flee to the arms of Gable and
all ends well, but the final Autogiro impression is that this is
a toy of the idle rich. It must have been an unsatisfying
moment for the American rotary-aircraft manufacturers. As
the Depression deepened and orders for the Pitcairn and
Cierva aircraft dried up, it was apparent that the industry
was in deep trouble. The fourth American movie of that era
to use Autogiro footage was eminently forgettable 1935
Ladies Crave Excitement. The Autogiro footage is not
relevant to the movie, but is notable—about a minute's
footage of Johnny Miller doing two loops!
Both companies knew that the future lay in direct control
that would more fully realize the Autogiro's unique flying
abilities and effectively answer the aviator's complaint that
control was lost at slow speeds with the decline in the
airflow over the traditional airplane ailerons and rudder. The
Cierva C.19MkV, a single-seat direct control Autogiro had
first flown in March of 1932. Registered as G-ABXP, it was
the newspaper reports in America of this strange “wingless”
aircraft that had so excited Pitcairn. It would be flown until
scraped in 1935, and much would be learned from its
various experimental arrangements. Cierva applied for a
direct control patent on December 16, 1933, and eventually
received British Patent No. 393,976 for a rotor disk that
could be tilted in all directions.
And it is interesting to note that others were also pursuing
direct control at this time, but from different directions.
Most technologically significant but ultimately not
historically so, was the work of Scotsman David Kay,31 who
had patented a mechanism for varying the incidence (angle)
of the rotor blades of a gyroplane, called collective pitch
control. He had met with Cierva on April 27, 1927, with a
proposal, based on his patent, for an Autogiro that featured
his control mechanism, a sideways tilting rotor, but Cierva
was rejecting attempts to complicate the rotor system. In
his later patent, however, it is obvious that Cierva had
accepted the tiltable rotor as Pitcairn had partially done in
the PA-19. In England in August 1932 Kay successfully flew
his small Kay 32/1 gyroplane prototype and his Kay 33/1
gyroplane (G-ACVA) on February 18, 1935. As they were of
original design, they were gyroplanes and featured
collective pitch control and tilting rotors but retained normal
elevators for longitudinal control. Although he founded Kay
Gyroplanes Limited in November 1933, and his prototypes
were extensively tested by the Royal Aircraft Establishment
at Farnborough during September 1935 through February
1936, nothing more came of his efforts. Sixty years later
Ron Herron would base his “Little Wing Autogyro” on the
work of David Kay.32
Raoul Hafner, an Austrian helicopter designer, had by 1932
moved to England, was introduced to Cierva, learned to fly
the C.19 and C.30 Autogiros and created an original
gyroplane design that incorporated helicopter pitch control
systems. It has also been asserted that Cierva gave
permission to make use of several of his patents. This
gyroplane, the A.R.III, flew in September 1935 at Heston
near London.33 It made use of collective and cyclic pitch
control, developed independently from Kay's earlier work, of
which Hafner was seemingly unaware. Hafner's work
improved the control achieved by the combination of cyclic
and collective pitch control, but he clearly used the
gyroplane to advance his helicopter research. Briefly
interned at the start of World War II as an enemy alien, he
was released when he asked for English nationality and
joined the wartime rotary-wing development efforts. The
results of his labors would lead to the Rotachute, which
would be instrumental in the survival of autorotational flight
in the 1950s on the part of Igor Bensen.
A third unsuccessful effort to achieve direct control was that
of wealthy Philadelphian E. Burke Wilford.34 Wilford
purchased the patent rights to the work of German inventor
and aircraft designers Walter Rieseler and Walter Kreiser in
1925, thus predating Pitcairn's involvement with Cierva. The
rights to Rieseler and Kreiser's rigid-blade gyroplane would
be assigned to Wilford in U.S. Patent 1,777,678.35 He called
his craft the WRK Gyroplane (X794W),36 and it first flew on
August 5, 1931. It differed from the Cierva and Pitcairn
models of the time in that utilized a rigid rotor capable of
cyclic pitch variation. The pitch of the rotor blades changed
as they rotated, a mechanism to equalize lift in place of the
Cierva flexible blades and “flapping hinges.” This use of
cyclic pitch also affords a measure of control, but the
Wilford model retained wing and tail control surfaces as
well. Although the navy would eventually evaluate his
second XOZ-1 Gyroplane in 1935–36, and it would be
tested by the NACA, Wilford was never a serious contender
to either Pitcairn or Kellett. This was, in part, because his
test pilot Joseph McCormick, brother of William McCormick
who had been with RADM Byrd in the Antarctic, died in a
1934 crash of a Wilford prototype.37
Pitcairn was developing the PA-22, the first American
Autogiro without wings and incorporating a lateral and
attitude control system into the rotor system. It “spelled the
end of the fixed-spindle Autogiro”38 but in doing so,
presented the company with a terrible dilemma—the direct
control Autogiro would, if not actually obsolete the previous
models, make them undesirable.
Pitcairn's solution would be to cease production of pre–
direct control technology in January of 1934 until the
development of direct control had been perfected to a
commercially acceptable level. That was not immediate in
coming as the PA-22 prototype (X13198) crashed from a
height of fifty feet on its first flight in early March 1933 with
Jim Ray as pilot. The cause of the crash remained unknown
as the engineers examined the wreckage and reread the
test reports. They were hard pressed to understand how
Ray, perhaps the most skilled and experienced American
Autogiro pilot, could lose control, but his casual observation
provided the clue that finally solved the mystery. Ray
described the feedback on the control system and pointed
out that even though there were no wings or ailerons, it felt
as if the upside-down, “hanging” control-stick was “rigged
in reverse.” The Pitcairn engineers concluded that this was,
in fact, the case and that control movements had to be
made in reverse of the conventional floor-mounted stick,
and from that standpoint, Ray's natural impulses and
previous experience had failed him. Subsequent models
corrected the reversal of the control system, but there was
an additional explanation. Ray also commented that as with
the Cierva prototype the previous year, the hanging stick
shook and was extremely difficult to manipulate due to
excessive rotor feedback. The Pitcairn engineers knew that
achieving direct control was not merely a measure of
reversing the control system. Not only would the PA-22
prototype have to be rebuilt, the direct control system
would have to be completely redesigned and refined, a
costly and time-consuming endeavor. Direct control would
not come easily, quickly, or cheaply. And the price would not
only be collected in currency. Although it is doubtful that the
Americans were aware of it, a similar crash of an
experimental direct control French C.L. 10 Autogiro on
December 19, 1932, at Villacoublay, had already been
ascribed to the new control system. The French model,
designed by Georges Lepère in consultation with Cierva,
featured an overhead control, and it was felt that the cause
of the crash was “the over-sensitive hanging-stick control,
to which some pilots had difficulty in adapting.”39 Upon take
off the aircraft rose to two hundred feet and then dove into
the ground, killing pilot Pierre Martin, the first recorded
Autogiro fatality.
NOTES

1. Thomas Carroll, “Relative Flight Safety of the Autogiro,”

Aero Digest 17, no. 7 (December 1930): 72.
2. “Autogiros of 1931–1932,” Fortune (March 1932): 48–
52, 48.
 3. John M. Miller, “UFO Recollections: The Death of Charlie
Otto,” American Helicopter Museum & Education Center
Newsletter 8, no. 1 (Spring 1996).
4. “Autogiros of 1931–1932,” p. 52.
5. George Townson, Autogiro: The Story of “the Windmill
Plane,” (Fallbrook, California: Aero Publishers; reprint,
Trenton, New Jersey: Townson, 1985), pp. 88–91; Peter
W. Brooks, Cierva Autogiros: The Development of
Rotary-Wing Flight (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian
Institution Press, 1988), p. 134.
6. For pictures of the Kellett K-2 prototype (NC10766), see
Brooks, p. 136; Townson, p. 94. For a photo of the
second K-2 produced (NC10767), which would be
converted to a K-3 model and receive ATC 471 on March
26, 1932, see“Autogiros of 1931–1932,” p. 51.
7. Townson, p. 93.
8. Pictures and statistics of the K-3 can be found in
Brooks, p. 137; Townson, p. 99.
9. For photographs of the K-3 in Buenos Aires, being
viewed by Captains Marco Zarr and Mermos Hermosa,
see Townson, p. 100.
10. Frank Kingston Smith, Legacy of Wings: The Story of
Harold F. Pitcairn (New York: Jason Aronson, 1981), pp.
258–59.
11. Brooks, p. 274.
12. Brooks, p. 104.
13. For photos of the G-AAKY at Pitcairn Field, see Smith,
Legacy of Wings, p. 165;Brooks, p. 101.
14. The French company would build a C.27 model that first
flew in December, 1932 (later converted to a C.L.10A) a
pair of C.L.10s in 1932, and a C.L.10A and a C.L.10B in
1935.
15. Brooks, p. 111.
16. Brooks, p. 114.
17. For a photo of Admiral Byrd and the Pep Boys Kellett K-
3, see Townson, p. 102 (bottom); George Townson and
Howard Levy, “The History of the Autogiro: Part 1,” Air
Classics Quarterly Review 4, no. 2 (Summer 1977): 18.
18. Brooks, p. 137.
19. “Autogiros of 1931–1932,” p. 50.
20. Robert B. C. Noorduyn, “Pitcairn PA-19 Cabin Autogiro,”
Aero Digest 22, no. 2 (February 1933): 48–50, 48.
21. For photographs of the PA-19 in certification flights, see
Frank Kingston Smith, “Mr. Pitcairn's Autogiros,”
Airpower 12, no. 2 (March 1983): 28–49, 39–40; Aero
Digest 22, no. 2 (February 1933): cover.
22. See Smith, Legacy of Wings, p. 209; Noorduyn, p. 48.
23. Townson, pp. 52, 54–58; Smith, Legacy of Wings, p.
212; Smith, “Mr. Pit-cairn's Autogiros,” pp. 39–40.
24. Brooks, p. 358 n. 19.
25. Brooks, pp. 131–32.
26. Townson, p. 56.
27. John Walker, ed., Halliwell's Film and Video Guide:
2001, 16th ed. (Great Britain: HarperCollins Publishers,
2000), p. 541.
28. Joan Mellen, Big Bad Wolves: Masculinity in the
American Film (New York: Pantheon Books, 1977), p.
103.
29. Ray Carney, American Vision: The Films of Frank Capra
(Hanover, New Hampshire: Wesleyan University Press,
1986), p. 233.
30. Mellen, p. 103.
31. For a description of David Kay's gyroplanes, see Brooks,
pp. 318–19; George Townson and Howard Levy, “The
History of the Autogiro: Part 2,” Air Classics Quarterly
Review 4, no. 3 (Fall 1977): 4–19, 110–14, 9
(photograph).
32. Ron Herron, “Bringing Back the Autogiro,” Rotorcraft 33,
no. 1 (February–March 1995): 12–13.
33. For a rare photograph of the Hafner A.R.III Gyroplane in
flight, see Air Commodore A. E. Clouston, The
Dangerous Skies (London, England: Cassell & Company
Limited, 1954), p. 39.
34. See “The Wilford Gyroplane” in Aero Digest (February
1932): 56–57; Charles Gablehouse, Helicopters and
Autogiros (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1967), pp. 62–64;
Earl Devon Francis, The Story of the Helicopter (New
York: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1946), p. 103. (Francis
claims somewhat fancifully that it was Wilford who
suggested to Dr. Henrich Focke that he acquire the
German manufacturing rights to the Cierva Autogiros in
1928, but although the meeting between the two is
documented, neither the suggestion nor the imputed
subsequent action is. See, for example, J. R. Smith and
Antony L. Kay, German Aircraft of the Second World
War [London: Putnam, 1972]).
35. Aero Digest 17, no. 7 (December 1930): 64.
36. For a photograph of the Wilford Gyroplane, see S. Paul
Johnston, Horizons Unlimited: A Graphic History of
Aviation (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1941), p.
179.
37. Brooks claims that the test pilot who died was J. S.
McCormac (p. 23).
38. Smith, Legacy of Wings, p. 213.
39. Brooks, p. 165, but the author also states that at the
time of the C.L.10 accident “Cierva believed that Martin
had attempted to take off with the control column
locked.”
 Chapter 6

AMERICAN ADVANCES, THE C.30A

AUTOGIRO, AND CIERVA'S DEATH
It appears fitting, when we meet to discuss one or the other
of many aspects of rotary wing flight, that we should direct
our thoughts to the one man (alas no longer with us) whose
creative ability and genius not only made possible the
Autogiro; but whose foresight and tenacity of purpose so
well and truly laid the foundations upon which the helicopter
now so surely stands.
Wing Commander R. A. C. Brie, “Some Problems of
Helicopter Operation and Their Influence on Design”
The Depression's effect had effectively killed the PA-19, and
now even the sales of the smaller PA-18 were impacted.
Pitcairn lowered the price to $4,940 but even that did not
help. Buhl, so optimistic with its “pusher” Autogiro the year
before, had gone bankrupt. The ACA was confronted with a
major new research and development effort to achieve
direct control, an undertaking made more difficult by the
fact that Kellett Autogiro had embarked on its own direct
control efforts. Each of the three major companies, Cierva
in England and Pitcairn and Kellett in America, clearly saw
the prize and were determined to be, if not the first, then
the most commercially successful in achieving a direct
control model. As a consequence, each became more of a
rival and less a collaborator, even though the interlocking
series of licensing agreements and contractual obligations
to share developments and patents should have made them
colleagues advancing rotary flight. This had a negative
impact on Autogiro development, as each became reluctant
to share new developments, and there can be little doubt
that had these companies cooperated, each would have
benefited from the work of others and would not have been
forced to spend scarce resources in duplicate research and
costly testing.
The PA-22 was rebuilt, and Ray began to cautiously
familiarize himself with the intricacies of direct control flight
in the face of continuing potentially dangerous control-stick
vibration. Cierva participated in the American research
program during the summer of 1933. He made suggestions
regarding the rigging and adjustment of the rotor blades,
and Pitcairn perhaps wondered why Cierva's efforts were
directed that way while the Americans were concentrating
on dampening the overhead control-stick vibrations. The
stunning answer, presented in a seminar Cierva gave to the
engineering team, was “a completely new control system
for rotary-wing aircraft that was far superior to anything
then in existence.”1 Cierva proposed a control system based
on the ability to exercise cyclic control, that is, to change
the pitch of the rotor blades rather than achieving control
by tilting the entire rotor disc. This was a dramatically
different approach from a titling rotor head, which Cierva
had previously attempted in the C.19MkIV and which the
Pitcairn team was then in the early stages of developing in
the PA-22. Pitcairn, however, did intend to use collective
control to achieve the jump takeoff as he had previously
discussed with Cierva. But Cierva's cyclic pitch control
based on the pilot's ability to vary the pitch of the rotors as
they circled the rotor disc not only provided for control, it
also incorporated a jump takeoff capability. What Pitcairn
was attempting to do with two systems, tilting and
collective, Cierva proposed to build into one! And as Cierva
proceeded to spend days lecturing on the mathematical
theory that justified his approach, it was apparent to the
Americans, who were talented, experienced, and as
theoretically knowledgeable as anyone then involved in the
development of rotary-wing flight, that they were being
exposed to the cutting edge and sharing a vision of the
future of the Autogiro. It was a heady, inspirational, and
disheartening experience, for although the experimental
work then under way with the PA-22 and its tilting rotor–
collective control system was clearly and convincingly
vindicated in Cierva's theory, it was equally apparent that
the such an approach would be eventually supplanted by
the Cierva individual cyclic control.
The Pitcairn team faced a dilemma. It was obvious that the
PA-22 required a costly redesign at the very time that
Autogiro sales were slowing and Cierva was going in an
ultimately more productive direction.

Cutaway of Cierva C.30A direct-control Autogiro.

(Courtesy of Flight International.)

Cierva proposed, and Pitcairn readily accepted,2 that the

Americans would continue the tilting rotor–collective control
system development, while the English company would
concentrate on developing practical cyclic and collective
pitch control. And although Brooks asserts that Cierva was
proposing this division of efforts “presumably to avoid an
overlap in the two companies' activities,”3 there is another,
possibly darker, interpretation. Prior to departing for
America, Cierva had publicly flown the C.30A prototype at
Hanworth on April 27, 1933, with an improved, working
version of the control system that Pitcairn, Ray, and Larsen
had seen the year before. He would receive the FAI Gold
Medal in 1933, celebrating the development of direct
control, and the Wakefield Gold Medal the next year for the
same achievement. Subsequently, the C.30A would enter
commercial production in early 1934, with deliveries
commencing in July. That Cierva was suggesting that the
American team continue with development of a control
system he had already created was probably not obvious to
the Pitcairn team. In any event, the decision to continue
with the PA-22 certainly appeared the logical choice given
Pitcairn's declining financial circumstances and his team's
knowledge and investment of effort in and commitment to
the PA-22. That decision was, however, with the perspective
of history, to prove an unmitigated disaster for Pitcairn and
the future of American Autogiro development, for within a
decade his company would effectively be out of the Autogiro
business and the Kellett organization would soon follow. But
the one bright light to come out of Cierva's fourth visit,
other than the honors heaped on Pitcairn and Cierva, was
the sharing with the American company, as called for in
their business agreement, of Cierva's s technical
specifications of the cyclic and collective control system. It
almost didn't happen.

After a six-week visit filled with honors, test-flights,

consultations regarding the PA-22 and its problems, his
private aeronautics seminar, and many social engagements,
Cierva was preparing for the return to England in July 1933.
He had allocated the final day of his visit for a meeting with
Pitcairn's patent attorney Raymond Synnestvedt to present
and explain the technical specifications and drawings of the
new control system so that American patents could be
sought. One can only imagine the horror of all when it was
inadvertently discovered by Clara Pitcairn4 that Cierva's ship
departed at noon and not the midnight hour originally
projected. Demonstrating once again the potential for the
Autogiro, Pitcairn called Jim Ray at Pitcairn Field and
arranged for the PA-19, a PCA-2, and PA-18 to fly to his
home as soon as possible to pick up the parties and fly to
Newark from which the SS Paris would shortly depart. The
aircraft arrived and all piled aboard, with the luggage
allocated among the Autogiros and Pitcairn, Cierva, and
Synnestvedt in the PA-19. During the brief but successful
ride to Newark, Cierva hurriedly spread his diagrams and
explained the technical specification. It was presumably
viewed as a humorous, frantic dash that left Cierva
boarding his ship with only minutes to spare, but it is
equally likely that no one present that day knew that the
patents that came from those drawings would “be the
keystone for the future of the entire vertical-lift industry or
that they would have a critical impact on the fortunes of
Harold Pitcairn.”5 Pitcairn applied for an American patent on
November 16, 1933, after his firm had prepared the
necessary papers, but Patent No. 2,380,585, covering the
fixed-spindle rotor with collective and cyclic pitch control,
was not granted until July 1, 1945. Pitcairn also received
Patent No. 2,380,580 for his tilting rotor disk and jump
takeoff collective pitch control.
Development on the reconstructed PA-22 proceeded at an
increasingly successful pace after Cierva's departure, as the
engineering team solved the presented problems and Jim
Ray learned to control the hanging-stick control. The tilting
rotor was developed before the more complex cyclical pitch
controls that would allow vertical jump takeoffs. But by
August 1933 Cierva, having already perfected the tilting
rotor mechanism in the C.19MkIV and V prototypes, had
achieved jump takeoffs in the C.30, the first commercial
direct control Autogiro. Given that the Americans had
agreed to concentrate on a tilting rotor cyclical pitch
control, it is understandable that Cierva would immediately
invite Pitcairn to come to England to see the latest
developments, and it is equally understandable that the
Pitcairn company would send Jim Ray, the most experienced
pilot with direct control. Ray came and flew and then
summoned Pitcairn, as the engineering team needed to
view the English progress. After viewing the C.30, Larsen
and Stanley concluded that it was not significantly advanced
beyond the PA-22. That opinion had some justification, as
the Americans had observed and flown the C.30P prototype
model (G-ACFI)—sometimes erroneously6 identified as a
C.30MkIII, as the prototype was also known as the C.30P
MkII—which was capable of making jump takeoffs of only a
few feet, as its tilting mechanism still suffered from
vibration problems. Ray and Pitcairn, both pilots, were of a
similar opinion that any control achieved would soon
exhaust the pilot. And it was evident that the C.30P was not
ready for production or commercial sales.
If the apparent lack of English progress was not surprising,
the apparent lack of cooperation was. Even though he had
originally extended the invitation, Cierva seemed to have
little time for his visitors. But if Cierva was excusably
unavailable, and there is evidence that he was then
preoccupied with political unrest in Spain, there is no
rationale for the evident lack of cooperation on the part of
Cierva's English associates, most notably engineer Dr.
J[ames] A[llen] J[amieson] Bennett.7 The perceived
coldness and hesitation at best, and unwillingness at worst,
on the part of the English engineering team to share direct
control information convinced Pitcairn to take all but Jim
Ray home when Cierva left for Spain. Ray, as an
experienced pilot, had established a friendly relationship
with the Cierva staff, and Pitcairn felt that Ray could gain
more information on the direct control and jump takeoff
developments than the engineers. When the Americans
returned to America in late 1933, they found a dire
circumstance at Willow Grove. The factory had no orders
and the cash-flow possibilities were nil—the Depression
finally and perhaps fatally caught up with Harold F. Pitcairn.
He was a visionary, an aviation dreamer, but also a
businessman from a prominent business family. He reached
a necessary but unpleasant business solution. The
production facility was closed, workers let go, and the
remaining staff moved into a building located next to the
main hanger. The only personnel retained were engineers
Stanley and Larsen, pilot Jim Ray, two Autogiro mechanics,
designer Harris Campbell, a bookkeeper, and a telephone
operator/secretary. All other employees were notified
Christmas Eve that they would be unemployed as of
January 1, 1934. That year would be a bleak time for the
ACA, but developmental work on the direct control PA-22
continued, each advancement leading to a patent
application. Other than the technological advancement, the
major product of the company during that year had to be
the twenty-six patents received, four of which were
personally awarded to Pitcairn, and many others were then
in the application process.
But if 1934–35 was a developmental time for Pitcairn, it
also saw significant Autogiro growth in Europe, with direct
control models, and on the part of Pitcairn's competitor
Kellett Autogiro Company. The French licensee Lioré-et-
Olivier negotiated an extension to their C.19 agreement to
include the manufacture and further development of the
C.30, and the English company began delivery of the C.30A
in July. In late 1933 and early January of 1934 Kellett chief
engineer Richard H. Prewitt visited the English company to
view the C.30A and study direct control. These
consultations resulted in a January 1934 Kellett
developmental effort that would result in the KD-1 (for
Kellet Direct Control–1), a direct control version of the K-2,
which was first flown on December 9, 1934, by Kellett test
pilot Lou8 Levy (who later changed his name to Leavitt).9 It
would receive ATC 712 on January 1, 1935, and eventually
about ninety-seven derivatives would be built in Japan,
flown against its foes in World War II.
Brie began 1934 flying a C.30P from London to Paris in two
hours and twenty minutes on January 5, an impressive
demonstration for the French Air Ministry, which had
acquired it for testing. Cierva then flew a C.30P (G-ACIO) to
France and Spain and toured his native country in February
and March, a 2,500-mile direct control Autogiro tour that
may also have been motivated by a desire to promote his
political interests.10 Brie also demonstrated the direct
control model before the Belgian Air Force at Evère, near
Brussels, in February and returned to France for the Sixth
Fête Aérienne de Vincennes near Paris in February 1935.
And while Cierva had tested the direct control Autogiro's
ability to landing on ship on a 52-by-170-foot platform
erected on the Spanish navy seaplane tender Dédalo off
Valencia on March 7, 1934, Brie had renewed navy interest
in the Autogiro with a series of landings on a smaller, 49-
by-115-foot platform on the Italian cruiser Fiume on
January 5, 1935. While the previous Cierva landings on the
Spanish ship had been made while at anchor, the January
1935 flights were accomplished while the ship was steaming
at twelve, fifteen, twenty-one, and twenty-four knots off Le
Spezia, an impressive demonstration of the C.30 under
operational conditions which led to the British Royal Navy
arranging for landing trials with a C.30A Rota, as the
military models were called, during the 1935 Summer
Cruise. Brie duplicated his earlier success with landings on
the HMS Furious. So even as the American Autogiro
industry awaited a successful, commercially viable direct
control model, the Cierva C.30 in its various configurations
was achieving a civilian and potential military success.
There was also a parallel direct control effort on the part of
G. and J. Weir Ltd. While Lord William and James Weir had
been instrumental in bringing Cierva to England, it was not
until the summer of 1932 that James proposed that the
family company secure a Cierva license to build a direct
control Autogiro. Although this may have been due to the
advent of practical direct control, it is intriguing to suggest
that it may also have been influenced by Mrs. James Weir
becoming the first woman in England to get an Autogiro
endorsement on her “A” license.11 Cierva undoubtedly
granted the license to his old friend because the
development of the direct control C.19MkV had become an
expensive undertaking, but also because Weir had proposed
to develop a small, single-seat aircraft, a direction that
Cierva could not but feel would prove productive as Autogiro
aviation evolved into an affordable and safe form of
personal transportation. The W.1, designed by Fred L.
Hodgess and R.F. Bower in Scotland with extensive
consultation with Cierva in England, was built at Cathcart,
near Glasgow. The small aircraft, completed in the spring of
1933, was powered by a custom-designed 40-horsepower
Douglas (Motors Ltd.) Dryad two-cylinder horizontally
opposed air-cooled engine and utilized a two-blade folding
rotor. The rotor disk was relatively small, with a twenty-
eight-foot diameter, and the engine was relatively light,
consistent with the plan to produce a personal flying
machine. The prototype, featuring a light plywood
monocoque fuselage, was taken to Hanworth in England,
where Cierva made an initial flight in May. It was test-flown
throughout the summer by Marsh and Cierva again flew it in
September, possibly before Harold Pitcairn and his
associates who were then visiting the English company.
Marsh would remain the main test pilot for the Weir series,
as both Cierva and Brie, large men, were not comfortable in
the narrow confines of the small Autogiros.
Although Cierva may have considered the Weir effort as a
parallel development effort to the C.19MkV–C.30
experimental direct control aircraft, the W.1 did not perform
well. Due to its small size and necessarily light construction,
even with a small engine, the W.1 experienced great
vibration. The design also proved unacceptable as there was
a pronounced lack of lateral control and inadequate
provision for prerotation. The W.1 was returned to Scotland
for redesign and then was returned to Hanworth in
December for testing, but it soon came to an inglorious end
—while landing on December 21, pilot Alan March
overturned the aircraft.
The next model, the W.2, also featured a light plywood
monocoque fuselage and a geared 45-horsepower Weir air-
cooled engine that had been specifically designed in mid-
1933 by a team under the direction of Fred Hodges and now
including Ken Watson and, of greatest importance Dr. J. A.
J. Bennett, who would later succeed Cierva as chief
designer of the Cierva Autogiro Company. Although much
more stable and controllable, its engine only produced 45
horsepower, the performance of the W.2 was anemic, and
engine-induced vibration was pronounced. Although the
Weir company took steps to market the W.2, issuing a sale
brochure in August of 1934, the W.2 prototype remained
the only one ever built, currently to be found in the aviation
collection of the Royal Scottish Museum at East Fortune
near Edinburgh.12
Even though the Weir company decided on February 5,
1935, to discontinue Autogiro development, two additional
small, single-seat Weir Autogiros were built for specific
testing and developmental purposes. The W.3, built by a
small design team of six people, was to test the new Cierva
jump takeoff rotor head with its cyclic control. The W.3 was
a flying platform to test and refine the jump takeoff, and
Alan Marsh flew it for the first time at Abbotsinch, near
Glasgow, on July 9, 1936. Although it performed well,
engine reliability was a real problem, and it never reached
the commercial market. The Weir W.4 was a refined version
of the W.3, with a reliable 55-horsepower Weir Pixie engine
and an aerodynamically streamlined rotor pylon. The W.4
never flew, overturning during taxi tests conducted by Alan
Marsh in late 1937, and was never rebuilt. The Weir
company had had enough; its board met on December 28,
1937, and decided to cancel its Autogiro program,
preferring instead to proceed with helicopter
development,13 as the world was then taking note of
German developments, and the Weir company reasoned
that their hard-won capabilities and experience in rotary
flight would more profitably be transferred to the emerging
helicopter.
In January 1934 Sir John Siddeley, chairman of the
Armstrong Siddeley Development Company Ltd., which
controlled A. V. Roe, decided that the company would
commence commercial production of the C.30A direct
control Autogiro. A license was obtained from Cierva
Autogiro Company Ltd. early in 1934, and production
commenced and deliveries started in July. Eventually
seventy-eight would be produced before production ceased
in June 1938. It was evident that the £31,250 price, around
$50,000 today, did not deter the desire for direct control. In
addition to supplying flying schools at Heston and Hamble
and the Cierva Autogiro Flying School at Hanworth, the
company even tested a C.30A, flown by S. J. Chamberlin,
fitted with a two-way radio for the metropolitan police
department for traffic control in mid-August of that year,
becoming the first rotary-wing traffic reporter. In October a
C.30A was exported to western Australia, intended for use
in the gold fields in New Guinea, but Brooks notes that “the
C.30 never got to New Guinea…. [I]ts fate is unknown.” But
a clue may be furnished in the first day cover of the First
Australian Autogiro Flight dated November 16, 1934. That
cover, from the time of the Melbourne to Portland Flight,
shows an aborigine gazing up at a C.30P (G-ACIN) which is
listed ambiguously by Brooks as having been scrapped in
1938. An additional C.30A was exported to Australia in June
1935, and it may be that model that was reported still in
existence in November 1978.14
C.30 models were sold to France, Belgium, Sweden, Hong
Kong, Holland, Brazil, Poland, India, Italy, Denmark,
Czechoslovakia, Spain, Lithuania, Soviet Union, China,
Yugoslavia, and Argentina. That it had caught the public eye
surely motivated the Hon. Mrs. Victor Bruce to attempt to
fly a C.30A from England to Capetown on November 25,
1934. Although her attempt started well, with a 370-mile
flight to Dijon, France, it ended three days later near Nîmes,
240 miles further south in France, when she suffered slight
injury in a crash landing. Brie also experimented with flights
between Hanworth and the London Mount Pleasant Post
Office in central London, although he did not actually land.
It was the first investigation of a potential role for the
Autogiro in providing airmail service between central city
post offices and outlying airfields and may have served as
an inspiration for the construction of a landing area on the
roof of the 30th Street Post Office in Philadelphia. Pitcairn
had in 1933 “advocated that it be built with a roof that
would withstand landings by autogiros,” and in 1935, when
Kellett and Pitcairn had been flying direct control models,
they would make test landings on that roof.15 A C.30A was
flown by the Spanish navy in military operations mounted in
connection with a rebellion in Asturias in October of 1934,
first actual combat use of the Auto-giro—it would not be the
last. The RAF, its interest rekindled with the advent of
direct-control, ordered two new designations, each a
configuration of the C.30. The Rota I, of which ten were
ordered, was intended for army use, while the Rota II was
equipped with floats for naval deployment. RAF Flight
Lieutenants W. Humble and R. H. Haworth-Booth were
trained at the Cierva school at Hanworth in September 1934
and ordered to the RAF School of Army Cooperation at Old
Sarum to provide pilot training, and by December 24 the
British War Office had decided to replace observation
balloons with Autogiros. Although Rota service was to carve
out a military role for the Autogiro, it would not prove that
which was originally anticipated, and it led to the first fatal
accident in England. On January 21, 1935, Flying Officer L.
W. Oliver perished when, losing control in a cloud, he
entered into a high-speed dive from which he was unable to
recover.16 The Rota II was tested for naval uses, but found
too slow because of the weight and drag of the attached
floats. And by 1935 the Americans were flying direct control
models.
The Kellett Autogiro Company had begun developing a
direct control aircraft shortly after company officials met
with Cierva in late 1933. This direct contact with Cierva had
the effect of chilling the relationship between the Kellett and
Pitcairn companies, who were rapidly emerging as rivals.
The KD-1 received ATC No. 712 in early January, 1935, less
than thirty days after its first flight.17 Unlike the previous
Kellett Autogiros, the KD-1 was an open-cockpit, tandem
model, with the streamlined rotor pylon forward of the front
cockpit and the landing gear almost directly below the
pylon, and the tilting direct control rotor head was
controlled by means of a conventional floor-mounted stick.
The model, viewed as a handsome alternative to the Cierva
C.30, was aggressively promoted in a variety of
configurations: KD-1, KD-1A, and KD-1B civilian variants
and the YG-1, YG-1A, YG-1B, and YO-60 Army Air Corps
models. It had a three-blade cantilevered rotor, and the
blades could be folded straight back for easier storage. The
KD-1 immediately created much interest, and the company
actively sought opportunities to demonstrate its abilities. On
May 25, 1935, perhaps inspired by Brie's English airmail
experimental flights, Lou Levy landed a KD-1 on the roof of
the 30th Street Post Office in Philadelphia,18 and Jim Ray
similarly demonstrated the PA-22.19 But even though the
new Philadelphia post office had been constructed with a
reinforced roof free from projections and obstacles, it would
take an additional four years before an experimental air
route would be initiated with Autogiro service. There were
more immediate and potentially valuable opportunities for
the American manufacturers, however. The military had
become interested.
The advent of direct control and the publicity being
generated in Europe and the interest shown by the military
authorities of several countries resulted in a 1934
government request for bids. Both Kellett and Pitcairn
responded, as by then the PA-22 was flying well. With the
seventh version, in which an effective direct control three-
blade rotor had been installed after significant testing and a
more effective tail unit with a raised stabilizer and two
outboard fins was also installed, the Pitcairn engineering
team felt it had finally solved the problems associated with
direct control. Ray demonstrated the improved PA-22 to
army, navy, and civilian officials at the Naval War College in
Washington. It went through an eighth modification with the
addition of outward-tilted fins on the stabilizer, resulting in
increased stability, which would become characteristic of all
future designs. In response to the Army Air Corps request,
Pitcairn prepared two different designs for consideration.
Because a Kellet KD-1 that had been acquired by the army
for testing had been dubbed the YG-1, the Pitcairn PA-33
was designated the YG-2,20 the Y denoting an army model
undergoing field testing and the G for Autogiro (A already
had been allocated to attack planes). It was a direct control
tandem two-seater configuration with forty-six-foot rotor,
later increased to fifty-foot-diameter three-blade cantilever
rotor21 mounted on a reworked PCA-2 fuselage. Powered by
a Wright R-975-9 Whirlwind 420-horsepower engine, the
aircraft achieved a maximum speed of 144 mph flying at
3,150 feet, even though it weighed 3,300 pounds. And as
the PA-34, named the XOP-2, it was supplied to the navy
with slightly different landing gear.
Military testing did not initially go well, as the stability
achieved by the PA-22 did not automatically scale up to the
larger military models. The YG-2 sent to the NACA
experimental flight center at Langley Field, Virginia, for
aerodynamic testing suffered a crash on March 30, 1936,
when a rotor blade failed while flying at 120 mph. Both pilot
Bill McAvoy and passenger John Wheatley safely
parachuted, but the aircraft was completely destroyed by
fire. The army observer was a young First Lieutenant named
H[ollingsworth] Franklin Gregory, who was to become one
of the most influential contributors to the failure of the
Autogiro in America even as he became incredibly
instrumental in making the helicopter a practical reality.
The XOP-2 ordered by the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics in
1936, but not produced until 1937, faired little better than
its army counterpart to which it was almost identical,
differing in having a more open tubular truss landing gear
and, understandably, fittings for flotation equipment. Based
on the crash of the army model, the XOP-2 rotor blades
were redesigned, but the military experiences with the
Pitcairn models did not produce any further orders.
The Kellett military version of the KD-1/KD-1A, the YG-1
series (YG-1/YG-1A/YG-1B), was first delivered to the Army
Air Corps in October 1936 and performed well enough that
subsequent models were ordered for the Air Corps Autogiro
School at Patterson Field in Springfield near Dayton, Ohio,
in 1938. The army had, however, first examined a KD-1 at
Wright Field in 1935, considering it for military missions
under the designation YG-1. The first YG-1 went to NACA in
early 1936 for evaluation, where the assigned pilots were
army Lieutenants H. Franklin Gregory and Erickson
Snowden Nichols, brother of Ruth Nichols, the famous
woman aviator. While at NACA, the army pilots were soon
visited by company president Wallace W. Kellett, chief
engineer Richard H. Prewitt, and Lou Leavitt, company test
pilot. Gregory and Nichols found flying lessons with Leavitt
to be instructive, as he was by then, with Jim Ray, one of
the most experienced Autogiro pilots in America, but they
also enjoyed the conversations with Prewitt. He described
the aircraft's design and construction, wonderfully
informative for Gregory, who would later make the decisions
that would doom the Autogiro.
The pilots22 called Prewitt, who had actually designed the
YG-1, “Daddy of the Whirligig.” Subsequently, the KD-1 flew
in a testing program for the Field Artillery Board at Fort
Bragg, North Carolina, consisting of directing artillery fire,
reconnaissance, and landings in otherwise inaccessible
areas. That testing, including the first use of a telephone,
with a 1,500-foot cord to the ground, is recounted in H.
Franklin Gregory'sAnything a Horse Can Do. The second
Kellet aircraft, a YG-1A, which had been modified with
addition of military H.F. Radio, was delivered in October
1936. Although the testing showed a reconnaissance role in
artillery spotting, each of the test models would suffer
multiple crashes and eventually be destroyed in the testing
process, in the field or in the NACA wind tunnel, but the
army would open its Autogiro Training School. But as then–
First Lieutenant (later Brigadier General) H. Franklin
Gregory makes clear in his autobiographical book Anything
a Horse Can Do, he and his army colleagues were even then
viewing the Autogiro as an intermediate step to the
helicopter. And some of the data derived from the NACA
studies of the Kellett military models were to play an
important role in helicopter rotor development even as the
Pitcairn rotary-wing patents would prove vital to such
achievements. Gregory had concluded his evaluation of the
Kellett direct control (but not jump takeoff) Autogiros that
they were “in reality little more than a high-lift device on a
conventional airplane … that offered no more—and in many
cases less—perfor-mance that the performance of many
ultra-light fixed-wing aircraft.”23
In March of 1936 Fortune revisited the Autogiro with an
article entitled “Autogiro in 1936” and expressed a decidedly
different view than the previous article by Ingalls in March
1931. In evaluating the Autogiro, the magazine viewed the
coming of direct control as portending a “rebirth”—and, in
evaluating the previous models praised five years earlier,
stated plainly that the Autogiro had “turned out to be a
lemon … for all practical purposes.” While the unidentified
writer recognized that the Autogiro was “still the only flying
machine that could rise from a narrow lawn, loaf through
the air as slowly as twenty-five miles an hour, and, if its
engine died, settle to earth as gently as a parachute,” went
on to assert that “the trouble was … it would do those
things generally only in the hands of experts; and it would
notdo, even for the experts, certain other desirable things,
like flying fast and carrying a decent load. (‘Half the speed
for twice the horsepower’ was the contemptuous jibe of
airplane pilots and engineers.)” Harold F. Pitcairn, previously
described as an “Impresario” in 1931, now was
characterized as “a rich, scholarly Pennsylvania socialite of
somewhat ascetic tendencies and mathematical bent,” who
with “his brothers Raymond, a lawyer, and Theodore,
philosopher, artist, and Swedenborgian minister … shares
the wealth of the Pitcairn Co., which has notable holdings of
Pittsburgh Plate Glass.” Being portrayed not as an aviation
visionary but as a rich dabbler was no doubt a painful
denunciation, and Pitcairn could not have helped but be
further dismayed at the magazine's assertion that Cierva
“had regarded the whole Pitcairn venture in the U.S. as a
large testing ground on which the giro would be given a
thorough-going workout under all sorts of conditions, while
he perfected the design for market in Europe.”24 However,
in the same article containing those words was a powerful
visualtestimony of the coming of age of the Autogiro, for in
eleven sequential photos that started horizontally from the
lower left corner of page 88 and continued vertically up the
left side of the facing page and then horizontally across that
page the article showed the first pictorial record of an
Autogiro making a jump takeoff, a C.30 (G-ACFI) piloted by
Juan de la Cierva. And in an illustration spanning the center
section of the two following pages, the magazine introduced
the reader to the latest Pitcairn development, the
“roadable” Autogiro, capable of achieving speeds of 110
mph in the air and then, upon landing and folding its blades
backward, driving along the highway at 25 mph. In final
evaluation of the achievement of direct control, the jump
takeoff, and the American roadable Autogiro, Fortune
concluded that “after sixteen years the autogiro has only
now become an autogiro.” Sadly, however, that observation
was to prove untrue, and the very developments cited for
the coming Autogiro rebirth would either prove a
misdirection (the roadable) or merely an essential building
block of the coming helicopter.
In 1930 Amelia Earhart was working for the New York,
Philadelphia and Washington Airway Corporation, which had
been started by aviation-minded Philadelphians Nicholas
and Charles Townsend Ludington, later partners of the
Kellett brothers. Earhart was one of three vice presidents,
the other two being Paul Collins and Eugene Vidal, father of
writer Gore Vidal. Earhart worked seriously at the job, being
in charge of publicity and complaints. She also flew over the
line at least every few days, once chaperoning a bird and
another time dealing with a woman who had announced
that she would be traveling with a lapdog but showed up
with what witnesses characterized as a ‘heifer.’25 She
became close to her colleague “Gene” Vidal. He was, by all
accounts, handsome, bright, and an athletic star in several
sports at the University of South Dakota who graduated first
in his engineering class. While in the army after graduation,
Vidal served in the air corps and became the first flying
instructor at the United States Military Academy at West
Point. He was a talented pilot and committed to aviation,
and his 1922 marriage to the daughter of the senior senator
from Tennessee, Thomas Gore, was considered a brilliant
match. But by 1930, the marriage was in name only, with a
growing gap between the party-loving socialite Nina Gore
Vidal and her aviator husband, leading each to go their
separate ways. She would divorce Gene in 1935 and marry
fellow party-lover and bon vivant Hugh D. Auchincloss,
future stepfather to Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. But
already by 1930, Gene had become entranced with Amelia,
and there is indication that the affection was returned and
that by 1933, if not before, she and Gene had become
romantically involved,26 a fact apparently accepted by her
husband George Palmer Putnam.27 Earhart wore a man's
boxer shorts while flying, which were more comfortable and
suited to long flights, and while her husband related that
they were his, Eugene Vidal related that they were his.
Years later, after her disappearance, he was able to debunk
reported sightings of a woman pilot on a pacific island
wearing jockey shorts.28
Amelia had met Eleanor Roosevelt on November 20, 1932,
and formed an immediate friendship for the wife of the
newly elected president of the United States and admired
woman of distinctive achievement. They met at the
Roosevelt home at Hyde Park, but then Mrs. Roosevelt
accompanied Amelia to her lecture at the local public high
school in Poughkeepsie, New York. During that public
presentation of films and personal remarks, during which
she recounted her cross-country Autogiro flight, she
“diplomatically praised Poughkeepsie hometown boy
Lieutenant John Miller, who had beaten her across the
continent in his autogiro.”29 Earhart used her friendship with
the Roosevelts, particularly the first lady, to lobby for Vidal's
appointment as director of the aeronautics branch of the
department of commerce, an appointment announced by
the president on September 20, 1933. The following year
Vidal championed government support for the aviation
industry, and thought that one way to accomplish this was
to create cheap, readily available airplanes. Manufacturers
were, therefore, invited to bid on the construction of this
“poor man's airplane.” The prospectus requirements were
formidable: a speed of 100 mph, takeoff and landing in a
space thirty feet square, and a “roadable” capability. Seven
experimental aircraft were developed for the program, but
only one met all the requirements—the AC-35, also known
as the PA-35, was produced by the Autogiro Company of
America.
The “roadable” Autogiro had been a favorite idea of Jim Ray,
who unsuccessfully championed roadability in 1933 for
inclusion in the PA-22. The ACA received a contract from the
Bureau of Air Commerce to produce a prototype AC-35 in
late 1934 and commenced development that would continue
into 1936. It was to be a PA-22-like direct control design,
with a hanging-stick control and a side-by-side seat
arrangement in an enclosed cabin. But the roadability
requirement led to a novel placement of the engine, buried
in the cabin to the rear of the passengers. The 90-
horsepower Pobjoy Cascade engine had a shaft passing
through the front cabin and connecting to the propeller, but
also a crankshaft through a clutch and gear to the rear
wheel that would propel the vehicle along a highway at 25
mph.30 Additionally, there was an extension of the front
crankshaft that ran up to the rotor, with a selector
mechanism that allowed the pilot to prerotate the blades. It
was a complex but workable solution to all the requirements
of the government contract, and the AC-35, designed by a
team headed by Agnew E. Larsen, featured a welded steel
tube fuselage construction with wooden fairing strips and
metal and fabric covering. Its original version had a boxlike
tail and double-contrarotating propellers, but these were
replaced by more conventional designs in final
configuration.31 The rotors could be folded back and the
aircraft stored in a seven-by-twenty-four-foot space.32 It
was scheduled for delivery to the government in the late
summer of 1935 but was not delivered until the fall of the
following year, having first flown on March 26, 1936. Jim
Ray had flown the test flights and found it to be a stabile,
reliable aircraft, and fun besides. Ray would often fly to a
small Pennsylvania town, land on a deserted road, fold the
blades, and drive around town. He always drew a crowd
when he extended the rotor blades and took off from a road
outside town.
It is likely that Gene Vidal smiled when, in response to
Pitcairn's inquiry as to where the AC-35 (NX70) was to be
delivered, he replied that since it was, after all, “roadable,”
it should be delivered to the front door of the Department of
Commerce building on Fourteenth Street in Washington,
D.C.33 It is equally likely that both Pitcairn and Ray readily
took the challenge, for it promised terrific publicity for the
AC-35. On October 26 Pennsylvania Avenue was blocked off
between Thirteenth and Fifteenth, and Jim Ray landed in
front of the Occidental Restaurant and the Willard Hotel,
folded the rotor blades, and drove to the Department of
Commerce building, where it was accepted by Secretary
Roper.34 It was a publicity triumph, and the film of that
landing is still shown by the Smithsonian National Air and
Space Museum.
The government subsequently lent the AC-35 back to
Pitcairn for further development of a powered rotor and
several modifications were made, but the project was
cancelled in 1940. Pitcairn then restored the AC-35 to its
1936 form, and it was returned to the government in 1942
and accepted into the Smithsonian National Air and Space
Museum in 1950. It was driven to the museum through the
streets of Washington, D.C. Pitcairn had even offered the
licensing rights to the PA-35 to Cierva Autogiro Company
Ltd., but the English company was not interested—it was
moving in different directions.35There is a curious postscript
to the AC-35, and it represents one of the two unsuccessful
attempts in the late 1950s through the early 1960s to
revive the Autogiro. In 1961 Skyway Engineering Company,
Inc., located in Carmel, Indiana, acquired a license from the
ACA for the design and patent rights, blueprints, analyses
and flight test results to the AC-35, with the intent to
produce and market a modernized version of the roadable
Autogiro. One model was built and successfully flown at
Terry Field near Indianapolis. The Skyway prototype
(N35133)36 even used some components from the original
aircraft, but the company experienced internal problems
and the project failed to go forward beyond the single
prototype.
At the successful conclusion of the AC-35 project in 1936,
and with the PA-22 having been developed into an effective
flying-test platform, Pitcairn decided to take his engineering
team and their families to England for an extended working
vacation to consult with Cierva and his colleagues. But soon
after Pitcairn, Stanley, Ray, and Larsen had arrived, they
learned that Cierva was absent in Spain and that
cooperation was not readily forthcoming from the engineers
and officials of the English company. Cierva, preoccupied
with the deteriorating conditions, had good reason to be
afraid, as Spain was then in civil war and his brother
Ricardo was being held by the Communist forces. He had
earlier that year, with Louis Antonio Bolin Bidwell, London
correspondent of the Royalist Madrid newspaper A B C,
secretly arranged for a clandestine flight by a twin-engine
English airplane piloted by Cecil W. H. Bebb, which altered
the course of history. The flight departed Croydon, London's
airport on July 11 supposedly to take retired British Army
officer Major Hugh Pollard, his daughter, and her friend on
vacation to Casablanca. After dropping the passengers off,
the flight continued to Las Palmas to pick up General
Francisco Franco and his aide and fly them to Tetunan, in
Spanish Morocco, on July 19. Franco was in a strategic
position from where he would assume command of the
Spanish army. The Spanish government had exiled General
Franco to quell his popularity with the people and the army,
and shortly after his return, he would lead the army in
revolt against the Communist government, initiating the
Spanish Civil War.37So Pitcairn and his colleagues were
understanding of the delays in meeting with Cierva, but
they grew increasingly concerned about the coldness of the
English team. Even though Pitcairn had moments of doubt
in the past concerning the English company, of which he
was a director, he trusted that upon Cierva's return a
productive relationship could continue. And although, in
light of the past, that was probably true, it was not to be, as
Cierva perished in the crash of the KLM D.C.2 (PH-AKL)
flight, bound for Amsterdam from the airport at Croydon
Aerodrome, London, as recounted in the introduction to this
book.
Many paid tribute to Cierva in published obituaries, and the
Royal Aeronautical Society posthumously awarded him its
prestigious Gold Medal. Harold Pitcairn paid tribute to his
friend of almost a decade in writing
Juan de la Cierva will be known to enduring fame as the
outstanding pioneer in the field of rotary wing aircraft…. All
helicopters and similar types of craft that have shown
promise of practical performance incorporate some of the
principles and inventions developed by Cierva.38
NOTES

1. Frank Kingston Smith, Legacy of Wings: The Story of

Harold F. Pitcairn (New York: Jason Aronson, 1981), p.
222.
2. Peter W. Brooks, Cierva Autogiros: The Development of
Rotary-Wing Flight(Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian
Institution Press, 1988), p. 152; but see Smith,Legacy
of Wings, p. 223, where the decision to continue with a
tilting rotor–collective pitch control system is solely a
Pitcairn decision.
3. Brooks, p. 152.
4. Smith, Legacy of Wings, p. 225. Brooks fails to mention
this episode.
5. Smith, Legacy of Wings, p. 225.
6. Ibid., p. 226; but see Brooks, p. 182.
7. D.Sc., Ph.D., D.I.C., F.R.Ae.Sc., and Professor of
Aerodynamics and Deputy Principal, College of
Aeronautics in 1961.
8. Gablehouse reports this as “Lew” but is probably
confusing him with Lewis “Lew”A. Yancey. Gablehouse,
Charles. Helicopters and Autogiros: A Chronicle of
Rotating-Wing Aircraft. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1967,
p. 198.
9. For Lou Levy, see “Autogiro in 1936,” Fortune 13, no. 3
(March 1936): 88–93, 130–31, 134, 137, 89; John M.
Miller, “Test Flying for Kellett Autogiro Corporation,”
Rotorcraft 30, no. 7 (October–November 1992): 22–28,
22; Ibid., “The First Scheduled Rooftop Flying Operation
in Aviation (Autogiro Air Mail Service at Philadelphia,
1939–40),” Rotorcraft 30, no. 6 (September 1992): 24–
33, 24; Hollingsworth Franklin Gregory, Anything a
Horse Can Do: The Story of the Helicopter, Introduction
by Igor Sikorsky (New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1944),
p. 55 (“and Lou Levy (later his name was changed to
Leavitt), test pilot for Kellett”).
10. Brooks, p. 358 n. 24.
11. Ibid., p. 112.
12. Ibid., p. 170; Bob Ogden, British Aviation Museums and
Collections, 2nd ed. (Stamford, Lincolnshire, England:
Key Publishing Ltd., 1986), pp. 91–92; Ibid.,British
Aviation Museums (Stamford, Lincolnshire, England:
Key Publishing Ltd., 1983), p. 64–65.
13. Brooks, p. 174.
14. Martin Hollmann, “One of the Last C.30A Autogiros
Founds in Australia,”Gyroplane World, no. 26
(November 1978): 2–3.
15. Miller, “First Scheduled Rooftop Flying,” p. 24.
16. That accident and other European fatal crashes are
recounted by Brooks, including reference to a fatal
accident in August 1935 at Willow Grove in a PA-18,
where John Miller's passenger Robert Swenson died.
See Brooks, pp. 192–93. But neither George Townson
nor Frank Kingston Smith make any mention of this
accident, nor was it mentioned in “Autogiro in 1936.”
17. For pictures of the KD-1, see Brooks, p. 231; George
Townson, Autogiro: The Story of “the Windmill Plane,”
pp. 107, 111; Richard Howe, “Kellett KD-1/YG-1
Autogyro (Photo Essay),” American Aviation Historical
Society Journal 23, no. 1 (first quarter 1978): 49–50;
George Townson and Howard Levy, “The History of the
Autogiro: Part 2,” Air Classics Quarterly Review 4, no. 3
(Fall 1977): 4–19, 110–114, 14 (Kellett KD-1 in TWA
markings).
18. For a photograph of Levy making a test delivery of mail
on the roof of the 30th Street Post Office, see Townson,
p. 116.
19. For photographs of the PA-22 landing on the post office
roof, see Smith, Legacy of Wings, p. 239.
20. For a picture of the YG-2, see Brooks, p. 235; Townson,
p. 65.
21. Brooks, pp. 214–17.
22. Gregory, p. 55.
23. As cited in Smith, Legacy of Wings, p. 252.
24. “Autogiro in 1936,” p. 93.
25. Susan Butler, East to the Dawn: The Life of Amelia
Earhart (New York: Da Capo Press, Inc., 1999), p. 239.
26. There had been rumors that when Earhart returned
from her ill-fated round-the-world flight, she would
divorce George Palmer Putnam and marry Paul Mantz, a
well-known pilot, but even as these rumors had been
widely circulated, Mantz had recently married and was
seemingly happy. Walter Winchell, in fact, told the
American radio audience that such rumors were untrue
but that Earhart would divorce and then marry “an
aviation inventor.” Lovell, however, argues that Earhart
and Vidal were not lovers, citing a lack of mention of
the relationship in Earhart's letters, but such reasoning
is not convincing, because Earhart was generally
circumspect in her letter writing. Butler states
unequivocally, “Gene and Amelia were undoubtedly
lovers,” and cites the opinions of Katherine (Kit) Vidal,
Gene's widow, whom he married in 1939, and his son
Gore Vidal. See Mary S. Lovell, The Sound of Wings:
The Life of Amelia Earhart(New York: St. Martins Press,
1989), p. 265; Butler, pp. 291–95.
27. Butler, pp. 277–79.
28. Ibid., pp. 291–92.
29. Ibid., p. 281.
30. Aircraft of the National Air and Space Museum, 4th ed.
(Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991;
see “Pitcairn AC-35”); but see Brooks, p. 219, citing a
top speed for the AC-35 of twenty-five to thirty mph.
31. For pictures of the various configurations of the AC-35,
see Smith, Legacy of Wings, pp. 243–45.
32. Aircraft of the National Air and Space Museum.
33. For a contemporary account of the delivery of the
“roadable” Autogiro, see“Roadable Autogiro,” Aviation
35, no. 11 (November 1936): 33–34.
34. For photographs of the AC-35, rotors folded back, being
accepted by the department of commerce, see Walter J.
Boyne, The Aircraft Treasures of Silver Hill (New York:
Rawson Associates, 1982), pp. 137–38.
35. Smith, Legacy of Wings, p. 259.
36. For a picture and diagrams of the Skyway AC-35, see
Townson, pp. 71–72.
37. Brooks, p. 359 n. 28.
38. Harold F. Pitcairn, “Juan de la Cierva: In Memoriam,”
Autogiro Company of America, Philadelphia, January 9,
1939.
 Chapter 7

PITCAIRN AFTER CIERVA

Cierva's flair was for the elegance of mathematics and the
romance of aerodynamics. He cared little for mechanical
engineering; as far as he was concerned, that was a rather
crude relative of the plumbing business. The Autogiro was
his, and his alone, and he could not bear to contemplate
submerging its beautiful simplicity in a welter of shafts,
clutches, and gears—which would not be his.
Pioneering English pilot Frank T. Courtney, Flight Path
Cierva's death had a great personal impact on Harold
Pitcairn. Even though the American had sensed an
underlying rivalry in terms of the two companies, he
remained close friends with the inventor. As a member of
the board of directors of the English company Pitcairn had
participated in its affairs (fifteen trips to Europe between
1928 and 1936, and four consultations with Cierva in
America), but after Cierva's death, a distancing had taken
place. The English engineers seem to be very hesitant about
including Pitcairn's colleagues Agnew Larsen and Paul
Stanley, who were then resident in England—a hesitation
that soon descended into resentment and then outright
hostility. Additionally, Dr. J. A. J. Bennett, Cierva's
successor, seemed unwilling to share the results of current
research, effectively refusing to respond to Pitcairn's
legitimate inquiries. Pitcairn had a vital interest in this work,
as the Autogiro Company of America had rights to the work
of the English company, which influenced and was then
incorporated into and its own work. It was now evident that
the collaborative spirit and practices that existed during
Cierva's lifetime were a thing of the past.
By February 1937 Pitcairn, concluding that the relationship
between the English company and his associates then in
England had deteriorated to such an extent that it no longer
made any sense to maintain a presence, recalled Larsen
and Stanley. However, he asked Jim Ray to remain, in part
because of Ray's cordial personal and professional
relationship with chief test pilot Reggie Brie. In this manner
Pitcairn hoped to gather information on what was happening
in Europe. The news was not encouraging; Ray, observing
that the Bennett engineering group seemed to have little to
do after the departure of the American observers,
complained that he had little to occupy his time and thought
it appropriate to return home. Pitcairn, however, asked him
to gather information on the French and German helicopter
programs that were already fueling an active rumor mill. In
this case the German rumors proved to be founded and
ominous. Ray transmitted the information he had gathered
on the achievements of Anton Flettner and, after spending
several weeks in Bremen, a confirmation of the seminal
work of Focke-Achgelis & Company's Fa-61 helicopter.1 The
Germans had been most anxious to show off the latest
aviation development and had willingly demonstrated the
Fa-61 from a distance. But in the Fall of 1937 the Fa-61 had
been flown before the world's most famous living aviator,
Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh, then a personal guest of
Hermann Göring, who wanted to proclaim the advances in
German air power. Lindbergh's reports of the vertical flight
achievements of the Fa-61 were insightful and were
perceived as accurate, authoritative, and alarming.
To Pitcairn, however, whatever the comfort derived from the
Lindbergh observation that this was a prototype capable of
lifting only its pilot, the most problematic and troubling
report was that the Fa-61 had used some of Cierva's
supposedly closely guarded patents to achieve effective
collective pitch control. It had become immediately and
painfully obvious to Pitcairn that the company on whose
board he served had, at best, not kept him informed of
licensing agreements with Focke (and, as it turned out, with
Flettner) and, at worst, actively betrayed Autogiro
development. (Indeed, on October 23, 1964, Professor
Focke delivered the Fifth Cierva Memorial Lecture, in which
he paid tribute to Cierva's work as being the significant
contribution to the eventual development of the helicopter.
Igor Sikorsky would later state that Cierva had shortened
the development of the helicopter by ten years.) Pitcairn
immediately departed for England and a confrontation with
his fellow board members and with Dr. Bennett.
The board of directors of Cierva Autogiro Company, Ltd.
directly informed its American member that the Fa-61 had
been developed under license from Cierva Autogiro of its
cyclic/collective pitch control rotor hub and that in a cross-
licensing arrangement Cierva Autogiro had received a
license to build Focke-Achgelis helicopters! Pitcairn was
stunned—it was obvious that, with the Cierva Autogiro
Company seeking to form a consortium with Focke-Achgelis
and the French Bréguet Company to build Fa-61-derived
aircraft, the development of Autogiros in Europe was, if not
ending, receiving a major setback. Far from being
discouraged, however, he returned to America rededicated
to development of the jump takeoff and convinced that its
development would henceforth be an American enterprise.
This, for all practical consideration, effectively ended the
relationship between the American and English companies,
and Pitcairn would proceed alone with the development of
PA-36, considered by many to be the most beautiful
Autogiro ever built. But it would be the last Autogiro
designed by the original Pitcairn company.

Kellett was also active, and it had received much publicity

when a KD-1A accompanied the MacGregor Arctic
Expedition, sponsored by the United States Weather Bureau
during the summer of 1937.2 The Autogiro began flying in
the Arctic, piloted by Navy Lieutenant Commander I.
Schlossbach, in November of 1937. In May 1938 R. Johnson
had his arm broken by the propeller, a reminder that
Autogiro aviation could still be hazardous. The rotary-wing
flights of the Kellett aircraft ended with the conclusion of
the expedition on July 7, 1938. It was the first such aircraft
to fly in the Arctic, beating a TsAGI Russian A-7 autogyro,
which did not fly in that part of the world until later in 1938.

GERALD HERRICK: HV-1, HV-2A

There had also been Autogiro research and developments in
the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s in America,
Germany, and Russia that, while not significant for
mainstream technological progress, would prove influential
thirty years later in the development of the Fairey
Rotodyne, the ultimate but doomed Autogiro achievement
of the early 1960s.
The first of these, the work of Pitcairn's fellow Philadelphian
Gerald Herrick, was the HV-2A Convertaplane,3 an initial
attempt to combine fixed- and rotary-wing flight (he called
his various iterations Vertoplane, Convertiplane,
Convertoplane, and the generic Convertaplane). Assisted by
Ralph Herbert McClarren, then with the Franklin Institute of
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Herrick and his associates
sought to combine the best features of fixed-wing flight and
the Autogiro. He had carefully considered Cierva's
developments and by early 1931 had decided that while the
safety of autorotation was obvious, the problem was the
relative lack of efficiency in horizontal flight. His ingenious
solution, developed after much wind tunnel
experimentation, was a symmetrical airfoil, mounted on a
central rotor pylon that allowed aerodynamic adjustment for
control. This was, in essence, a biplane with a two-bladed
single cantilever upper wing—the Herrick Convertaplane
took off as a conventional biplane and then converted into a
gyroplane, with the upper wing rotating to provide lift on a
central pylon. Herrick's initial design, the HV-1,4 dubbed the
Vertoplane (X11384), flew for the first time on November 6,
1931. It was powered by a tiny three-cylinder 48-
horsepower Poyer engine. Taking off in biplane mode later
in the first attempt to convert from biplane to gyroplane,
the pilot released the upper wing in transition to autogyro
mode to descend, but the aircraft vibrated uncontrollably
and almost immediately dove to the ground in a crash that
killed its pilot.
Undeterred, Herrick immediately set about designing a new
model. By 1936, after much redesign and experimentation,
he had constructed the Herrick HV-2A (X13515). Called the
Convertaplane, this was a much more sturdy craft with
significant design improvements. The upper wing/rotor was
now reduced in size (to twenty-four feet) in comparison to
the lower wing (twenty-eight feet), and an electric motor
was employed to start the engine. Flight-testing of the
biplane, with full cantilever wings but lacking struts or wires
between the wings, began in October of 1936 at Boulevard
Airport in northeast Philadelphia with a pilot more
distinguished by his drinking and carousing than dedication
to the project. Herrick soon replaced him with George
Townson, who had been active with Pitcairn Aviation. The
gross weight of the aircraft was 1,700 pounds, and the
engine was the 125-horsepower, air-cooled, five-cylinder
Kinner. After the HV-2A flew satisfactorily as a fixed-wing
craft, the flight-testing turned to the autogyro (rotating
wing) mode.
The HV-2A was not able to spin up the upper wing (rotor)
mechanically, as no connection had been made to the
engine. In the air, the upper wing would be released to
rotate, initially powered by several five-eighths-inch rubber
bungee cords inside each upper wing half and running
through an aluminum tube. Each of these wing cords was
connected to a cable that wound around a spool. Prior to
takeoff, two people would grasp each wingtip and walk
twice around the central pylon in the opposite direction to
autorotation. The upper wing was then locked in the biplane
cantilever wing position. When the pilot released the lock,
the bungee cords would cause the wing to rotate for two
turns at 60 rpm. The now-spinning wing would then rotate
freely and the flow of air through the disk would increase its
speed to 220 revolutions per minute in autorotation.5
Understandably, the first tests of the HV-2A's autorotation
abilities were not in conversion from horizontal flight but in
takeoff as an autogyro. There, bungee cords could not
provide sufficient rotation to achieve flight, so the HV-2V
was taxied around the perimeter of the airport with the flow
of air slowly increasing the rpm of the rotor. Takeoff was
achieved with 180 rpm, and once airborne, autorotation
increased to 220 rpm. The rotorcraft flights proved the
abilities of the HV-2A in autorotation flight, so the decision
was made to attempt a mid-air conversion. However, in
both autogyro and biplane modes, higher-than-expected
drag was noted as well as a tendency to veer to one side.
Although the former was never solved, the latter was
controlled by pilot technique.
For safety the first conversions from biplane to autogyro
were at low level—and were successful. A public
demonstration on July 30, 1937, gained national publicity6
when the media photographed the air-to-air Convertaplane
conversion at 1,500 feet, and the inventor was heartened
by expressions of interest by United States Navy, but no
funds were provided for further development. With the
public demonstrations in Germany of the helicopter and the
coming of World War II, interest dimmed in Herrick's vision
although he continued to design (but not construct) more
sophisticated machines, earning him the title of “dean of
convertible aircraft designers.” The HV-2A made more than
100 air conversions prior to retirement to the Smithsonian
Institution's Silver Hill Restoration Facility in 1954. While he
was the first, and for many years the only, designer of a
successful Convertaplane, such was the power of this
conventional/rotating wing combination that other designers
and innovators were also attracted to it at the time. While
Herrick remains the most well-known, notice should also be
taken of the Russian I. P. Bratukhin and the German Anton
Flettner.

IVAN PAVAL BRATUKHIN: TSAGI 11-EA

By the mid-to-late 1930s Russia, aviation designer
Professor Ivan Pavel Bratukhin already had several years of
rotorcraft design experience. The Soviet Union had made a
major commitment to the study and development of aircraft
with the creation of the Tsentralnyi Aero-gidrodinamicheskii
Institut (Central Aero-Hydrodynamics Institute), the TsAGI.
It was the first time a scientific institution combined basic
studies, applied research, structural design, pilot
production, and testing of aircraft.
Bratukhin, born in the village of Yaschera (in the modern-
day Kirov region) on February 25, 1903, had become a
member of the Communist party at the age of seventeen,
when the struggle for control of Russia was still in progress.
When TsAGI set up a helicopter research section under
Boris Yuriev, Bratukhin briefly joined it in 1926, but he soon
left for additional studies at the Bauman Technical School in
Moscow, from which he graduated in 1930. Returning to
TsAGI, he was placed in charge of a brigade that developed
the 11-EA between 1936 and 1938. This model sought to
combine the capacities of helicopter, autogyro, and fixed-
wing aircraft, but it failed to accomplish its task and its
development fell victim to politics, a fate later suffered by
the Fairey Rotodyne.
Under conceptual development since 1933, the Bratukhin-
designed 11EA (forExperimentalnyi Autozhir, or
“experimental autogyro”)7 was, under conceptual
development since 1933, constructed in 1936. The 11-EA
had the appearance of a conventional two-passenger
aircraft with an Autogiro pylon topped with a six-bladed
rotor consisting of three shorter rigid blades capable of
feathering (changing pitch) and three longer, articulated
blades. As this craft was to take off as a helicopter,
Bratukhin placed counter-torque propellers (rotating in
opposite directions from each other) on the forward edge of
each wing, which would push and pull in opposite directions
in helicopter (hovering) mode. In forward flight, however,
both propellers pulled forward even as the rotor was
unloaded as an autogyro. The 11-EA had a streamlined
fuselage and was powered by a 630-horsepower Curtiss
Conqueror engine mounted in the forward part of the
fuselage, with a large fan-equipped radiator in front.
Tethered flight-testing began in 1936 and continued until
the next year. These tests, only in limited helicopter mode,
revealed control problems due to the complex six-bladed
rotor. However, external circumstances—including Stalinist
purges, forced relocations of key personnel, and fear of
being accused of sabotage if tests encountered difficulties—
slowed testing, and subsequent developments by 1937
doomed this compound aircraft.8
The reluctance to advance to full, untethered flight-testing
in 1937 was dictated by the official retribution for failure
increasingly exacted by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, who
saw treachery in such lack of success. Bratukhin and his
associates were constantly confronted with reports of
arrests of fellow engineers who had failed to deliver the
desired results. As precisely observed by Lennart Andersson
in Soviet Aircraft and Aviation 1917–1941, “No one wanted
to risk making a mistake and be accused of sabotage.”9
Indeed, Bratukhin's test pilot, Aleksei Cheremukhin was
arrested and imprisoned with other bureau colleagues.10 By
late 1938 the political climate was such that it was judged
improvident and unacceptably risky to continue the
development of this compound aircraft. The 11-EA was
rebuilt between late 1938 and December 1939 as the 11-
EA-PV, a pure helicopter version, with the wings replaced by
framework booms with auxiliary rotors on each side for
torque control. It began flight-testing in October 1940, and
no one mourned it when it last flew in 1941. Thus did the
11-EA fade, having failed to realize a potential of combining
the benefits of its individual components—that would wait
for the Fairey Rotodyne in 1957. But, as will be seen,
Bratukhin would make a contribution in the early 1950s in
the eventual design of the Kamov Ka-22, the Vintokrulya
(“Screw Wing”), the Russian Rotodyne.

ANTON FLETTNER: FL 184, FL 185, AND FL 265

That the German Anton Flettner11 is little remembered as a
pioneering designer of rotary-wing aircraft is no doubt, in
some measure, occasioned by the rather consistent
destruction or abandonment of his models! His prototype
helicopter of 1932, distinguished by the placement of a
small engine and tractor propeller on each blade of a two-
bladed rotor (thus effectively avoiding with the issue of
torque derived from a airframe-mounted engine) was
destroyed shortly after a successful tethered flight when it
overturned in a storm. Flettner's next design, a two-seat
Autogiro dubbed the Flettner Fl 184 (D-EDVE)12 was
constructed with a three-blade rotor and tractor-propeller-
powered 140-horsepower Siemens-Halske Sh 14 radial
engine. This machine was also destroyed when, in
September 1936, the prototype crashed while making a left
turn in preparation for landing into the wind. It was later
determined that an incorrectly set stabilizer, which could not
be controlled during flight, had forced the model into a
seventy-degree dive from about 330 feet.13
Flettner then created a combination Autogiro/helicopter, the
Fl 185 (DEFLT).14 The machine was designed to take off as
a helicopter with a rotor powered by a 140-horsepower
Siemens-Halske Sh 14 engine equipped with a cowl and
frontal fan for cooling. The engine transmitted power to the
rotor and two variable-pitch airscrews mounted on outrigger
arms extending from the fuselage by means of a gearbox
located just behind the cowling. In helicopter mode, the
airscrews rotated in opposite directions, thus effectively
resulting in antagonistic thrust designed to counter rotor-
torque. But with a free rotor in autorotation, the pitch of the
airscrews could be altered to provide forward thrust as they
accelerated, with full power then redirected from the rotor.
Unfortunately for Flettner, this prototype was abandoned
after only a few test-flights, as he bowed to official policy
and concentrated on a pure helicopter (a course of action
similar to that that would be taken by Bratukhin two years
later).
Flettner would go on to develop the best helicopter in World
War II, the “synchropter,” a machine suggested by the work
of Dr. J. A. J. Bennett, based on two off-set intermeshing
counter-rotating blades. It was Flett-ner's dual-rotor design
that gave rise to the term eggbeater.

FOCKE-WULF FW 186 JUMP TAKEOFF

AUTOGYRO
In Germany, Focke-Wulf Flugzeubau GmbH of Bremen held
a Cierva license to manufacture the C.30, but in 1936, the
company developed a jump takeoff autogyro,15 the Fw 186.
Focke would leave the operational company in 1933, forced
out by the Nazis, who questioned his political reliability,16
and he was succeeded by Kurt Tank. Focke, who with Gerd
Achgelis formed the company that bore their names, had
already successfully flown the Fa-61 on June 26, 1936, but
the Focke-Wulf company, in a manner similar to Pitcairn,
had committed in 1936 to develop a jump takeoff autogyro
as an alternative to the newly developed helicopter. This
was to meet German military requirements for a short
takeoff liaison, reconnaissance, and light transport aircraft.
The company had already produced about thirty C.30s
under its license by 1938, but development of the jump
takeoff model, not under a Cierva license, proceeded in
secret as part of the German rearmament program through
1937. The prototype17 FW 186 (D-ISTQ) flew in July 1938,
but this two-seat tandem open-cockpit aircraft was not
successful. It featured a three-blade rotor mounted on a
cantilevered Kellett KD-1-type pylon, with its jump takeoff
mechanism supposedly based on principles developed by
England's Dr. J. A. J. Bennett.18 The first German jump
takeoff model, its performance was found lacking. The
German military authorities, then actively planning for war,
abandoned development in favor of the Fa-61 helicopter, a
technological shift that would occur in 1940 in America
when public funds were withheld from Autogiro
development in favor of an Fa-61-type helicopter proposed
by an upstart company. Focke-Achgelis also developed the
Fa-225, combining a glider fuselage with an Autogiro rotor
system, effectively creating a rotary-wing glider, but it was
never utilized.19
Each of these—Herrick, Bratukhin, Flettner, and Focke-Wulf
—attempted significant developments in autorotational
technology. Had they succeeded, each would have guided
that technology down other paths, but they did not. Yet the
impressive technological achievement embodied in the
Fairey Rotodyne during the 1957–62 time frame vindicates
their work. Although the Rotodyne merits extensive
discussion later in this book, it was primarily with Pitcairn
and the Autogiro Company of America and Kellett Autogiro
Company that technology continued toward an inglorious
end. But first Pitcairn would produce the most beautiful
Autogiro ever constructed—the PA-36.
Pitcairn had already developed jump takeoff capability in
the PA-22, his flying-test platform, and had returned from
Europe in February 1937 committed to the development of
a new Autogiro that would be the state-of-the-art. And
there was the growing imperative of the changing world
situation. Furthermore, of greatest importance to rotary
aircraft development, the Fa-61, the German helicopter, was
then publicly demonstrated. This aircraft, initially flown by
test pilot Ewald Rohlfs for just twenty-eight seconds on June
26, 1936, weighed just over 2,100 pounds and was
powered by a 160-horsepower Bramo radial engine
mounted in the front of the fuselage. It superficially
resembled an Autogiro as there was a wooden propeller in
the front center, but its blades had been cut down to the
size of the cylinders and its only function was to cool the
engine that powered the two three-bladed rotors, which
were mounted on lateral outriggers on either side of the
fuselage. Its forward motion was derived from the rotors,
and as such, it is often credited as the first “practical”
helicopter. For although there was seemingly little public
awareness of the speed records of seventy-seven mph and
altitude achievement of 7,800 feet set in June of 1937, the
public took sharp notice when the world's first female
helicopter pilot, Hanna Reitsch (dubbed the German “Amelia
Earhart” and recently given the honorary rank of
Flugkapitän [Flight Captain] in recognition of her many
research flights in gliders and warplanes), flew the Fa 61
inside the Berlin Deutschland-Halle,20 a large meeting hall,
before thousands of spectators in February 1938. It has
been claimed that the spectators consumed so much
oxygen that it reduced the Fa-61's engine power,
necessitating airing of the arena during the demonstration
flights.21Chosen in part for her photogenic and propaganda
appeal and perhaps in equal part for her petite, slim
stature, given the limited lifting ability of the small
helicopter, she gave an inspired performance. Pictures of
her controlled indoor flight stunned the world in general,
and aviation designers and military leaders in particular—
including American army aviator First Lieutenant H. Franklin
Gregory, who would become instrumental in rotary-wing
development—and insured that rotary development funds
went to the helicopter and not the Autogiro.
Military leaders, stunned when Hitler had revealed the new
Luftwaffe in 1935 as a prime image of a resurgent
Germany, now saw with the Fa-61 evidence of secret
technological progress with the newest aerial weapon. Years
later, when the female helicopter pilots would found an
international organization called the Whirly Girls, Reitsch
fittingly became Whirly Girl #1, a recognition that has
lasted longer than the dubious honor she achieved at the
end of World War II. Toward the end of the war, Reitsch,
then a military test pilot, flew with a male test pilot through
Russian flak to visit Hitler in the Berlin Bunker. The legend,
which then circulated, that Reitsch had subsequently flown
Hitler to safety, resulted in her imprisonment and intense
questioning by Allied intelligence officers after the war's
end.22 But while that was years away in early 1937, Pitcairn
was certainly aware of the military buildup then beginning
in Europe and its implications for America. It would lead
into a legislative lobbying effort designed to produce
government support for his new model. Pitcairn's older
brother Raymond was well-connected in local and national
politics, so it was logical to turn to an aviation-
knowledgeable and sympathetic member of the
Pennsylvania congressional delegation, Representative
Frank J. G. Dorsey. Pitcairn requested that the congressman
sponsor a bill to fund experimental Autogiro development
for the military, and after drafting, Dorsey introduced H.R.
8143 in early 1937, thereafter known as the Dorsey Bill.
The bill, reflecting the specific concerns of his constituents,
was titled “To Authorize the Sum of $2,000,000 for the
Purpose of Autogiro Research, Development and
Procurement for Experimental Purposes.” Congressional
hearings by the House Committee on Military Affairs were
scheduled early in 1938, and Pitcairn resolved to have a
flying model of the PA-36 ready to convince the legislators.

Pitcairn PA-36 Whirlwind Autogiro, making a jump takeoff in 1941,

flow by Frederick "Silm" Soule
(Courtesy of Stephen Pitcairn, from Pitcairn Archives)

The Kellett Autogiro Company expressed great interest and

it was apparent that the two would be rivals for the
government funds. It had, after all, already received a
contract to supply seven KD-1s, dubbed YG-1A/Bs by the
military, to the Army Autogiro School, established on April
15, 1938, for pilot training and field-testing under the
direction of First Lieutenant H. Franklin Gregory at the same
time that Pitcairn had closed his production line. This rivalry
had been simmering for several years as Kellett rankled
over the superior position of the Autogiro Company of
America as the Cierva licensing agent and patent repository
in America, and Pitcairn retained resentment of the Kellett
independent consultations with Cierva on direct-control. And
there was the lingering issue of the international sales of
Kellett K-3s—Pitcairn continued to maintain that this was a
violation of the ACA licensing agreement. But more
importantly, and of greater relevance to the pending
legislation, Pitcairn felt that the army testing of K-3s was
not in the best interest of the Autogiro. He had faith that
the future of Autogiro technology would be better
demonstrated by what he termed the “third generation”—
the direct control, jump takeoff PA-36.
It was not surprising, then, when it became known that
Kellett was also working on the collective pitch control
system necessary for jump takeoffs under the direction of
its chief engineer Richard H. Prewitt.23 Prewitt had
previously visited Cierva in late 1933 to discuss direct
control, a meeting viewed with continuing suspicion by
Pitcairn and his associates. Pitcairn had always taken legal
steps to protect his discoveries and patents, and he now
took other steps made necessary by the perceived rivalry.
Engineers were admonished to exercise caution—all papers
were to be accounted for; locked desks and safes were the
order of the day; and all public statements had to be
screened by legal counsel, approved, and then only
repeated, not elaborated upon. No hints that might help the
Kellett engineers were to be given, even in a casual
conversation.
Agnew Larsen, who had been placed in charge of the PA-36
development program, expressed confidence that he could
build the prototype for $50,000 and by the time of the
Dorsey Bill hearings. He would be proven wrong on both
counts. Jim Ray had asked to return to America from
England, but as the company had no flying prototype, there
was no piloting work and Pitcairn felt it would be more
productive for Ray to continue gathering information on
European rotary-flight developments. The company would
require Ray's piloting skills when the prototype was ready
for testing, but again events would overtake the parties and
Ray would not, in fact, be the test pilot. The Dorsey Bill
hearings began on April 26, 1938, but Ray remained in
Europe, as the PA-36 development had slipped badly and
Pitcairn did not even have a mock-up, much less a flying
prototype. But that did not deter Pitcairn, who appeared as
the undeniable leader of the Autogiro community in America
by virtue of the ACA and the Pitcairn Autogiro Company—he
had meticulously prepared a booklet illustrating Autogiro
development and touting the PA-36 as the latest model. But
he had misestimated the sentiments of those who appeared
before the committee; the hearings would prove a disaster
to the future of Autogiro development in America.
There is no doubt that those who testified during the two
days of Dorsey Bill hearings were influenced by the images
from a few months earlier of Hanna Reitsch flying the Fa-
61, and this clearly showed from their comments. Assistant
Secretary of the Navy Charles Edison flatly stated that the
navy, having already evaluated the Autogiro, was not
interested in rotorcraft unless it possessed ability to hover.
Then Professor Alexander Klemin, dean of the Guggenheim
School of Aeronautical Engineering of New York University,
who had made known a favorable view of the Autogiro,
cited the recent Hanna Reitsch Fa-61 flights and ventured
the seemingly innocent opinion that the language in the
Dorsey Bill, with its use of the word Autogiro, might
reasonably be construed to include all types of rotary-wing
aircraft. And, he added, that being the case, perhaps this
implicit meaning should be directly stated to include all such
rotary-wing aircraft. No one present, especially Harold
Pitcairn, took much notice of this redefinition of the bill's
terms, but the inclusion of all types of rotary-wing aircraft
would now encompass helicopters, surely relevant to First
Lieutenant H. Franklin Gregory, who was of such a lowly
rank that there was no possibility he would be called to
testify before the committee. But he was perhaps the most
experienced army officer in rotary-wing, aircraft based on
his experience with the Army Kellett K-3 models, and his
relatively junior officer status had not prevented the army
from assigning him to command its Autogiro School nor
would it prevent his subsequent assignment to administer
the Dorsey Bill funds.
Witness after witness, citing potential uses, enthusiastically
testified as to the benefits of rotary-wing flight, and by the
time that Pitcairn testified it was apparent that the
Committee members were favorably disposed to the Dorsey
Bill. As it was near the end of the second day, Pitcairn's
testimony was highly abbreviated, and having placed his
prepared Autogiro booklet in the record, he soon left after
answering a few questions, apparently satisfied with the
results. But he failed to understand the gravity of the
opinions that had emerged, namely that rotary-wing flight
would be of benefit, not specifically Autogiro flight. He
further failed to realize that two of the questions asked
were seminal to a far different result than he had
anticipated. He had admitted to the committee that he had
spent $3,250,000 in Autogiro development since 1928 and
that the PA-36, the end product of that investment, did not
even yet exist in prototype. Although he was apparently
satisfied with the hearings, it is clear that the final
impression was that although rotary-wing flight would prove
of benefit, those benefits were not likely to emerge from the
Autogiro. It is not surprising, then, that the committee took
only ten minutes after the close of the hearings to
substitute in the bill's title “Rotary Wing and Other Aircraft”
for “Autogiro.” Although this substitution may have seemed
innocuous, it would doom the Autogiro, for First Lieutenant
H. Franklin Gregory would insure that no government
money would flow to the Pitcairn PA-36 development or
procurement from the Dorsey Bill, which was passed by the
House, sponsored by Senator Logan in the Senate, and
signed into law by President Roosevelt as the Dorsey-Logan
Act on August 1, 1938.
Anticipating accelerated development of the PA-36, Pitcairn
cabled Ray and requested that he return. It would not be a
happy homecoming, and “Big Jim” would soon leave the
company, to all intents and purposes let go for economic
reasons, as the development of the PA-36 prototype
dragged on. But a contributing fact was Ray's opinion,
based on his observations of European helicopter
development, regarding the future directions for Pitcairn
Autogiro Company.
Ray returned to America on October 26, 1938. He had
traveled on the same ship that brought Austrian designer
Raoul Hafner, who was going to attend an international
symposium on rotary-wing aircraft jointly sponsored by the
Philadelphia chapter of the Institute of Aeronautical Science
and the Franklin Institute. It had been arranged by
engineers Ralph Herbert McClarren and E. Burke Wilford,
inventor of the Wilford Gyroplane, which was distinguished
by its use of non-Cierva technology. Such was the
significance of this symposium that both Heinrich Focke and
Louis Bréguet, invited but unable to attend, asked Hafner to
read their scientific papers. Ray attended with associates
Paul Stanley and Agnew Larsen of the Autogiro Company of
America and even delivered an impromptu but well-received
account of his European observations. In light of
subsequent developments, it was unfortunate that Harold
Pitcairn, ill and unable to attend the symposium, was forced
to rely on the observations of Larsen, Stanley, and Ray, who
did attend. Even if he had heard the presentations by such
rotary-wing luminaries as Richard H. Prewitt of Kellett
Autogiro, Havilland D. Platt, W. Laurence LePage, E. Burke
Wilford and Gerald Herrick, it is unlikely that events would
have worked out differently, but Pitcairn might have at least
glimpsed the future.
LePage had first met Harold Pitcairn while on loan from
England's National Physical Laboratory to the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology to assist them in developing wind
tunnel testing programs during the time that Pitcairn had
contracted for testing of his fixed-wing aircraft designs.
LePage had previously participated in the testing of Cierva
models performed by Vickers at Weybridge in January and
February of 1925, and it is likely that he discussed his
experiences with the Cierva models with Pitcairn. He then
decided to remain in America and had joined the Pitcairn
company and worked on the PCA-1 series.24 LePage
subsequently resigned shortly after the Pitcairn Company
changed its name to Autogiro Company of America, because
he failed to become chief engineer. Although he had been
originally hired to assist Geoffrey Childs in administrative
and technical matters, he had been active in the
development of the PA-1 Fleetwing airmail plane and later
gained advanced experience with rotary aircraft in the
development of the first American models. He became an
aviation engineering journalist after leaving Pitcairn, but
soon joined the rival Kellett Autogiro Company and was
active in its design efforts through the successful
development of direct control. After leaving Kellett with a
decline of the Autogiro market in 1937, he found himself a
member of a new breed of innovators, an “independent
consulting engineer” making use of his extensive theoretical
and practical experience in rotary-wing aircraft. It was then
that LePage encountered another independent, Havilland D.
Platt, a talented mechanical engineer from New York who
had gained fame as the inventor of the first successful
automatic automobile transmission.25 It was to prove a
fortuitous meeting, as they would go on to form the Platt-
LePage Helicopter Company—and it was to that company
that the Dorsey-Logan funds would go, channeled by H.
Franklin Gregory.
Gregory would later write in 1944 that “in the Autogiro we
had seen a way to vertical flight and to many of us it
seemed the next step toward the helicopter. Primarily this
was the reason for the Army's gyro school and its
exhaustive research into rotary-wing aircraft. Thus one of
my main tasks in the new job at Wright Field was to look for
a successful helicopter,”26 but these sentiments were
apparently not evident to Pitcairn.
Pitcairn, having recovered several weeks after the
symposium, hosted a belated homecoming for Jim Ray in
his Bryn Athyn home. Ray was forthright and blunt in his
observation that the Fa-61 and Flettner machines clearly
pointed towards helicopter development, but he went
further and asserted that continued development of the
Autogiro was ill-advised. Pitcairn, Stanley, and Larsen were
stunned when Ray recommended that the PA-36 jump
takeoff Autogiro be discontinued and the company's efforts
be redirected toward helicopter development. It was
unacceptable advice, both personally, as Harold Pitcairn was
emotionally committed to Autogiro development and had
been for over a decade, and economically, as the company
had an irreversible financial investment in its Autogiro
research program. Both Stanley and Larsen, who had also
been at the Franklin Institute seminar, disagreed with Ray,
and it was apparent the company could not accommodate
both opposing views. Jim Ray had to go and in fact was
terminated at the end of 1938,27 and although Pitcairn
would characterize the decision as economic belt-tightening
because of the Depression, Ray justifiably “attributed his
termination to this disagreement concerning the
continuation of the Autogiro program.”28 Ray, as well as Lou
Leavitt (formerly Levy), would later take part in the flight-
testing of the Platt-LePage XR-1 helicopter, developed with
the Dorsey-Logan funds.
Although Larsen had promised that the PA-36 prototype
would be flying by the April Dorsey Bill hearings, it was only
ready for ground testing almost six months later. But even
given the delay, Pitcairn's faith did not waiver, for the PA-
36, with its gleaming aluminum fuselage, was beautiful.
That faith would remain, even though he was informed by
the English company in late December 1938 that it had
decided to abandon the Autogiro business and concentrate
on helicopters, and in the face of increasing American
military focus on the helicopter. Pitcairn was still a director
of Cierva Autogiro Company Ltd. but had not participated in
the board's decision, so he traveled to England to clarify the
future directions in Europe and inadvertently missed the
1939 Franklin Institute rotary-wing gathering, at which the
army's H. Franklin Gregory, now promoted to captain, met
Russian inventor Igor I. Sikorsky. It was to prove a fateful
meeting for the future of rotary-wing flight in America.29
For construction of the aluminum PA-36,30 Pitcairn had
turned to the Trenton, New Jersey, Luscombe Airplane
Company,31 which was experienced in such construction.
Pitcairn first made a PA-36 wood mock-up, which was used
by Luscombe to fit all aluminum fabricated parts before the
actual assembly. This was a difficult period for the Trenton
company, and the Pitcairn commission proved a lifesaver, as
the monies paid for the PA-36 were virtually the only major
earnings during this period, but it was not easy money. An
aluminum Autogiro had never been built, and the Luscombe
and Pitcairn engineers faced unique engineering challenges.
Although the PA-36 “borrowed heavily from the PA-35,”32 it
became an aluminum, two-place, side-by-side cabin
Autogiro, powered by a Warner Super Scarab 165-
horsepower engine, and weighed in at 2,050 pounds, with a
forty-three foot three-bladed jump takeoff rotor.33 The
engine, as in the PA-35, was buried in the fuselage in back
of the cabin in order to make the aircraft “roadable” but, of
the two bodies constructed by Luscombe, only one ever flew
and it was never roadable.
At Luscombe the initial fabrication design work was
completed by William B. Shepard. Those designs were
approved by Pitcairn's Agnew Larsen, and Luscombe hired a
night shift to expedite the actual construction, presumably
in response to demands by Larsen, who was already falling
behind his promised production schedule. The first metal
was cut in late October, and almost immediately unique
engineering challenges emerged. The design itself was
incredibly ambitious, and it was readily evident that no
other Autogiro in history had achieved such standards. The
component parts of the metal seats were to join with the
inner cabin fuselage in a seamless manner to form the fuel
and engine oil tanks. It required production to an
exceptionally precise tolerance, a task made increasingly
difficult by the changes in the angle iron jigs used to
fabricate the aluminum. The jigs would expand or contract
depending on whether it was day or night—it proved
impossible to correct the constant day/night error of one-
eighth inch, and production could continue only when the
parties and a department of commerce inspector agreed
that such a small error was acceptable.
The fuel tank proved especially a challenge for Luscombe—
due to its construction, the tank was actually part of the
fuselage and the metal joints forming the tank had to be
first sealed with neoprene tape and then riveted to the
fuselage. But when the fabricated tank was vibration-tested
by Pitcairn, it proved unsound. The tank itself fell apart as
seals failed, leading to a dangerously unbalanced and
almost immediately unstable structure. Larsen, then under
considerable pressure from Pitcairn, declined to redesign
the tank with Luscombe but arranged to have a second tank
built by the Fleetwings company, located nearby Bristol,
Pennsylvania. That tank passed the vibration test34 and was
successfully installed in the aircraft. Luscombe records
reveal that the construction of the PA-36 was hard work—
the Autogiro bulkhead panels had to be hand-formed from
duraluminum over maple wood forms and then sent to a
second factory to be heat-treated. It was a delicate process,
for too much heat would melt the metal, but too little would
result in an unacceptably brittle product.
Aware of the importance of the Pitcairn work for the
company, Luscombe supervisory personnel tried to maintain
cordial relations with Larsen all through the complex design
and fabrication process, and for the most part it appears
they succeeded. But it was a different picture with the shop
personnel, who often felt the pressure during Larsen's
frequent visits—they referred to the PA-36 as “Larsen's
Goon” behind his back.35 At least once the workers' attitude
resulted in a practical joke that has become part of
Luscombe history, but not apparently of Pitcairn's.
Employee Henri D'Estout filled a workman's glove with
water and attached it to bottom rear of the aluminum
aircraft's fuselage. And while the employees laughed at the
appearance of an “udder” on the Pitcairn, it was never
determined if Larsen shared the joke as he was making an
unexpected inspection visit at the time.
The PA-36 had a large central tail fin and outward-slanting
fins on the tail stabilizers on either side of the fuselage. The
original propeller configuration featured two single-blade
counterweighted counter-rotating propellers, but this
resulted in unacceptable vibration, and the two propellers
were replaced by a single four-blade propeller. The final
model, dubbed the Whirlwing, was unveiled for flight-testing
in the early spring of 1939. As Pitcairn had let Jim Ray go,
the company turned to former Kellett chief test pilot Lou
Leavitt and experienced Cierva test pilot Alan Marsh, who
had come from England to aid in the testing. Marsh had had
experience with the English company in jump takeoffs but
Leavitt did not, and that presented an immediate problem
that resulted in the replacement of the Kellett pilot. The PA-
36 prototype was too heavy to allow for jump takeoffs with
two pilots, so Marsh could not instruct Leavitt, and the
former was unwilling to make the attempt. He and Pitcairn
quarreled about the readiness of the prototype for jump
takeoffs; it became apparent that although the unproven
prototype might be ready, the veteran pilot was not. Leavitt
stormed out, leaving Pitcairn high and dry, leading to a
somewhat desperate search for a pilot, as Pitcairn was
counting on demonstrations before military officials to
produce government orders. He first approached Jim Ray,
who had experience with jump takeoffs in the PA-22, but
understandably received a cool reception. Ray had just
started a new job with a West Coast airline and had no
intention of returning to a company that had let him go.
Fortunately, there was another experienced Autogiro pilot
nearby in Bloomfield, New Jersey, performing aerial
applications for the treatment of Dutch elm disease for the
department of agriculture—Frederick W. Soule. Known to his
friends as “Slim” because of an alleged resemblance to
Charles Lindbergh, Fred Soule had originally been instructed
by Pitcairn factory pilots Ray and Jim Faulkner and by mid-
1939 had accumulated thousands of hours flying a variety
of Autogiro models. In July of that year Alan Marsh, before
he returned to England, which was then facing war in
Europe, briefed Soule in jump takeoff techniques, and the
stage was set for flight-testing.
NOTES

1. For photographs of the Fa-61 (also called the Fw-61),

see Hollingsworth Franklin Gregory, Anything a Horse
Can Do: The Story of the Helicopter, Introduction by
Igor Sikorsky (New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1944), p.
59; Earl Devon Francis,The Story of the Helicopter (New
York: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1946), facing p. 70 (photo
by W. Laurence LePage); Martin Hollmann, Flying the
Gyroplane(Monterey, California: Aircraft Designs, Inc.,
1986), p. 29.
2. Peter W. Brooks, Cierva Autogiros: The Development of
Rotary-Wing Flight(Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian
Institution Press, 1988), p. 231.
 3. For photographs of the Herrick aircraft models, Walter J.
Boyne, The Aircraft Treasures of Silver Hill (New York:
Rawson Associates, 1982), pp. 140–42;Charles
Gablehouse, Helicopters and Autogiros: A Chronicle of
Rotating-Wing Aircraft (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1967),
p. 65; George Townson, “The Herrick Convertaplane,”
American Helicopter Museum & Education Center
Newsletter 4, no. 3 (3rd Quarter 1997): 3–4; Walter J.
Boyne and Donald S. Lopez, Vertical Flight (Washington,
D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1984), p. 175.
4. Brooks, pp. 23–26 (photo on p. 25).
5. For photographs of the HV-2A in conversion from fixed-
wing to gyroplane flight, see Lieutenant Victor Haugen,
“Principles of Rotating Wing Aircraft,” Aeronautics2, no.
7 (October 16, 1940): 429; Brooks, p. 25.
6. See, for example, “Vertaplane,” Time 30, no. 6 (August
9, 1937): 21–22.
7. Everett-Heath, in an otherwise outstanding book,
comments on the 11 EA: “Why the word ‘autogiro’ was
used to describe a helicopter is not known,” seemingly
oblivious to the origins of the design and ignoring that
the aircraft was intended as a convertaplane, taking off
and landing as a helicopter but flying as an autogyro.
See John Everett-Heath, Soviet Helicopters: Design,
Development, and Tactics (London: Jane's Publication
Company, 1983), p. 5.
8. Ibid., pp. 11–12.
9. Lennart Andersson, Soviet Aircraft and Aviation 1917–
1941 (Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press,
1994), p. 335.
10. Everett-Heath, pp. 146–47.
11. For a discussion of Flettner, see Ford, Germany's Secret
Weapons in World War II (Osceloa, Wisconsin: MBI
Publishing Company, 2000), pp. 57–58; J. R. Smith and
 Antony L. Kay, German Aircraft of the Second World
War (London: Putnam, 1972), pp. 589–90.
12. For a photograph of the Fl 184, see Brooks, p. 27;
Smith and Kay, p. 590;George Townson and Howard
Levy, “The History of the Autogiro: Part 2,” Air Classics
Quarterly Review 4, no. 3 (Fall 1977): 13.
13. See Martin Hollmann, Helicopters (Monterey, California:
Aircraft Designs, Inc., 1986), pp. 119–25.
14. For a photograph of the Fl 185, see Hollmann,
Helicopters, pp. 73, 122; Townson and Levy, “History of
the Autogiro: Part 2,” p. 12.
15. As this was not built under a Cierva license, it is more
properly called anautogyro.
16. Brooks maintains that Focke still remained a member of
the board of directors of Focke-Wulfe even after he left
(p. 255).
17. For photographs of the Fw 186, see Brooks, p. 254;
Smith and Kay, p. 143; Tony Wood and Bill Gunston,
Hitler's Luftwaffe (New York: Crescent Books, 1978), p.
160.
18. Brooks, p. 256.
19. See Smith and Kay, p. 603; Ford, pp. 55–56; but see
Bill Gunston, Helicopters at War (London, England:
Hamlyn, 1977), p. 30 (there incorrectly listed as the Fa-
325).
20. For photographs of Hanna Reitsch flying inside the
arena in Berlin, see Charles Gablehouse, Helicopters
and Autogiros: A History of Rotating-Wing and V/STOL
Aviation, rev. ed. (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1969), p. 67
(note that the caption of the photo is misleading).
21. See Warren R. Young, The Helicopters (Alexandria,
Virginia: Time-Life Books, 1982), p. 74 (photograph of
Reitsch conferring with Focke before the exhibition
flights).
22. See C. R. Roseberry, The Challenging Skies: The
Colorful Story of Aviation's Most Exciting Years 1919–39
(Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1966),
p. 428.
23. He would summarize some of his ideas in Richard H.
Prewitt, “Possibilities of the Jump Take-Off Autogiro,”
Journal of Aeronautical Sciences 6, no. 1 (November
1938).
24. Brooks, p. 135.
25. Jay P. Spenser, Whirlybirds: A History of the U.S.
Helicopter Pioneers (Seattle and London: University of
Washington Press, 1998), p. 100.
26. Gregory, p. 87.
27. Brooks erroneously asserts that “Ray had left the
company in September 1937” p. 223).
28. Frank Kingston Smith, Legacy of Wings: The Story of
Harold F. Pitcairn (New York: Jason Aronson, 1981), p.
267.
29. Gregory noted the meeting at p. 103 of his book.
30. For photographs of the PA-36, see George Townson,
Autogiro: The Story of “the Windmill Plane” (Fallbrook,
California: Aero Publishers; reprint, Trenton, New
Jersey: Townson, 1985), pp. 73–76; Brooks, p. 223;
Smith, Legacy of Wings, p. 269; Ibid., “Mr. Pitcairn's
Autogiros” Airpower 12, no. 2 (March 1983): 28–49,
45–46.
31. For information on Luscombe and pictures of the
construction of the PA-36, seeJames B. Zazas, Visions of
Luscombe: The Early Years (Terre Haute, Indiana:
SunShine House, Inc., 1993), pp. 187–89.
32. Ibid., pp. 187–88.
33. Statistics taken from Townson, pp. 141–42; see also
Brooks, p. 222.
34. Zazas claims that this test was less “vigorous” than the
Luscombe/Pitcairn test (p. 189).
35. Ibid., pp. 190, 204.
 Chapter 8

PITCAIRN, THE KELLETT BROTHERS,

AND THE COMING OF WAR
It is this fact that has made aviation pay so dearly for
progress. It has cost the lives of many brave and useful
men and an immense sum of money spent and gone in
crashed airplanes. All progress has its price, of course, but
rarely is the price so high. Every other development in
transportation has paid early attention to safety;
subsequent progress has depended on it and counted on it.
Whenever assurance of security has been lacking, other
matters have been considered comparatively unimportant
until it was attained in a reasonable degree. But because
the limitations of the best airplane of today are in essentials
the same as those of twenty years ago, the business of
aviation has borne an extraordinary burden of waste and
loss, sometimes to such an extent as to shake seriously the
public's confidence in its future.
Juan de la Cierva and Don Rose, Wings of Tomorrow
The flight testing of the jump takeoff was to assume even
greater significance as the government was finally moving
forward with the Dorsey-Logan Bill funding. The bad news
was that the original funding had been reduced to $300,000
in Public Act #61, passed by the Seventy-sixth Congress,
and the House Appropriations Committee had designated
the army as the administrative agency, and the army had in
turn appointed Captain H. Franklin Gregory as its
administrator. Gregory, by now familiar with the rotary-wing
developments of Pitcairn, Kellett, and Sikorsky, had become
convinced, and informed his army superiors, that the future
lay with the helicopter. Pitcairn continued, however, to have
faith in the PA-36 and scrutinized the Circular Proposal
drafted by Gregory, the first step in the allocations process.
That document would contain the requirements for aircraft
and was drafted in consultation with officials from various
government agencies that had vested interests in rotary
aircraft, including the departments of agriculture and the
interior, survey agencies,1 NACA, and the army and navy.
That meeting was conducted by Colonel C. L. Tinker, in the
absence of General Henry H. “Hap” Arnold, then chief of the
Army Air Corps, on May 31, 1939. The assembled officials2
agreed, prodded by the expert briefing supplied by Captain
Gregory, who was the junior officer present but who had
become project officer for all the army's rotary-wing
aircraft, that the proposed Dorsey-Logan rotary-wing
aircraft should be able to make a vertical takeoff over a
fifty-foot obstacle. At the time only the German Fa-61 could
achieve such performance, and to all intents and purposes
this flight requirement eliminated the Autogiro.
Furthermore, by the end of the summer of 1939 the PA-36
had yet to make a jump takeoff, but Pitcairn was optimistic
that it could meet the government requirements. The world
had been stunned with the German development of the Fa-
61, but on September 1, 1939, that faded into the
background as German tanks crossed into Poland—a sure
and quick triumph that saw the disastrous confrontation of
the old and the new as Polish troops on horseback gallantly
charged Panzer tanks, with predictable results. Europe was
at war, and the United States was fifteen months away from
officially entering the conflict. Gregory was even more
convinced that the future of military rotary-wing flight lay
with the helicopter, not the Autogiro.
Slim Soule was confident that he could make jump takeoffs
in the PA-36, and he took ten days to gradually increase the
height of the “jump.” He would prerotate the rotor blades in
flat pitch beyond that which was necessary for flight-lift, a
condition known as over-spinning, and then automatically
declutch the rotor and snap the blades into a positive lifting
angle. He is reputed to have joked, when one of his jumps
resulted in a hop of 120 feet, that he had “caught up to the
Wright brothers' first flight.”3 In the autumn of 1939 Soule
made the first true jump takeoff,4 and everyone cheered as
the aircraft lifted upward and flew away, circled Pitcairn
Field, and then landed. The second jump takeoff, however,
almost resulted in tragedy when during flight Soule
experienced severe vibration in the control stick,
experienced a loss of control, and while attempting to land
in a field, struck a telephone pole with one of the rotor
blades. It was fortunate that the accident occurred while so
close to the ground so that Soule was not hurt nor was the
aircraft extensively damaged. It was also fortunate that one
rotor blade survived, for examination readily revealed the
source of the vibration, and it was one that Pitcairn had
seen before. As with the NACA testing of a PA-33 at
Langley, Virginia, three years before, there was a lack of
venting at the tip of the blade. The centrifugal force of the
hollow rotating blade caused a buildup of interior pressure,
and the blade ribs failed. When the ribs inside the blade
failed, the leading edge of the blade became detached and
the blades began to vibrate uncontrollably. At this point
Larsen had spent approximately $200,0005 in developing
the PA-36, almost four times the sum he had originally
promised, but of greater importance to Pitcairn, the failure
came at the same time that Gregory was drafting the
request for bids for Dorsey-Logan funds. And while the PA-
36 could not hover, Pitcairn hoped that when restored to
flying condition with new and improved rotor blades, it
could accomplish the jump takeoff required by the Dorsey-
Logan army criteria. This clearly strained but did not break
his faith, as Slim Soule had not jumped higher than four to
five feet before flying away and the testing program was
then already a year behind schedule.
The testing led to two other accidents, each stemming from
the increased complexity of the jump takeoff mechanism.
The rotor spin-up drive failed to declutch during the takeoff,
and the rotor snapped into lift condition while still powered.
The motor had enough power to over-spin the rotor for the
jump but not to take off as a helicopter, so the Autogiro
gyrated back and forth before landing hard on the ground,
causing the frame to bend. In one of these failures the air-
cooling vanes on the whirling propeller shaft came into
contact with the engine starter gear, causing the vanes to
shatter and cut through the aluminum fuselage. Soule was
unhurt, as the fuselage was cut a few inches in back of the
pilot's seat, but it took months to repair the serious damage
to the fuselage.
Testing continued, and the entire rotary-wing aircraft
industry intently scrutinized the final version of the army's
Circular 40-260 which, in accord with federal regulations,
set forth the bill's flight requirements. Both Pitcairn and
Kellett, the only companies in the United States with real
rotary-win experience, submitted bids, and because Kellett
had not yet perfected the jump takeoff, its Bryn Athyn rival
felt that it had the upper hand. The PA-36, then being
rebuilt, could do a jump takeoff, and Pitcairn and his
associates felt that this achievement outweighed the fact
that the takeoffs did not reach the fifty feet cited in the
circular. But then again, no aircraft then in America could do
that!
 Pitcairn PA-38 design concept submitted by Pitcairn Aviation in a bird
for the Rotary Wing competition in conjunction with the funding
authorized by Dorsey Bill authorization
(Courtesy of Stephen Pitcairn, from Pitcairn Archives)

So Harold F. Pitcairn felt confident; he had the best

possibility. He even commissioned and put forth a new jump
takeoff design—the PA-38, which was a two-cockpit jump
takeoff Autogiro equipped with sliding canopies, but the rear
was open to allow the backward-facing observer to operate
a swiveling machine gun. It was a large aircraft of 4,200
pounds loaded weight, designed for observation, cargo
including mail, insecticide dispensing, and firefighting. By
the time that this proposed model was presented to the
public, it was advertised as a product of the Pitcairn-Larsen
Autogiro Company, Inc., but it was never realized in either a
civilian or military form, and neither were the Kellett
proposed models successfully considered. They were even
less likely candidates than either the PA-36 or 38, even
though Kellett was much in the news.
Johnny Miller had joined the Kellett Autogiro Company as a
test pilot in 1937, and he had extensive experience in both
his own PCA-2 and the Kellett KD-1 direct control model,
and its military configuration, the YG-1. In September Miller
had written the cover article for Popular Mechanics
Magazine, entitled “The Missing Link in Aviation,” echoing
both the March 1931 David Ingalls article in Fortune and his
own PCA-2 of the same name. The cover painting depicted6
a KD-1 descending to land on top of a checkerboard landing
area on top of a skyscraper surrounded by a stylized
metropolitan setting. The article predicted that the Autogiro
would soon find a reconnaissance role with the military and
could be counted on for landing on building roofs. Miller had
landed a Kellett KD-1 in 1935 on the newly completed 30th
Street Post Office in Philadelphia (along with Jim Ray in a
Pitcairn) and was anticipating regular Autogiro airmail
service the following year. In 1938 the KD-1 had been
redesigned for the mail route as a KD-1B and it would
receive ATC No. 712 in December 1939, and Kellett had
begun to approach major airlines to bid on the mail route,
feeling that such an established aviation enterprise would
have a better chance of gaining government approval. To
publicize the mailing-carrying capabilities of the KD-1B,
Miller had landed on the roof of the Chicago post office and
made several landings on Washington, D.C., streets as part
of Airmail Week celebrations in 1938, the twentieth
anniversary of airmail service. The KD-1B had an enclosed
sliding canopy that was fitted over the rear cockpit and a
covered compartment holding 350 pounds of mail in the
front cockpit. A two-way radio had been installed along with
a turn-and-slip indicator and directional gyro in the
instrument panel. The aircraft had emergency landing
flares, but night flying was never scheduled.
Eastern Air Lines (EAL) had entered into an agreement with
Kellett to apply for the airmail route, with its president
Captain Edward “Eddie” Rickenbacker himself interviewing
Miller, who considered the World War I ace a personal hero.
Rickenbacker was impressed when Miller stated that he felt
that there would be a 75 percent on-time performance, and
knowing that Miller was the only qualified Kellett pilot,
inquired what it would take to gain his services on the mail
route. Miller replied that he expected Eastern to double his
Kellett salary. Eastern Airlines bid for the government
contract and received a one-year commitment at $63,000
for a 75 percent completion rate. Later Eastern agreed that
Miller could remain in its employ with the rank of captain
and, of greatest importance, seniority from the date the
mail route started in 1939. The company set up a rooftop
office next to the elevator shaft, with a radio station and
meteorological instruments with a service manager and mail
handler. At the other end of the route, Camden Airport, the
company arranged for office and hanger space. At six miles,
it was and still ranks as the shortest scheduled air route in
history and the first with a rotary-flight aircraft.
Miller spent time preparing for the flight analyzing the effect
of wind on the post office roof, for although its construction
had anticipated such flights with a reinforced roof, no
thought had been given to wind and turbulence. On July 1
Miller delivered the KD-1B to Eastern Air Lines at the
Camden, New Jersey, airport and commenced his
employment as an EAL captain, from which he would retire
twenty-five years later. His career spanned from World War
I “Jennys” in 1923 to jet aircraft, and he even flew himself
to the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) “Air Venture”
at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in 2002 at the age of 96! In
preparation for the start of the airmail service7 on June 6,
1939, Miller made several test and practice flights, learning
how to deal with the air currents that swirled around the
rooftop, for which he partially blamed Pitcairn.8 Miller
tossed hundreds of pieces of toilet paper into the wind
streams from the south edge of the roof to determine the
direction and force of the turbulence, observing that the
roof was subject to an updraft at the building edge but that
airflow then converted to a downdraft in the center of the
roof. That research explained several hard landings and
takeoff difficulties, and led to techniques that made flying
safe even in strong northwest winds up to sixty mph. EAL
had arranged for Miller to carry noted musician André
Kostelanetz9 sitting on top of mail sacks in the forward
cockpit while making a practice run, an event that
Kostelanetz's agent subsequently refused to allow to be
publicized. The experimental airmail run commenced10 with
great public fanfare in the first week of July and continued
for an uneventful year, ending the first week of July 1940.11
The schedule consisted of five flights each day, six days per
week; Miller had seen the need for a reserve pilot, but it
was not recognized by EAL management until he suffered a
bout of flu and the flight had to be shut down for two weeks
in the autumn of 1939. He was then given permission to
secure the services of a reserve and finally hired former
Pitcairn factory pilot Skip Lukens, who had checked Miller
out in the original PCA-2 in 1931 before the transcontinental
flight. Now Miller became the teacher, as Lukens did not
have experience with direct control, but he soon became
proficient with about twelve hours of dual instruction in the
Kellett KD-1 prototype that EAL rented. During the year of
operation, Lukens and Miller made over 2,300 takeoffs and
landings from the post office with better than a 95 percent
on-time flight record, but there were two accidents, and as
luck would have it, both while Lukens was at the controls.
In one the Autogiro overturned on the roof, pushed over by
a strong wind gust. Parts of the shredded rotor blades fell to
the street below, giving rise to rumors that the Kellett had
crashed,12which circulated for many years among those
who collect airmail stamps. Additionally, Lukens made a
forced landing with only partial power in a vacant lot while
flying to the Camden, New Jersey, airport, but was soon in
the air and on his way when the engine resumed full power.
(Miller was convinced that the cause was carburetor icing).
The experimental airmail route had established an
outstanding safety and completion record that was
profitable,13 but it ended after a year. War was coming, and
the attention of the aviation world was no longer directed
toward roof landings. And although Kellett Autogiro
Company received much publicity from the experiment, it
would not result in a successful bid for Dorsey-Logan funds.
In addition to the Pitcairn and Kellett companies, two others
had submitted bids in response to the Dorsey-Logan
circular, the Vought-Sikorsky Division of the United Aircraft
Corporation and a new company named the Platt-LePage
Helicopter Company. The former was not in the running, as
its prototype helicopter, the VS-300, had been destroyed in
a test-flight and Gregory could not rely on the company's
theoretical submission, and this left the latter as the only
alternative to Autogiro companies. Platt-LePage had already
done developmental work on two prototypes by 1940, but
the models had not been successful. When word had
reached LePage of Focke's success with the Fa-61 with
Hanna Reitsch's public flight in 1937, he had gone to
Germany and developed a quick rapport with Focke, whom
he found similar in age, theoretical approach, and
enthusiasm. And although flow of information between the
two aviation inventors had stopped with the coming of war
to Europe in September 1939, LePage had observed the Fa-
61 in Bremen14 and was confident in embarking on a similar
design. By the time that Gregory opened the bids on April
15, 1940, the third Platt-LePage prototype had achieved
some success at hovering flight, but it had never carried a
person. It is likely, then, that Pitcairn was confident,
because in the PA-36, he clearly had the most
technologically advanced jump takeoff Autogiro and rotary
aircraft in America. But he did not remain confident for
long.
The Dorsey-Logan funds were awarded to the upstart Platt-
LePage Helicopter Company based on scaled-up drawings of
its third model helicopter, the PL-3, which the army now
called the Platt-LePage XR-1 (short for “Experimental Rotary
aircraft number 1”). The contract called for delivery of a
flyable helicopter by January 1, 1941, barely seven and a
half months away. And even though Pitcairn was quietly told
that although the PA-36 was the best engineered
submission, and that Gregory and his army colleagues had
decided that the future of military rotary-wing flight lay with
the helicopter, not the Autogiro, Pitcairn resolved to
undertake efforts to convince the army that his Autogiro
should also be acquired. The XR-1, based on the twin-rotor,
outrigger system that LePage had seen on the Fa-61, would
not make its first tethered flight until May 12, 1941, piloted
by Lou Leavitt.15 The flight was observed by Platt-LePage
Company consultant, aviation pioneer Grover Loening,
famous for his seaplane designs,16 who commented that
“this craft has tremendous possibilities, but there is still a
long hard way ahead.”17 That view echoed the earlier
opinions of those who observed the Fa-61—it flew, but it
was not yet a useful machine. So it was certainly
understandable that Pitcairn, convinced of the merit of the
PA-36, prepared it for effective demonstrations before
senior military officers. He was also convinced that the
military continued to be interested in the Autogiro because
Gregory authorized additional funds to upgrade two Kellett
aircraft already in the army's inventory. But although the
funds were authorized, Pitcairn failed to take into account
that they were not from Dorsey-Logan, and he seriously
misunderstood why Gregory wanted two advanced
Autogiros.
By mid-1940 the world was reading grim daily reports of
war in Europe, the successful withdrawal of almost 338,000
English soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk, and the new
English Prime Minister Winston Churchill's ringing
declarations of continued resistance. The army benefited
from increased government budget allocations to prepare
for what all knew was a coming conflict, and it had allocated
some of the funds to Kellett Autogiro Company to retrofit
two of the YG-1Bs already at the Army Air Corps Autogiro
School. The YG-1B18 was a modification of the YG-1A,
based on improvements designed by Richard H. Prewitt,
primarily the addition of collective pitch control, which
allowed the pilot to vary the blade pitch from zero to four
degrees. This improved collective pitch control, the latest
development in the 1936–39 attempt to achieve the jump
takeoff, did not achieve that goal but did significantly
accelerate takeoffs19 and had first been delivered to the
army on December 29, 1937. As these aircraft were already
in the army inventory, no public bidding was required, and
the modification added a more powerful engine, a Hamilton
Standard constant-speed propeller, and a long-stroke
cantilever landing gear for vertical landings. This resulted in
jump takeoff capacity comparable to the direct-control YG-
1Bs, with the resulting experimental model being
designated the XR-2 following the Platt-LePage helicopter,
which had already been designated the XR-1. The XR-2 was
completely destroyed20 in 1941 by ground resonance,
uncontrollable vibration while attempting a jump takeoff in
1941. As the motor was spinning up to achieve a jump
takeoff, the craft literally shook itself apart in less than five
seconds, a problem that had been experienced by all
Autogiro developers and which had already been solved
mathematically and technologically by Paul Stanley of
Pitcairn. The destruction of the XR-2 would prove to be
significant, as it led to serious investigation of ground
resonance, which would be solved by Bob Wagner of Kellett
Autogiro and Prewitt Coleman of NACA. Their work would
enable future rotary-wing aircraft to avoid the problem, a
significant advancement and a necessary development for
the technology to move forward. A second YG-1B was
converted for the army, known as the XG-1B, and was used
primarily as a test bed for improvements flowing from the
analysis of the accident. A stiffer rotor pylon was added
with interblade dampers to deal with vibration, but these
improvements did little to eliminate severe control system
and rotor vibration, problems that had contributed to the
destruction of the XR-2. The army solution was to redesign
the rotor hub itself to dampen vibration, a solution
incorporated into the army's second Kellett experimental
Autogiro, denoted the XR-3. It was also a converted army
YG-1B, with a newly redesigned rotor hub featuring a fixed
spindle with collective and cyclic pitch control. As such it
harkened back to the comment that Cierva had made
during his 1933 visit, when he suggested that the
Americans should concentrate on the tilting hub/overhead
stick control and the English on a fixed spindle with
cyclic/collective control system. Now that system was
installed in the XR-3 and jump takeoffs to fifteen feet were
possible. It proved a useful experimental platform for new
rotor and controls systems and useful for the development
of the helicopter, which was exactly what Gregory intended
it for! In fact, when sold as surplus to General Electric in
1945, it was used for helicopter rotor development.
Although it played no significant role in Autogiro
development, it would prove perhaps the most significant
aircraft for the survival of autorotational technology, as one
of the XR-3 pilots at General Electric was a Russian
immigrant named Igor Bensen.
The PA-36 was ready for demonstration flights by mid-July.
It had been rebuilt and made lighter by the removal of the
“roadability” equipment, as that capability was not militarily
required, and it was capable of making a stunning jump
takeoff and dramatic flyaway. Pitcairn justifiably felt that
this was the best performance ever achieved by an
Autogiro, and he invited Gregory and the press to watch the
shiny aluminum aircraft make its public debut, confident
that it would rekindle military interest, as the PA-36 was
clearly the most capable rotary-wing aircraft flying. It could
meet all the Dorsey-Logan requirements but not all of the
military's—it could not hover, but Pitcairn no doubt felt that
with the increased efforts to prepare for war, the
government would be willing to order the PA-36. By all
accounts the demonstration flights at Pitcairn Field, with
Slim Soule as pilot, were all that Pitcairn hoped they would
be, and having invited the media, the company reaped a
public relations bonanza. Even today, the films21 of the
aluminum aircraft jumping straight up and flying away over
an eighteen-foot barrier amaze, just as they did theater-
goers who watched the newsreels. Gregory was impressed
but noncommittal, for unlike Pitcairn he was aware of
developments even then unfolding with the Sikorsky VS-
300 developmental helicopter that would soon doom even
the success Pitcairn was enjoying with the PA-36. Pitcairn
thought to capitalize on the sensation created by Soule's
demonstrations by having a spectacular takeoff and landing
at the 1940 World's Fair then at Flushing Meadow in New
York, and officials agreed, but an accident to the PA-36
doomed the effort at the last minute. However, the
subsequent government/military demonstrations at College
Park, Maryland, and Bolling Field in February 1941 went
very well.22 The most impressive part of Soule's flying was
the jump takeoff from the midst of a circle of parked
automobiles. Pitcairn, ever the entrepreneur, touted the
advantages of the PA-36 to officers serving on the staff of
Army Air Corps Chief General “Hap” Arnold, and the general
that ordered both Captain Gregory take an additional look
at the PA-36 and that the aircraft make a five-thousand-
mile tour of military bases23 to “investigate possible military
applications.”24 The military demonstrations impressed all
who watched the PA-36 make flawless jump takeoffs and
pinpoint landings, but it was too late—the fate of the
Autogiro had been decided at a meeting the previous
December.
Pitcairn's biographer, Frank Kingston Smith, incorrectly
asserts that after Captain Gregory left Pitcairn Field and the
Soule demonstrations of the PA-36 in October 1941, he
visited the Vought-Sikorsky factory to confer with his friend
Igor Sikorsky as to the status of the VS-300 helicopter, that
the Russian immigrant25 flew a demonstration flight and
then offered the controls to the army officer,26 and that as a
result of this collaboration, the orders for the PA-36 never
materialized. Although it is tempting to ascribe the failure of
the PA-36 to such a conspiracy, Gregory's 1944 book tells a
different story.27 He indeed had been a friend and kept in
touch with Sikor-sky since their first meeting at the 1939
Franklin Institute rotary-wing gathering, but he had been
officially interested in the Vought-Sikorsky developments
since 1938, when he and Major Carl F. Green visited with
Sikorsky associates Michael Gluhareff28 and Boris P.
Labensky and were briefed on the development of a
mechanism to control helicopter flight. Subsequently the
VS-300 in its original configuration flew successfully in free-
flight on September 14, 1939, and Gregory was then invited
in 1940 to make a test-flight. He likened his first helicopter
experience to riding a bucking bronco, and it is from that
that the title of his book Anything a Horse Can Do
describing the helicopter was derived. But of greater
importance, that flight convinced him of the ultimate
success of the helicopter, which he communicated back to
his army superiors. Several weeks later he met with Igor
Sikorsky and Serge Gluhareff in Sikorsky's car to guarantee
confidentiality and share his view that the army should fund
development of the VS-300 even as it was funding the
Platt-LePage XR-1. While it is not possible to know for
certain if Gregory's belief was due to a conviction that a
parallel research and development effort was desirable (as
he states) or whether he truly was convinced that
Sikorsky's single-rotor technology was superior29 to the Fa-
61 twin-rotor scheme employed in the XR-1, what is certain
is that he was proposing to commit the remaining Dorsey-
Logan funds. The officer and the inventor agreed that
Sikorsky would seek the additional funds that would be
necessary from the Vought-Sikorsky company. In the end,
the government would expend considerably more than the
remaining funds to develop the Sikorsky helicopter, which
would be called the XR-4, and it would lead to the single-
rotor configuration as the model for future helicopters and
bring the United States military firmly into the world of
rotary-wing flight in a manner that a decade's involvement
with the Autogiro had failed to achieve. The funds were
officially allocated on December 17, 1940, the thirty-
seventh anniversary of the Wright brothers' first flight, by
sixteen officials30meeting in Washington, D.C. The military
had made its commitment to the helicopter even before
Pitcairn had sent Soule on his tour of military bases, and it
really did not matter how dramatic or successful the jump
takeoff demonstrations were—there were no orders nor
further expression of army interest. Pitcairn withdrew the
PA-36 in mid-1941; it never received certification and was
cut up for scrap the following year in response to the need
for aluminum to support the American war effort. It was an
inglorious end to the most beautiful Autogiro ever built, but
by that time Pitcairn was out of the Autogiro business.
In 1940 the Pitcairn Autogiro Company was inactive, and for
business reasons it had changed the name of the
manufacturing company to Pitcairn-Larsen Autogiro
Company. That business entity was created especially to fill
an order from an old English friend, Reggie Brie, now an
RAF Wing Commander (equal to a Lieutenant Colonel)
serving in Washington, D.C., with the British Air Purchasing
Commission and now considered the “United Kingdom's
leading military authority on rotary-wing aircraft.”31 Brie
had been Cierva chief test pilot and sought to provide
convoy protection for the Royal Navy, which was then
absorbing terrible losses to German submarines in the
Battle of the Atlantic. Being very familiar with the capability
of the Autogiro for shipboard landings, he had visited
Pitcairn in late 1940 to explore the ability of the American
to provide Autogiros to be flown from the decks of merchant
ships for testing under combat conditions.32 Pitcairn replied
that although America had not yet entered the war, the
economy anticipated the coming conflict and it would be
impossible to manufacture a new model; the company could
reacquire older PA-18 two-place, open-cockpit Autogiros
(which in turn had been derived from the earlier PAA-1) and
retrofit them with direct control, jump takeoff systems that
would be suitable for British maritime service. Pitcairn's
motivation was undoubtedly complex, as he was well aware
that the small British order would hardly be profitable, yet it
was a patriotic effort and there was certainly the possibility
that British success in utilizing the Autogiro under wartime
conditions might lead to a more favorable view by the
United States Navy, which had consistently rejected the
aircraft since the USMC evaluations in Nicaragua almost a
decade before.
The British Air Purchasing Commission issued a contract on
November 5, 1940, for seven of what came to be called the
PA-39,33 in reality a conversion of the older PA-18 Autogiros
that had been repurchased from their owners who could
not, in most cases, fly due to wartime flight and fuel
restrictions.34 These aircraft had been flying for a decade—
now they would be made ready for war. Pitcairn-Larsen
reworked the fuselages to include triple vertical tail
surfaces, including a central fin and rudder and outward-
slanted end-plates, which had been previously developed
for a latter configuration of the experimental PA-22 and
later incorporated in the aluminum PA-36. The models, with
wings removed, were retrofitted with a three-blade
cantilever rotor with collective and cyclic pitch control,
resulting in an impressive jump takeoff capability powered
by a 165-horsepower Warner-Scarab engine. The aircraft
were scheduled for delivery in late 1941, and as each was
completed, it was test-flown by Slim Soule and accepted by
Wing Commander Brie. Five were to be sent to England,
with two remaining in the United States—one for testing
and demonstration purposes by Brie and the other retained
by the Pitcairn-Larsen factory for further development and,
of great importance to the principals, in anticipation of
future orders once the Autogiro had demonstrated its
wartime worth. In May of the following year Brie did, in fact,
make extensive shipboard tests of the PA-39, landing on the
British escort carrier HMS Avenger in Long Island Sound
and in Chesapeake Bay off Newport News, Virginia, from a
platform constructed on the Empire Mersey, a British
merchant ship, taking off and landing at anchor and while
the vessels were underway. And while the tests achieved
success, the remaining five British PA-39s did not.35
In a supreme irony, of the five PA-39s crated and sent by
ship to England, only two reached their destination, the
others and all the spare parts for the order having been lost
when the ships upon which they had been placed were sunk
by German submarines!36 And the two Autogiros that did
reach England did not actively participate in the war effort.
Even before they were to arrive, the mission had changed
from maritime to communications, and the models had
been allocated to the RAF. Only one of the two that did
reach England ever flew, probably flown by former Cierva
pilot Alan Marsh at Duxford and later at Boscombe Down.
None were recorded as having survived the war, probably
damaged in accidents and as spare parts were unavailable,
not repaired. And as the mission had changed, it became
known that there would be no future Royal Navy orders—
the PA-39 program was dead and with it Pitcairn's hopes of
impressing the United States Navy. The short production
run had cost a great deal of money that now could not be
recouped in future orders—Harold Pitcairn was effectively
out of the Autogiro business and with all the feelings of a
patriotic citizen searching for an avenue to make a
contribution as his country went to war. The feelings of
anger and frustration were vented at Agnew Larsen, who
had failed to deliver the PA-36 in time for the Dorsey Bill
hearings and just supervised the ill-fated PA-39 program.
And there is little doubt that Larsen, who with Ray had been
there from the very first when Pitcairn Field was little more
than a cow pasture, also had deep feelings about the latest
efforts—both men were driven, talented, and patriotic.
Pitcairn vented and Larsen responded, a predictable
escalation from which there was seemingly no retreat.37
The association between the two friends, which had lasted
over twenty-four years, ended with Larsen's resignation,
abruptly ending the confrontation.
Ray and Larsen were now gone, and there was seemingly
no immediate future for Pitcairn's Autogiros. So a new
venture was born, as America faced war on a scale never
before seen. Even though Pitcairn had retained engineers
Paul Stanley and Harris Campbell to design civilian versions
of the PA-36 and larger passenger configurations,38 nothing
would come of these grandiose visions until the Fairey
Rotodyne flew in 1957. Pitcairn responded to a more
immediate need for military aircraft, and the name of the
company was changed to A.G.A. Aviation Corporation (for
autogiros, gliders and airplanes). Although the corporate
name may have reflected the optimistic belief that it would
be called upon to provide each, no Autogiros or airplanes
were ever ordered by the military—only large, gawky
assault gliders. That did not save the company, and it was
acquired by Firestone Tire and Rubber Company in early
1942. Reflecting the lack of government or civilian interest,
Firestone renamed the company G&A Aircraft and took over
the lease of the Pitcairn Aircraft factory at Willow Grove,
Pennsylvania. But there was one last moment for the
Pitcairn Autogiro engineering team—such was the shock of
America's entry into the war that the government
contracted for a new kind of specialized configuration
designed for reconnaissance and observation, based on the
Pitcairn jump takeoff mechanisms and the earlier Buhl
Autogiro “pusher” rear engine placement. This model, of
which only two were ever built before the contract was
cancelled, had a plastic-enclosed cabin for maximum
visibility, a configuration that later influenced the Sikorsky
XR-5 helicopter design. Although the initial contract for
what the military designated the XO-6139 (Experimental
Observation)40 was for a static test frame and six test
models, it was later reduced to five and then cancelled
altogether. Only two were ever built,41 and certification was
never sought. Development had taken its toll, as problems
with ground resonance and engine cooling were
encountered. The focus of the company had shifted to the
development of its other product, the troop-carrying glider,
and by the advent of production helicopters. It would be the
last Autogiro manufactured in America. As the G&A Division
of Firestone, the company belatedly attempted to get into
the helicopter business. Its XR-9, delivered to Wright Field
in 1946, and an enlarged version called the XR-14 were too
little, too late and could not compete for military orders with
those developed previously. The G&A Division then
attempted to market a civilian version but was unsuccessful
and finally went out of business in 1948.42
By 1943 Harold Pitcairn was faced with three other
developments that signaled the end of his active
involvement with the Autogiro. The U.S. government,
responding to the need for new training facilities for pilots,
let him know through the offices of the aviation department
of the Fourth Naval District in Philadelphia that it was
preparing to acquire his inactive airfield for military use by
the navy. Rather than force a formal condemnation
proceeding in accord with eminent domain, Pitcairn sold the
field to the navy for its appraised value. He had been
offered premium sums for the airfield, but now its purchase
price was set on the basis of the surrounding farmland, a
much smaller return, and Pitcairn Field became the United
States Naval Air Station (NAS) Willow Grove.43 Pitcairn had
also concluded that the PA-36 would fly no longer and
ordered the two models constructed by Luscombe to be cut
up into aluminum scrap and donated to the war effort in
1943.44
The year 1943 also saw what was perhaps the most
patriotic gesture of Harold Pitcairn, an extraordinary act to
aid America in its greatest time of need. Pitcairnpersonally
held 19 rotary-wing patents in 1941, and the ACA
additionally held 145 patents, granted from the dawn of
American Autogiro flight. Almost all of the subsequent
helicopter development in America was based on Pitcairn
patents, and the ACA had legally binding rights to royalties
for each and every helicopter utilizing its patents. Igor
Sikorsky readily recognized that these royalties were due,
as he had gained a license to use certain of the Pitcairn
patents at the insistence of H. Franklin Gregory, and he
insisted that the parent company of Vought-Sikorsky, United
Aircraft, make provision to pay them. But then Harold F.
Pitcairn astounded all with an offer that was incredibly
generous and revealed his deep patriotism. He wrote the
commanding general, Army Air Forces Material Command,
Wright Field, in a letter of July 22, 1943:45
For some time we have been giving a lot of thought to what
contribution the Autogiro Company of America might make
to the country in this time of conflict, beyond the
engineering assistance which we have made available to our
licensees. For the good of the war effort and to conserve
public funds, we have decided to reduce to a nominal rate
the royalty charged for the fruits of our fifteen years of
invention, development, and experience in rotary-wing
aircraft. Therefore, on machines and equipment supplied to
the United States Government by our licensees, we will
reduce our royalty from 5% on the basis of fully-equipped
machines to eighty-five one-hundredths of one percent
(.85%) of the [government] contract price, to be effective
for the duration of hostilities with Germany, Japan, and
Italy.
The offer was accepted by the Wartime Royalty Adjustment
Board after being extended to “the end of all present
hostilities, plus six months,” and it has been estimated that
under then-current helicopter contracts the ACA lost over
five million dollars in royalty payments.
The Kellett Autogiro Company did not fare much better with
regard to the military, although it had provided the
advanced direct control XR-2 and XR-3 experimental
models. In 1941, with the country anticipating entry into
war and a functional helicopter still a long way off, the army
contracted for eight experimental observation Autogiros
from Kellett. Called the XO-60/YO-60, this was a true direct
control jump takeoff model, derived from the KD-1/XR-2
series. The first aircraft was completed in February 1943,
with six more delivered by the end of the year for testing.
The latter models were denoted YO-60s because, unlike the
XO-60, which had XR-2-like long-stroke cantilever landing
gear, the YO-60s had standard truss landing gear.
 kellett YO-60 Autogiro. (Courtesy of Stephen Pitcairn, from Pitcairn
Archives)

The three-blade rotor achieved the jump takeoff by means

of a novel collective pitch control, which was later sold to
the Autogiro Company of America, further enhancing its
patent protection in the field of rotary-wing flight, a fact
that would become important in the early 1950s when
Harold Pitcairn would sue the government to enforce his
patents. The rotor could fold for easy storage, and the
visibility afforded by the large transparent canopy was
enhanced by the placement of windows in the floor of the
cockpit.46 The army performed extensive testing but found
that they offered little advantage to the cheaper L-3
Aeronca, L-4 Piper, and L-5 Stinson liaison aircraft currently
in military use47 and that the Autogiros suffered from higher
initial cost and maintenance. They were subsequently
rejected for liaison duty as a result of a report by Autogiro
test pilot E. Stuart Gregg, who was sent to the Sikorsky
factory in late 1943. Gregg flew the YR-4B helicopter for a
few hours and stated in his report that it was abundantly
clear that the “primitive but functional machine could
perform vertical takeoffs and landings with far greater ease
and dexterity than a jump giro.” He would claim in March
2001 that his report resulted in “virtually killing further
military procurement of autogiros.”48 Gregg also confessed
that he “often used a YO-60 to fly home for lunch, landing
in my front yard. I also flew it to the local golf course,
where I landed on the ninth fairway, parked behind the
caddy shack, and put in a quick nine holes of therapeutic
golf.” It was, ironically, the perfect early 1930s version of
Pitcairn's advertising, but this was wartime, and aviation
procurement personnel were not concerned about rounds of
golf.

None of the YO-60s were assigned to operational

reconnaissance units. The last, denoted XO-60, was
delivered to Wright Field on December 6, 1944, and is
currently in the Smithsonian's National Aeronautical
Collection, officially received on May 1, 1949.49 With the
end of the XO-60 program in 1943, Kellett reverted to its
original name and became Kellett Aircraft Corporation, and
it also belatedly turned to helicopter development. It built
and flew the XR-8 in 1945, “looking like a flea topped by
canted side-by-side rotors with intermeshing blades, it was
the first U.S. helicopter to employ the ‘synchropter’
configuration developed by Anton Flettner in Germany
shortly before the war.”50 The experimental XR-8 is today
found in the collection of the National Air and Space
Museum,51 but the later Kellett XR-10 did not survive the
fatal crash that killed its pilot, whose parachute became
entangled in the eggbeater rotors in 1948, and Kellett,
which had been in bankruptcy since 1946, did not survive
as an operational company. Thus ended the two remaining
American Autogiro companies and the Autogiro in America—
they had failed to find either a civilian or military market
and had come to helicopters too late.
World War I had seen vast advances in aviation technologies
—war has that power. The aerial novelty at the outset
became a deadly weapon by the time that the guns fell
silent at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the
eleventh month. World War II would see a similar progress,
with jet planes and missiles, including an experimental
German bomber that flew to within 12.4 miles of New York
City and back to its French base.52 Autogiros would also go
to war, but they would not be American, and there would be
no significant advances in technology occasioned by conflict.
So although the wartime role of Cierva's technology is not
well known, what is readily evident is that the Autogiro
should not have survived the war and the coming of the
helicopter, and it almost did not. It would come down to a
surplus Kellett XR-3.
NOTES

1. Biological Survey and Coast and Geodetic Survey

departments.
2. The May 31, 1939, meeting laid the foundation for
American military rotary-wing development and insured
that the helicopter would eventually join America's
arsenal. Those attending were J. P. Godwin, Department
of Agriculture; Frederick C. Lincoln, U.S. Biological
Survey; Charles M. Kieobee, Division of Air Military
Service; Captain L. T. Chalker, U.S. Coast Guard; John
Easton, Civil Aeronautics Authority; Lieutenant
Commander C. L. Helber, Bureau of Aeronautics; Roy
Knabensheue, Department of the Interior; C. S. Helds
and C. W. Crowley Jr., NACA; Major W. C. Crittenberger,
Cavalry; Major R. W. Beasley, Field Artillery; Lieutenant
Colonel Dale D. Miniman, Coast Artillery; and Lieutenant
Colonel E. W. Fales, Infantry. Hollingsworth Franklin
Gregory, Anything a Horse Can Do: The Story of the
Helicopter, Introduction by Igor Sikorsky (New York:
Rynal & Hitchcock, 1944), p. 91.
3. Frank Kingston Smith, Legacy of Wings: The Story of
Harold F. Pitcairn (New York: Jason Aronson, 1981), p.
276.
4. For a photograph of the PA-36 in jump takeoff mode,
see Smith, Legacy of Wings, p. 276.
5. Peter W. Brooks, Cierva Autogiros: The Development of
Rotary-Wing Flight(Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian
Institution Press, 1988), p. 224; $200,799.11 cited in
Smith, Legacy of Wings, p. 279.
6. John M. Miller, “The Missing Link in Aviation,” Popular
Mechanics Magazine 70, no. 3 (September 1938): 346–
51, 134A–135A.
7. For a description of the mail service, see George
Townson, Autogiro: The Story of “the Windmill Plane”
(Fallbrook, California: Aero Publishers, 1985), pp. 122–
25.
8. Miller noted that the top of the six-story post office was
oriented north-south and featured twenty-foot-high
structures on the east and west sides, effectively
creating a channel for wind. “The north and south ends
had upwards ramps about 3′ high and about 30′ long.
They were not a good idea, but there they were.
Someone, probably at Pitcairn, had suggested them as
logical in the absence of any previous experience or
wind tunnel tests.” John M. Miller, “The First Scheduled
Rooftop Flying Operation in Aviation (Autogiro Airmail
Service at Philadelphia, 1939–40),” Rotorcraft 30, no. 6
(September 1992): 24–33, 29 (emphasis added).
9. Ibid., p. 29; but see Townson, p. 122, where the
erroneous claim is made that the passenger was “Jose
Utubti, popular pianist,” presumably a reference to José
Iturbi. The debate is clearly resolved in Miller's (and
Kostelanetz's) favor, as a photographic record has
survived of the occasion; see John M. Miller, “Civil Uses
of the Autogiro,” Aeronautics 2, no. 10 (1940), p. 622.
10. There is some controversy regarding the
commencement of the Philadelphia-Camden Airmail
Service–Experimental Airmail Route 2001. Townson
relates that the route began on July 5, 1939. “Autogiro
Airmail,” American Helicopter Museum & Education
Center Newsletter 2, no. 3 (Spring 1996): 3. However,
Brooks states that the flights began on July 6, 1939,
and continued through July 5, 1940 (p. 232). Brooks is
undoubtedly correct for the following reasons. Townson
was not a first party to the airmail service and was also
incorrect concerning the musician passenger; Miller
himself cites test and practice fights “through July 5”
(Miller, “First Scheduled Rooftop Flying, p. 29); and the
first-day post office covers clearly are dated July 6,
1939 (author's collection). But Miller himself is
inconsistent—in 1940 he stated that “[s]ervice was
begun … on July 7, 1939.”Miller, “Civil Uses of the
Autogiro,” p. 617. And Miller also states, “The last
scheduled flights were made on July 4, 1940. My log
book shows that I made four round trips, so I assume
that Lukens made one last round trip.” Miller, “First
Scheduled Rooftop Flying,” p. 32.
11. For photographs of Miller taking off from the roof of the
Philadelphia post office, see Some Facts of Interest
about Rotating-Wing Aircraft and the Autogiro Company
of America (Philadelphia: Autogiro Company of America,
1944), p. 20;Townson, pp. 123–25; George Townson
and Howard Levy, “The History of the Autogiro: Part 2,”
Air Classics Quarterly Review 4, no. 2 (Summer 1977):
18;Smith, Legacy of Wings, p. 258; Brooks, p. 232;
Miller, “Civil Uses,” pp. 613–19, 622.
12. Miller, “First Scheduled Rooftop Flying, p. 32; John W. R.
Taylor and Kenneth Munson, History of Aviation (New
York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1972), p. 214.
13. EAL was compensated at $3.86 per airplane mile and at
the end of the year had made a profit of almost
$23,000. According to Rickenbacker, however, writing in
1946, although EAL made a profit, the post office found
the cost high and the capacity of the Autogiro limited so
decided to cancel the route. “The Great Silver Fleet
News,” Eastern Air Lines 10, no. 4 (July–August 1946):
18.
14. Spenser claims that this took place in Berlin. Jay P.
Spenser, Whirlybirds: A History of the U.S. Helicopter
Pioneers (Seattle and London: University of Washington
Press, 1998), p. 101.
15. In February 1936 Leavitt had taken a seventeen-year-
old by the name of Frank Nicholas Piasecki for a ride in
a Kellett KD-1. Piasecki would later state: “With that
experience my interest exploded into the desire to build
my own design. The helicopter particularly appealed to
me, vertical lift being the hot topic in aviation at the
time.” Piasecki was a junior engineer working on the
XR-1, gaining invaluable rotary-wing experience—he
would go on become a premier helicopter innovator.
Spenser, Whirlybirds, pp. 97–98. Piasecki would also
 gain the first helicopter pilot license in America. Smith,
Legacy of Wings, p. 318.
16. See Edward Jablonski, Man with Wings (Garden City,
New York: Doubleday & Company, 1980), pp. 185–88;
David Donald (ed.), The Complete Encyclopedia of
World Aircraft (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997),
pp. 587–88; David Mondey (ed.), The Complete
Illustrated Encyclopedia of the World's
Aircraft(Secaucus, New Jersey: Chartwell Books, Inc.,
1978; updated by Michael Taylor, 2000), pp. 342–43;
for a commentary on Frank Courtney's involvement with
both Amelia Earhart and the Loening amphibian
seaplanes, see Frank T. Courtney, The Eighth Sea (New
York: Doubleday & Co.; also published as Flight Path,
London: William Kimber, 1972), pp. 205–6, 263, 265.
17. As quoted in Gregory, p. 99.
18. While Brooks cites that the latter modified YG-1B is
sometimes referred to as the YG-1C, this designation is
not used elsewhere and is not accepted by either
George Townson or Frank Kingston Smith.
19. See the description and photo in Brooks, p. 234.
20. For a photograph of the destroyed XR-2, see Brooks, p.
235.
21. “Army-Air Force Newsreels 1941,” Traditions Military
Videos,www.militaryvideo.com. (Accessed April 21,
2003.)
22. Brooks, p. 224. But Frank Kingston Smith asserts that
the Bolling Field demonstration actually took place in
October of 1941, but as he notes the subsequent tour of
military installations by Soule in 1941, the February
date is undoubtedly correct. Smith, Legacy of Wings, p.
286.
23. Including Forts Bragg, Benning, Knox, and Sill.
24. Brooks, p. 224.
25. Gregory would claim that the “proudest moment of
[Sikorsky's] life … was the day he became a United
States citizen” (p. 104).
26. Smith, Legacy of Wings, pp. 291–92.
27. See Gregory, pp. 105–13.
28. See Earl Devon Francis, The Story of the Helicopter
(New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1946), pp. 117–18,
where he details the secret research in 1925 by Michael
and Serge Gluhareff, working for the Sikorsky Aero
Engineering Corporation (then housed in a Long Island,
New York, barn), into jet reaction helicopter rotors
powered by compressed air.
29. In fact Sikorsky was proposing the third form of
helicopter, the other two being the German twin-rotor
system Fa-61 and Anton Flettner's intermeshing rotor
system, first suggested by England's Dr. J.A.J. Bennett,
 the synchropter, which would give rise to the term
eggbeater as a synonym for helicopter. In the end
Sikorsky's single-rotor system would prove superior, but
it is not known if that was Gregory's conviction. See
Charles Gablehouse, Helicopters and Autogiros: A
History of Rotating-Wing and V/STOL Aviation, rev. ed.
(Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1969), p. 77.
30. The participants in the December 17 meeting were A.
Gordon Calloway, Department of Agriculture, and
Donald Hamilton of its Forest Service Division; Roy M.
Martin, Air Mail Service Division of the Post Office
Department; CDR W. J. Kossler, U.S. Coast Guard; Alan
L. Morse, Technical Development Division, Civil
Aeronautics Administration; LCDR J. M. Lane, Bureau of
Aeronautics; R. Paul Wessner, National Park Service
(Department of the Interior); F. J. Bailey Jr. and John W.
Crowley, NACA; Majors B. W. Chidlaw and J. F. Phillips
and Captain R. L. Montgomery, Material Division of the
Office Chief of the Army Air Corps; Major Rex E.
Chandler, Field Artillery; Gregory himself representing
the Material Division, Wright Field; and Captain V. R.
Haugen, Aircraft Laboratory of the Material Division. The
participants viewed a film of the Sikorsky helicopter and
agreed that it would be wise to fund the development of
a second helicopter in addition to the XR-1 and that
“beneficial results would be obtained in the comparison
of the Vought-Sikorsky helicopter with the one already
under construction by Platt-LePage.” Gregory, p. 112.
31. Willian E. Hunt, “Heelicopter”: Pioneering with Igor
Sikorsky (London: Airlife Publishing Ltd., 1998), p. 132.
32. Frank Kingston Smith maintains, without citation, that
this plan was not enthusiastically embraced by the
Royal Navy Admiralty, alluding to the desperation of the
moment. Smith, Legacy of Wings, p. 294.
33. For photographs and engineering drawings of the PA-39,
see Brooks, pp. 227–28;Townson, pp. 77–78; Smith,
Legacy of Wings, pp. 296–97.
34. Townson, p. 77. However, not all those approached
were willing to sell their aircraft back to Pitcairn-Larsen.
This was the case with the PA-18 owned by Ann
Strawbridge, currently being restored by Kate and Jack
Tiffany of Spring Valley, Ohio (Leading Edge Aircraft).
35. Brooks (p. 228) notes:
The two American-held PA-39s were purchased back
from the British. One was given to the Aeronautical
Section of Princeton University and its fate is
unrecorded. The other was used by the Firestone Tire
and Rubber Company (which had taken over the G&A
Aircraft Company in 1943) to test the effects of the drag
and weight of rocket units at the blade tips of the rotor.
Townson (p. 80) chronicles the fate of one of the two
repurchased PA-39s:
The autogiro [PA-39] was donated to Princeton
University's Forrestall Research Center. Princeton
University never flew it. About 1959, it was sold to one
of their mechanics who assembled it and John Miller,
one of Kellett's former test pilots flew it. Later it was
used by Umbaugh Aircraft when they were first
promoting their gyroplane. Their test pilot was Fred
“Slim” Soule who had flown all the PA-39s originally.
Then it was bought by Ryan Aeronautical of San Diego.
It was badly damaged in a landing accident there. It has
 since moved through several owners and the son of
Harold Pitcairn, Stephen Pitcairn acquired and restored
it for static display at the EAA Antique Airfield in
Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
36. But see Brooks (pp. 228–29):
None of the seven PA-39's (BW828 to BW834) were
ever employed on actual operations in the intended
role. Five were to have been used to by the RAF for
communication duties but only two reached the United
Kingdom and apparently only one (probably BW833)
was flown there—initially at Duxford by Alan Marsh and
probably later at Boscombe Down. Three (BW828–
BW830) were damaged—according to one account,
deliberately sabotaged—in January 1942 in Canada
while being loaded for shipment to the United Kingdom
and were scrapped together with spares in the same
consignment. At the time it was stated that they had
been lost at sea when their ship was torpedoed.
37. Frank Kingston Smith even maintains that Larsen's
retorts eventually included some remarks “of a
somewhat personal nature,” with no specification.
Smith, Legacy of Wings, pp. 300–1. For a somewhat
suspect discussion of some of the rumors that circulated
about the Pitcairn family, see (with caution)Kathryn E.
O'Brien, The Great and the Gracious on Millionaires'
Row (Utica, New York: North Country Books, Inc.,
1978), pp. 83–89.
38. For schematic drawings of the passenger Autogiros, see
Smith, Legacy of Wings,pp. 364–67.
39. For pictures of the ill-fated XO-61, see Smith, Legacy of
Wings, p. 308; Brooks, p. 240; Townson, p. 84.
40. Also designated as YO-61. See Brooks, p. 240;
Townson, p. 84; but see Smith,Legacy of Wings, p. 308,
where the model is called the “Firestone OX-61.”
41. Brooks, p. 240; but see Townson, p. 84, where the
author maintains that only one aircraft was completed.
42. The Autogiro Company of America continued as a
licensing company into the late 1950s and attempted to
license Skyway Engineering to produce the AC-35
“roadable,” an attempt detailed earlier in this book,
which was unsuccessful.
43. After the war NAS Willow Grove was designated a Naval
Reserve Training Station. The navy subsequently
enlarged the facility to its present 1,100 acres, and in
1994 the name was again changed, this time to Naval
Air Station Joint Reserve Base (NAS JRB). For an official
history of the military base
seehttp://www.nasjrbwillowgrove.navy.mil/history.htm.
44. Smith relates this to the loss of the airfield and claims
that this occurred in 1943.Smith, Legacy of Wings, p.
316. But see Brooks (p. 352), who claims that this
occurred in 1942.
45. As cited in Smith, Legacy of Wings, p. 307.
46. For photographs of the Kellett YO-60, see Brooks, p.
239; Townson, pp. 126–31(with chief test pilot Dave
Driscoll).
47. For a depiction of the use of a light “spotter” plane for
reconnaissance in World War II, see the 1965 movie
Battle of the Bulge, starring Henry Fonda.
48. E. Stuart Gregg, “Jump Ship,” Smithsonian Air & Space
15, no. 6 (March 2001): 14–15.
49. Aircraft of the National Air and Space Museum, 4th ed.
(Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press
1991); see “Kellett XO-60”. Note that Town-son (p. 131)
maintains that the Smithsonian exhibit is one of the YO-
60s that was damaged and then repaired, but his claim
is not credible.
50. Spenser, p. 381.
51. Aircraft of the National Air and Space Museum; the XR-8
is listed as being “In storage.”
52. Roger Ford, Germany's Secret Weapons in World War II
(Osceloa, Wisconsin: MBI Publishing Company, 2000),
p. 30.
 Chapter 9

THE AUTOGIRO GOES TO WAR: THE

ALLIES
Well, Wallis, I would rather see a man with a bit of fire in his
belly who really wants to fly, than some of the perfect
specimens I get. I am going to prescribe a pair of flying
goggles for you with a corrected lens on one side. Don't
bother to put them on, but if you get an eye shot out, put
them on and bring the aeroplane home.
Air Commodore Livingstone to Ken Wallis, allowing him to
continue flying in World War II, “Profile: Wing Commander
K H Wallis,” Popular Flying
“A honeymoon in Cairo in a brand new autogyro…”
Dick Haymes singing to Helen Forrest in “I'll Buy That
Dream” (1945)

ENGLAND
Although the American military had failed to adopt the
Autogiro, it was a different story in Europe. Cierva had been
encouraged to relocate to England chiefly by James G.
“Jimmy” Weir, well-known Scottish industrialist who had
previously been secretary of state for air. Given Weir's
connections and munitions procurement/aviation
sophistication, it is not surprising that the military had been
intrigued with the potential of Cierva's Autogiro since 1925.
But military interest was also evident in Europe by the mid
1930s with the first commercially available Autogiro, the
C.30 and C.30A were widely purchased by foreign military
authorities and civilian manufacturers who supplied the
military for evaluation prior to World War II. C.30s were
exported to Hong Kong, Brazil, Czechoslovakia, India, Italy,
the Soviet Union, Lithuania, Germany, China, Australia,
Argentina, Sweden, and Austria, and were purchased by
Lioré-et-Olivier in France and the air forces of England,
Poland, Spain, Belgium, and Yugoslavia as well as the
Danish army.1
Additionally, while the authorities in Japan had evaluated
the C.19 Mk.IV, the Japanese military adopted a Kellett
model as their basic configuration and produced more
military Autogiros than any other World War II combatant.
And therein perhaps lies the reason why the military record
of the Autogiro is largely unknown: Autogiro development
largely stopped with the coming of war in 1939, and these
aircraft were primarily used by defeated military powers.
The French (defeated initially) and the Japanese (defeated
eventually) were the major users of the Autogiro, and
England alone among the victors employed a squadron of
Autogiros in a highly specialized, and today almost totally
unremembered, vital role. In the United States and Soviet
Union, helicopter development eclipsed the Autogiro by the
start of the war, and the Autogiro played a small and
relatively insignificant wartime role. But that leaves
Germany, and with the success of the Fa-61 and Flettner
helicopters, there would seem no impetus for Autogiro
development, yet there were seemingly insignificant
developments of a rotary kite that was to prove of greatest
significance to the survival of Cierva's vision.
The Royal Air Force had found the C.19MkIII unacceptable,
but in 1933 Cierva pilot Reggie Brie demonstrated the
C.19MkIV during the annual army maneuvers at Salisbury.
This included taking senior officers along as passengers, to
favorable reviews, and the introduction of direct control
induced the authorities to reevaluate a military role. The
following year Brie would stress that the direct control C.30
was much easier for the average pilot to fly under all
conditions, a condition important for the British military that
contemplated wide adoption.2 The military, defining two
distinct roles for the C.30A, army cooperation (liaison) and
naval functions, subsequently adopted the direct control
C.30A. The air ministry ordered ten C.30As for the former
on July 9, 1934, called Rota I (from rotary aircraft) and
later ordered two naval models with floats called Rota II.
The first ten were built by Avro and given the number 761.3
In September of that year Flight Lieutenants W. Humble and
R. H. Haworth-Booth were trained with the C.30A and
assigned to instructor duty in the RAF School of Army
Cooperation at Old Sarum, where six Rotas had been
accepted for service by November 22. The Rota's obvious
reconnaissance and observation potential prompted the War
Office to officially end the dangerous World War I practice of
utilizing captive observation balloons, a Christmas Eve
decision that probably occasioned much relief on the part of
those assigned to such hazardous duty.
By the following September the six Rotas assumed a
military role in combined RAF/Army war games but with
only limited success, as the C.30A's performance under
actual battlefield conditions left much to be desired. The
aircraft required a ground run of 450 feet for takeoff and
often suffered from ground resonance experienced in
landing on rough ground, defined as “self-excited
mechanical (potentially destructive) vibration on the ground
of a rotary-wing aircraft involving a couple between the
blade motion and that of the supporting structure or of the
whole aircraft.”4 These were seen as serious handicaps and
led not to additional military duties but to a serious course
of research including wind tunnel testing of a model at the
National Physical Laboratory and, in 1937, in the French
Chalais-Meudon wind tunnel. The RAF made no further
efforts to acquire additional Rota I models; they would
make use of light airplanes for observation, communication,
and reconnaissance functions in World War II, as did their
allies and enemies, but the Rota I remained in the RAF
inventory with seemingly no defined role at Old Sarum.5
That would change with the coming of war in 1939.
Qualified pilots were quickly inducted into RAF service, and
Squadron Leader R.A.C. Brie, flying a C.30A, played a
unique role in calibrating the United Kingdom's new radar
chain, which was soon to play such a large part in the Battle
of Britain. Brie's success soon led in July 1940 to the
creation of specialized units used mainly for radar
calibration. Thus, now having finally found a vital role for
the Autogiro, the military requisitioned civilian C.30As and,
along with the remaining Rota I aircraft, assigned them to
eight Radio Servicing Units as part of the No. 74 (Signals)
Wing. These units were later consolidated into No. 1448
Flight, based at RAF Hendon,6 Odiham, and Duxford. This
mixed squadron of Autogiros and Bristol Blenheim Mk IVs
was initially commanded by Flight Lieutenant M.J.B. Stoker
and later by Brie, who was then promoted to Wing
Commander. In June 1943 the Autogiros were ordered to
No. 529 Squadron, the RAF's first operational rotary-wing
unit, operating from Halton and Crazies Hill near Henley-on-
Thames until disbanded on October 20, 1945. At its largest,
529 had seventeen C.30s in service and accumulated a total
of 9,141 flying hours. Brie was not available for command,
as he had been ordered to the British Purchasing
Commission in Washington, D.C., but the 529 was led by
another Cierva veteran, Squadron Leader Alan Marsh.
Flying Officer Norman Hill described in a 1963 magazine
article the procedure by which radar calibration was
achieved. He described the flight of July 14, 1943:
Working with CHF (Chain-Height-Find), Rye3, I had to orbit
about a dozen marks on land and sea. Special markers were
first dropped for the sea runs, around which the smallest
possible orbit had to be maintained for a period of three to
six minutes, at altitudes of two, three, and four thousand
feet, while the special squegger aboard transmitted signals
to the radar stations.7
But such activities and reconnaissance missions in which
the Autogiro ventured into harm's way always carried with it
the possibility of confrontation with the enemy. As
Lieutenants Gregory and Nichols had discovered in testing
the Kellett YG-1 in 1936, the Autogiro's turning and
descending abilities could outmaneuver fighter planes,
which generally only had one pass, but those drills,
conducted during artillery-spotting exercises, did not
feature live ammunition.8 But Flying Officer Hill9 was about
to discover what it was like to face real ammunition and
enemy pilots determined to down the Autogiro.
The sun was setting late on the July afternoon as Hill was
completing his final calibration exercise—he passed through
some disturbed air and realized for the first time that there
were other aircraft in the area. When trying to find the
cause of the disturbance, he first noticed an aircraft flying
below his position and became alarmed when realizing that
it was a well-armed German fighter, a Focke-Wulf Fw 190
capable of flying at speeds well above 300 mph. Although
the Rota theoretically had a maximum speed of 110 mph,
Hill's experience was that aircraft's top speed was 85–90
mph,10 so he knew all that stood between him and death
were the unique flying characteristics of the Autogiro!
Pretending that he was unaware of the Fw 190, which had
looped upward from below the Rota and was then
positioned for a strafing run with its cannons and machine
guns, sweating profusely with his hand on the stick, Hill
waited until the last moment before tilting the rotor head
backward, causing the Rota to slow and flare upward and
the German plane to pass harmlessly overhead. Hill then
pushed the stick hard to port, causing the Rota to turn and
dive toward the ground, a maneuver the German pilot
declined to follow. But even as Hill struggled to regain
control of the Autogiro, which was locked in a steep dive, a
second Fw 190 appeared and closed for a kill. Again Hill's
flying ability and the aircraft's capabilities saved the day, as
he deliberately turned directly toward his attacker, both
presenting the smallest possible profile to the attacking
aircraft and likely scaring its pilot, a technique that worked.
The second aircraft broke off the attack at what seemed the
last minute and passed below the Rota. The entire
encounter had taken only three minutes and used up most
of Hill's fuel, but it carried the planes considerably inland,
where Hill was able to continue in steep but controlled
descent to a safe landing, while the Fw 190s presumably
returned to their bases across the English Channel. The
Autogiro had survived, in much the same manner as
established by Gregory and Nichols seven years before.

FRANCE
Cierva's early demonstrations in France had attracted the
distinguished aviation engineer Captain Georges Lepère,
who built the first cabin Autogiro, the C.18, in June 1929.11
Avions Weymann-Lepère had been formed in January 1929,
predating the formation of the Pitcairn-Cierva Autogiro
Company of America by several weeks, and acquired a
Cierva license when the English company had ordered a
metal cabin Autogiro in early 1929. It was built for Loel
Guinness as an entry into the November 1929 Guggenheim
Safe Aircraft Competition. The aircraft had been first flown
at Villacoublay on August 12, 1929, and it is thought that
Cierva himself may have been the pilot, just prior to his
departure for America. The C.18 was taken to the Pitcairn
factory in America for reassembly and testing prior to the
Guggenheim competition, but it experienced high vibration
levels and never did enter the Guggenheim.
When Lepère left the company in 1930, it was renamed
éstablissements Aéronautiques Weymann, and it continued
with a Lepère project for the French navy, the Weymann
CTW.200, also known as the WEL.200. This was a side-by-
side two-seat, with dual controls in the open cockpit. The
fuselage was of a chromemolybdomen steel tube
construction covered by fabric. It featured a four-blade
rotor mounted on four-strut pylon attached to the fuselage
just forward of the cockpit.12 With its upturned wingtips and
box deflector tail for rotor spin-up, the French Autogiro bore
a strong resemblance to the Cierva C.19MkIII. The CTW.200
was exhibited in mock-up at the Twelfth Paris Solon in late
November and early December 1930 and was first flown
Easter week. Cierva came from England to pilot the initial
flights, but it was subsequently flown by Weymann test pilot
Pierre Martin. Martin also flew demonstration flights of the
C.19MkII's in May in the air show at Orly, and the French
navy ordered two Weymann-Lepère Autogiros, but it “is not
known whether both Autogiros ordered by the French navy
were completed and delivered.”13 The second model was
denoted the CTW.201, a heavier cabin model of the
previous CTW.200, with a more powerful engine. It was the
second European Autogiro to have an engine-powered
prerotator but it was not relevant for military development
in France, as such efforts had by then shifted to the Lioré-
et-Olivier company, which Georges Lepère had joined. But it
was clear that from 1930 onward, French military
authorities were interested in the Autogiro. That interest
was to result in a significant but doomed deployment of
Autogiros in the early days of World War II.
After leaving his former company, Lepère joined the French
aviation firm founded by Fernand Lioré and Henri Olivier in
1906. Largely due to his rotary-wing enthusiasm, Lioré-et-
Olivier acquired a license from Cierva in 1931 to
manufacture and sell the C.19MkIV, but they apparently did
not do so, and that license acquisition may have been to
establish a relationship with the English company. This led
to a confusing circumstance, where Weymann held the
French Autogiro design license, while Lioré had the license
to build the C.19MkIV, which was resolved when Cierva
himself proposed in March 1932 that the design licensee be
transferred to Lioré but allowed Weymann to continue with
the construction of its own models, the CTW.200 and
CTW.2001. The license was officially transferred in February
of the following year. The result was a series of Autogiros
denoted as the C.L. series (for “Cierva Lioré”), and they
would furnish the French military with the largest military
Autogiro component in World War II.
The direct control Autogiro provided the impetus for the
French military to seriously consider rotary-wing aircraft.
Lepère had worked with Cierva in England during the last
three months of 1932 to design the direct control C.L.10
Autogiro, which featured a hanging-stick control column for
pitch control but which also utilized a wheel attached to the
end of the control column for lateral control. This was
different from that being developed in England and did not
prove successful. Cierva, flying the second C.L.10 on
November 24, 1932, at Orly, found it unstable, with an
overly sensitive tilting rotor head control. There were
several sequential Cierva Lepère models, but they did not
prove successful. The first C.L.10 was modified in England
and became known as the C.L.10A. The Cierva-Lepère
C.L.10B, an extensive modification of the original C.L.10,
was produced in France in 1933. The Cierva-Lepère C.L.20,
a prototype constructed by Westlands at Yeovil in August
1934, a side-by-side direct control cabin two-seater, proved
underpowered when first flown by Cierva and Alan Marsh on
February 4, 1935. It never received a Certificate of Air
Worthiness and was scrapped in 1938. Nothing ever came
of the plan to market this aircraft, much like the fate of the
PA-19 Cabin Autogiro in America, which, by all accounts,
was a much more impressive aircraft.
As in England, it would be the C.30A direct control Autogiro
that was embraced by the French military. Cierva had flown
the C.30P (G-ACIO) to France and Spain early in 1934, and
Reggie Brie had made a notable non-stop flight from
London to Paris in two hours and twenty minutes on
January of that year, making an impressive delivery to the
French Air Ministry, which had acquired the C.30P for
evaluation. On February 8 Cierva flew another C.30 to Paris,
where he demonstrated its capabilities before
representatives of the French army and navy at
Villacoublay, along with flights by Lioré test pilot Lucien
Bourdin. The enthusiastic reception prompted an expansion
of the Lioré C.19MkIV license to include the C.30, and
Fernand Lioré established a separate department for the
production and development of Autogiros under the
direction of Ingenieur Pierre Renoux and Roger Lepreux for
flight-testing. Autogiros had caught the public's fancy, and a
separate gyroplane license category had been established in
January of 1935 with the support of the newly established
Club Autogire de France—Roger Lepreux obtained one of
the first rotary-wing licenses and was undoubtedly
congratulated by club president Juan de la Cierva!
Lioré, under the terms of its expanded Cierva license,
ordered four Avro C.30As in 1935, the first of which was
flown in July from England to Paris by Lepreux. This was
turned over to French officials for evaluation and
extensively flown in army war games in September at Le
Val d'Alion and Mourmelon. The second C.30A arrived in
October and garnered extensive publicity and acclaim when
Lepreux landed in front of the Grand Palais on the Champs
Elysées, where the Fourteenth Salon de l'Aéronautique was
being held. The third C.30A arrived by the end of 1934, and
the final aircraft was in France by April of the following year.
That the French military was serious in considering the
C.30A was evident in the final model, which had been fitted
with a locally produced 203-horsepower Salmson 9Nd
engine and a Ratier propeller in anticipation of French
production. The flight-testing of the first three produced a
favorable evaluation, and the government authorized
purchase of the four aircraft on December 28, 1934. The
English Autogiros receiving their Certificats de Navigabilté in
the 1935–36 period were assigned to the Flight Test Center
at Villacoublay until being transferred to the Armée de l'Air
in 1939 in preparation for war.
France had designated its naval air arm as the Aéronautique
Navale (l'Aéronavale) in 1925, and the Aviation Militaire
itself became the Armée de l'Air in 1933.14 Lioré-et-Olivier
received an order for twenty-five Autogiros on April 25,
1935, for the Armée de l'Air, which intended to use them in
reconnaissance and artillery-spotting roles. This order came
quickly after delivery of the fourth Avro-built aircraft, with
the first five C.30As coming from England as components
for French assembly in June of that year, but delivery was
delayed until January of 1936 so that modifications
requested by the French authorities could be made. This
delay, also allegedly occasioned by French claims that the
English production drawings were inadequate, reflected the
growing tension between the English and the French
manufacturer, clearly intent on local production. These
modified aircraft, known as the LeO C.30s,15 could almost
achieve a jump takeoff and stimulated naval interest. Of the
original order, four were allocated to l'Aéronavale in late
1935, and the Armée de l'Air received the last of the
twenty-five in July 1936. In extended operations and
testing, the army did not embrace the C.30A, as it was
found to be too slow and to have a poor climb rate,
occasional lack of stability, inadequate landing gear for
rough field landings, and easily damaged rotor blades.
The Autogiro was seen as a replacement for the artillery
observation balloons used in World War I, and had it been
that kind of war, it might have achieved success. But as the
Polish cavalry discovered when its gallant but doomed
officers charged German tanks, this was to be a different
kind of conflict, and therein is to be found the explanation
for the lack of Autogiro military success and its quick exit
from the European war arena. As often occurs, the French
generals were planning to fight the last war, which had been
distinguished by static confrontation along entrenchment
lines and had created the Maginot Line of hardened
defensive positions to oppose the German Siegfried Line.
Had the conflict mirrored the static preparations, the
Autogiro might have readily assumed a valuable
reconnaissance role, as previous American experience and
later British experience demonstrated that an Autogiro
could successfully evade fighter aircraft. But the devastating
German blitzkrieg doomed the planned Autogiro military
role and quickly drove it from the field of battle.
The army had planned in 1937 to use forty-six Autogiro
units, each consisting of three aircraft assigned to
reconnaissance roles, but this had been reduced to thirty
units by 1938. It was not anticipated that war would come
before 1941, and Aircraft Plan V of 1938 called for the
activation of six units in 1938 and eight in each of the next
three years. This also reflected the preparation for war as
early as 1936, when the French had become seriously
alarmed by the resurgent German military Observation
units and had begun receiving Autogiros on November 16,
1938. At the beginning of September in 1939 before the
German attack on Poland, fifty-five Autogiros had been
delivered to the Armée de l'Air, (sixty-four LeO C.30s would
be delivered by the end of 1939) with fifty-two available,
but only twenty-eight were in operational status, with an
additional five then under repair. Three were in an Autogiro
training unit (Center d'Instruction à l'Observation sur Avions
Autogyres) and sixteen in a storage depot (Entrepots de
l'Armée l'Air). Thus did the French Autogiro go to war, with
the first reconnaissance missions being flown in October
1939 by Adjudant de Zimmer of Squadron (Group d'Aviation
d'Observation) 1/514 over enemy territory.
The French navy was also using the C.30A to track
torpedoes from submarines and surface ships and to
calibrate gunnery director radars on the larger worships. A
total of eight Autogiros were in service with the navy at the
beginning of September 1939, but four more were acquired
from the air force by March of the following year, while only
forty-seven remained in air force service. By May 10, when
the Germans attacked westward, the air force had only
eighteen operational aircraft with five squadrons and the
training school, while the navy had assigned nine Autogiros
into its only operational unit, held two in reserve, and had
assigned two to the Autogiro school at Hyères-le-Palyvestre.
Of the thirty-one operational Autogiros that began the war
on May 10, only seven remained in unoccupied France by
the Armistice of June 25, 1940; six of those were captured
by Italian forces when Vichy France was overrun in
November 1942 and soon became unserviceable. The
seventh Autogiro was hidden, was later restored, and is
preserved in the Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace at Le Bour-
get.16 It was the only French Autogiro to survive the war.
Thus the role of the French Autogiro in war came to an end.
Its pilots had not hesitated to go in harm's way. During the
brief war Autogiros were used “mainly for short-range
liaison duties,” and at least two were lost in late May.
Captain Guy Briand, previously assigned to the Autogiro
Training Unit, was more fortunate while on a reconnaissance
mission over German forward lines. He was machine-
gunned by a formation of nine Dornier Do 17s flying about
330 feet above his position, but he escaped. Five of the
hundred ordered FSNCASE C.301 models17 had been
completed—they were an improved version of the C.30 and
featured tabs on the rotor blades that enabled stable high-
speed longitudinal flight and pinpoint landings. The latter
was significant in that it allowed for instrument flying, and
the former proved of value in combat areas, but the coming
of war and bombing of the plant curtailed production. They
ended up using French rotors when those ordered from
Norway could not be shipped to France. It was considered
by French authorities to be the best French Autogiro, but it
did not survive war, although one was demonstrated at
Marignane before a delegation from the German armaments
commission.

SOVIET UNION
The Soviet Union had a similar, but much more limited,
wartime involvement with the Autogiro. Autogyro
development had began in 1929 with the KaSkr-I, an
unauthorized copy of the Cierva, named after its designers
Nikolai I. Kamov and Nikolai K. Skrzhinsky (Skrzhinskii).18
It was a modified U-1 trainer, a Soviet copy of the Avro-
504K, with an M-2, the Russian copy of the 110-horsepower
Le Rhône rotary engine and a wider track landing gear, and
it was nicknamed the Krasnyi inzhener (“Red Engineer”). It
was not flown,19 as ground tests revealed it to be unstable
and prone to overturn sideways, as well as having an
inadequate control system and being generally
underpowered. It did, however, have a relatively advanced
clutch connection to the engine to spin up the four-bladed
thirty-nine-foot, four-and-a-half-inch diameter rotor.
Modified with a more powerful 230-horsepower French
Gnôme-Rhône Titan air-cooled radial engine in a helmeted
cowling, it was dubbed the KaSkr-II and was similar to the
Cierva C.8L-I. The KaSkr-II first flew in mid-1930 with pilot
D. A. Koshits, who made some ninety test-flights, reached
an altitude of 1,500 feet, and achieved a maximum speed of
sixty-eight mph. The aircraft was subsequently flown with
skis during the winter of 1930–31 and was “presented to
the state authorities and military commanders at Khodynka
airfield in Moscow in May 1931,”20 who were enthusiastic
about its military applications. By October the designers,
installed at a special design department known as the OOK
(Otdel Oskbykh Konstruktsii) that had been formed within
TsAGI at the end of 1926,21 embarked on the design of an
autogyro capable of combat reconnaissance, artillery
spotting, and liaison duties. This design/developmental
function was made more complicated by the military
requirements that the autogyro performance be comparable
to that of a light fixed-wing aircraft and be capable of
carrying a radio, camera, machine gun, and bombs. This
autogyro, called the TsAGI A-7, was from the outset
intended as a multi-mission military aircraft. But it was not
the only Soviet autogyro project.
The second Russian gyroplane was designed by I. P.
Bratukhin and Vyacheslav A. Kuznetsov toward the end of
1930, who were then also at the OOK. Dubbed the EA-2 (for
“second experimental autogyro”) it resembled the Cierva
C.19,22 which had undoubtedly been observed by Soviet
agents then in England. The 2-EA was noteworthy in that it
was not derived from an existing Soviet aircraft but
designed from the beginning as a test platform. Its
construction was supervised by A. M. Izakson and featured
a welded steel tube fuselage covered by fabric and a four-
bladed cable-braced rotor on top of a three strut pylon
above the forward open cockpit of the two-seat autogyro.23
Cierva's earlier influence was apparent in the use of the
deflector box-tail to prespin the rotor, and from that
standpoint it was not as advanced as the KaSkr I or II
models, which incorporated a mechanical drive, but in other
respects the 2-EA was a sturdy development platform.
Employing the same Gnôme-Rhône Titan engine that had
been used in the KsSkr II, it first flew on November 17,
1931, piloted by Sergei A. Korzinshchikov, and its vibrations
problems were quickly overcome. After development
testing, the single 2-EA was transferred to the Maxim Gorkii
Propaganda Squadron (Makxim Gor'ky propaganda
eskadril'ya) and presented to the Osoaviakim Museum in
early 1934, but test program success, however limited, led
to further development.
The TsAGI 4-EA (also called the A-4), an autogyro for
military pilot training24 and observation duties, was
produced by the TsaGI OOK under the direction of N. K.
Skrshinskii, A. M. Cheremukhin, and G. I. Solnitsev.
Development commenced early in 1932, and a decision was
made in June to go ahead with a limited production run
even though the prototype would not fly until November 6
of that year.25 Under the direction of Pyotr I. Baranov, it had
taken only twenty-four days to construct the 4-EA, an
amazing feat, but it would take less time for the model to
crash, as the production decision proved premature. When
Korzinshchikov took to the air on November 6, he
immediately encountered vibration problems coupled with
low motor rpm, and the second flight, on November 9,
resulted in a crash that Korzinshchikov fortunately
survived.26 The 4-EA, employing a locally produced 300-
horsepower M-26 engine (a license-built variant of the
American Wright Whirlwind nine-cylinder radial engine)
enclosed in a Townend ring cowling, upturned wingtips and
conventional tail, spun up its rotor by means of a
mechanical connection with the engine,27 similar to the
Pitcairn PCA-2. The vibration problem was solved in a
pragmatic fashion with testing of several rotor
configurations, and the model entered limited military
production.28
TsAGI OOK continued to develop experimental autogyros
with the A-6, under the direction of V. A. Kuznetsov and his
team, inspired by the Cierva C.19MkIV being developed
simultaneously as the A-4. The A-6 was a smaller two-seat
aircraft employing a three-blade cantilevered rotor that
could be folded back for convenient storage.29
Korzinshchikov served as test pilot for the first flights early
in 1933. Even though the A-6 was demonstrated at the
Moscow Aviation Festival on August 18, 1934, future
development lost in the internal TsAGI power struggle and
did not proceed, as it was viewed as being in conflict with
the A-4, which was then entering limited military
production, but the A-6 made important contributions as an
experimental platform to explore issues of stability, control,
and ground resonance. Although two additional aircraft
were constructed, dubbed the A-8 and A-13/A-14 series,30
they were limited test platforms during the 1935–36 time
frame, with the A-8 first flying on September 17, 1935, and
the A-13 on March 13, 1936. Of limited success and even
more limited impact, these models represented the final
autogyro achievements under the direction of Kuznetsov.
Another design team within TsAGI was led by Nikolai
Kamov, and his team would develop the most successful
Soviet autogyro, the TsAGI A-7.
Begun in 1931, the A-7 was designed from the very
beginning as a powerful militaryautogyro fully capable of
the expected reconnaissance and liaison duties, but also
armed and packing a punch in the form of machine guns
and bombs—this was the first rotary wing-aircraft intended
as a combat aircraft.31 Originally designated as the EA-7,
and later the A-7, it had a fuselage of welded steel tubes
with duralumin covering and an integral fin.32 The best
known of the Soviet autogyros, the two-seat A-7 was a
“strong and robust machine, made of metal”33 first flown by
Korzinshchikov on September 20, 1934. It was not the first
metal-fuselage Autogiro (that had been the French-built
Weymann-Lepère C.1834 featuring a stress-metal skin in
192935) nor was it the most beautiful (that was undoubtedly
the Pitcairn jump take-off PA-36 of 1938). But the A-7 was
built tough, a muscled brute of a machine powered by a
radial nine-cylinder 480-horsepower M-22 engine, a proven
Gnôme-Rhône Jupiter 9ASB motor that had been built
under license since 1930. The motor was streamlined by the
addition of a Townend ring cowling and utilized a wooden,
two-bladed, fixed-pitch propeller. Comparable in size and
weight to the largest Autogiros built by the Cierva licensees,
it was the largest autogyro built in the Soviet Union and the
most powerful. And to increase speed for this war machine,
the tricycle undercarriage landing gear and main rotor
supports were encased in streamlined fairings. The three-
blade rotor could be folded back for more compact storage,
and it was claimed that Kamov included this feature in
anticipation of future shipboard deployment.36
Given the A-7's multiple combat missions, it is not
surprising that it initially weighed in at a hefty 4,530
pounds,37 eventually increased to 5,070 pounds.38 This
consisted of a 3,416-pound airplane structure, 628 pounds
of fuel, 77 pounds of lubricating oil, and a two-person crew
weighing a maximum of 396 pounds, with the remaining
553 pounds being allocated to a 13SK-3 radio transmitter,39
the Potez-1bis camera,40 and armament.41 The heavy,
durable three-blade cantilever rotor was constructed of
stainless steel and prerotated by an engine-driven
transmission gear that had become standard since the
American PCA-2 in 1931. Kamov's intent was to produce an
armed combat aircraft, and he succeeded as no one had
before—the machine carried a fuselage-mounted 7.62 mm
ShKAS PV-1 fixed machine gun carrying 250 (later
increased to 500) rounds, activated by the pilot in the
forward cockpit and synchronized with the propeller for
effective forward fire.42 But the A-7's lethal bite did not end
there. Kamov had also included a TUR-6 gun post in back of
the rear cockpit, on which were initially mounted two, later
reduced to one, Degtyarev light machine guns with 10 to 12
magazines. It could carry four 220-pound or two 250-pound
bombs suspended beneath its wings, and Kamov later
added provision for six RS-82 unguided rockets, and some
of the rockets could be reversed under the wing, to be fired
to the rear for protection against pursuing fighters. It had a
minimum speed of 30 mph and could fly at 130 mph flat
out.
As the aircraft employed fixed-wing control surfaces, it was
not current with direct control machines that were then
flying in England and America, but the A-7 successfully
passed through its initial tests after the maiden flight in
1934 by Korzinshchikov and caused a sensation when flown
and exhibited at the Soviet Air Display Day on August 18 of
the following year. Factory testing was completed on
December 9, 1935, and the prototype was turned over to
the state aviation authorities for acceptance testing, which
continued until April, 1936, with A. A. Ivanovskii as pilot.
Additionally, as part of the testing, a C.30A had been
imported from England for comparative testing—and the
Soviet authorities claimed that the A-7 had better
performance and was better suited for a military role.43 But
the testing had revealed deficiencies, including a slight lack
of directional stability; rotor, tail, and stick vibrations; and
engine overheating, so a second modified prototype was
produced in March 1937. Dubbed the A-7bis, the aircraft
featured the addition of a vertical fin on each side, a two-
strut rotor pylon that resulted in increased side visibility,
and greater streamlining that resulted in decreased drag.
The A-7bis was tested during the May 1937–July 1938
period and employed under combat conditions during the
Soviet-Finn war of 1939–40, when the prototype was tasked
with several reconnaissance missions. As a result of the
successful testing and experimental military deployment,
five military production aircraft were ordered with a slightly
lighter airframe and less aerodynamic unfaired landing gear.
Production was begun in Smolensk in 1939, with the first
delivery of the A-7-3a occurring in early 1940.
A prototype had been used in 1938 in Greenland and
employed on board the ice-breaker Yermak during an
expedition to rescue Papanin's North Pole station44 from an
ice floe. Another was used in 1938–40 by Aeroflot for
forestry patrols during the Tien-Shan (Tyan-Shan)
expedition in Central Asia, where during April–May 1941,
the A-7bis was tested as to its suitability for agricultural
spraying, previously demonstrated by pilot George Townson
flying a PCA-2 for Giro Associates of Morristown, New
Jersey, in 1938.45 The Soviet tests proved that the rotor
disk was highly effective in crop dusting and spraying
insecticides and fungicides, as the chemicals were efficiently
forced downward, and in 1939 an American author
concluded that “in many respects, the autogiro is an ideal
machine for dusting. An experienced 'giro pilot can hover
his ship at low altitudes and literally push his chemicals into
hollows.”46 It was estimated in the Soviet experiments that
the A-7bis could achieve an efficiency twice that of the most
effective contemporary fixed-wing agricultural aircraft, but
the coming of the German war machine to Russia in June
1941 ended these experiments. The Soviet autogyros were
about to face the might of Hitler's blitzkrieg war machine. It
would prove to be a decidedly one-sided confrontation.
Five A-7bis machines were prepared for combat and
deployed to the front lines as a separate squadron within
the 163rd Fighter Regiment of the 24th Air Army, under the
command of Captain P. Trovimov and with Mikhail L. Mil,
who would later achieve fame and honor as a helicopter
engineer, as squadron engineer. The designated task at the
Smolensk front was reconnaissance and propaganda, chiefly
the dropping of leaflets, but the A-7bis did not prove
effective in either mission. The aircraft proved vulnerable
without fighter protection, and daylight flights ended
quickly, as the autogyros were quickly reduced to nighttime
close reconnaissance and leaflet dropping.47 Because the
sorties were primarily executed at night, no aircraft were
lost to enemy fire, but there were several forced landings,
which severely damaged two of the aircraft so that only
three were flying by October,48 and by the end of the month
all autogyros were withdrawn from combat for repair.
Factory No. 290 had been moved to Bilmby village near
Sverslovsk, and it was to that relocated factory that the five
A-7bis aircraft were taken, but they would not be returned
to combat. In the words of historian John Everett-Heath:
“The A-7s were not popular machines to fly, being cast
rather in the role of Soviet lambs to the German
slaughter.”49
The withdrawal of the A-7bis marked the end any Russian
military role for the autogyro, although Kamov had
proposed in 1940 a wingless, direct control autogyro for
reconnaissance and liaison duties, but the AK prototype
never flew.50 Additionally Skrzinsky had designed a single-
seat autogyro fighter, the A-12.51 It was intended to meet
state-of-the-art military performance standards: a
minimum-maximum speed range of 28–186 mph, an
altitude ceiling of 23,000 feet, and a ground taxi of no more
than 150 feet. The prototype utilized a 670-horsepower
Wright Cyclone built under license and designated the M-25,
with a NACA cowling, streamlined fighter fuselage and
semi-enclosed cockpit. Flight-testing had commenced on
May 10, 1936, and actual flight achieved on May 27 by pilot
A. P. Chernavsky. That testing program proceeded slowly so
that only forty-three flights had been made, for a total of
eighteen hours, in the next year. On May 23, 1937, the A-
12 crashed after a rotor blade came off in flight,52 fatally
injuring pilot Ivan Kozyrev, ending the project. A speed of
152 mph had been established, but even if this model had
succeeded, the Soviet military had become aware of
German helicopter development and, as in America, was
already beginning to turn away from the autogyro. Mikhail
Mil had already designed the two-seat A-15 wingless direct
control autogyro, which would have been the largest and
most powerful Soviet autogyro, with a 750-horsepower M-
25V engine, but it was shelved with the crash of the A-12.
It was put into storage and signaled the end of Soviet
autogyro development. The abysmal World War II record of
the A-7bis did nothing to revive the technology, and an
autogyro would not reappear in the Soviet Union until the
early 1960s.
The Soviet involvement with the autogyro or gyroplane
proceeded down paths already blazed by Cierva and Pitcairn
but must clearly be distinguished. Although a C.30A was
sold to Russia and flown in comparison with the A-7, the
Soviet authorities never became a Cierva licensee (hence
never produced an Autogiro), and it is certainly likely that
Cierva would not have granted such a license after the
death of his only brother, Ricardo, at the hands of the
Communists on November 6, 1936, in Paracuellos, near
Madrid. But the Soviet development of the rotary-wing
aircraft was notable in that, unlike either Cierva or Pitcairn,
the Soviets conceived of the autogyro as a weapon of war
from the very beginning. But their powerful aircraft were no
match for the new kind of air war, and by the end of the
conflict the autogyro had all but been forgotten. A similar
end awaited the military Autogiros thousands of miles to the
east, in Japan.
NOTES

1. Peter W. Brooks, Cierva Autogiros: The Development of

Rotary-Wing Flight(Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian
Institution Press, 1988), pp. 348–51.
2. R.A.C. Brie, The Autogiro and How to Fly It, 2nd ed.
(London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, 1934); see also
Reginald A. C. Brie, “Practical Notes on the
Autogiro,”Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society 4
(March 1939); reprinted as “Pilot's Notes on Flying the
Direct-Control Autogyro in 1939,” Rotorcraft 34, no. 5
(August 1996): 19–21.
3. Daniel J. March (ed.), British Warplanes of World War
II: Combat Aircraft of the RAF and Fleet Air Arm 1939–
1945 (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1998), p. 16.
4. Brooks, p. 362.
5. But see March, p. 16, where the editor maintains that
by outbreak of war the Rota I had been “struck off
charge.”
6. Brooks, pp. 191 and 372; but see March, p. 16. And see
Flying Officer Norman Hill, “Wingless Combat,” Royal Air
Force Flying Review 18, no. 4 (January 1963): 24–25,
57, where this is related as “Halton” (p. 25). Hill's
reference to the 1448 flight is confusing, as the
Autogiros were ordered to the 574 Squadron the
previous month, June 1943.
7. Norman Hill, p. 25.
8. Hollingsworth Franklin Gregory, Anything a Horse Can
Do: The Story of the Helicopter, Introduction by Igor
Sikorsky (New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1944), p. 58.
9. For a photograph of Flying Officer Norman Hill with a
529 Squadron Rota, seeBrooks, p. 192.
10. Brooks states that RAF testing of the C.30A had
produced a maximum level speed of ninety-four mph
(p. 190).
11. For a photograph of the Weymann-Lepère C.18, see
Brooks, p. 90 (original form); George Townson and
Howard Levy, “The History of the Autogiro: Part 1,” Air
Classics Quarterly Review 4, no. 2 (Summer 1977): 4–
18, 13 (later form).
12. For a photograph of the Weymann CTW.200, see
Brooks, p. 92.
13. Brooks, p. 92.
14. Bill Gunston, History of Military Aviation (London:
Hamlyn, an imprint of Octopus Publishing Group
Limited, 2000), pp. 52–53.
15. Pierre Riviere and Gerry Beauchamp, “Autogyros at
War,” Air Classics Quarterly Review 3, no. 4 (Winter
1976): 92–97.
16. Bob Ogden, Great Aircraft Collections of the World (New
York: Gallery Books, 1988), p. 39. Along with the
Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and the
United States Air Force Museum at Dayton, the Musée
de l'Air et de l'Espace is one of the world's great
aviation museums.
17. For a photograph of the SNACSE C.301, see Brooks, p.
202.
18. John Everett-Heath, Soviet Helicopters: Design,
Development, and Tactics(London: Jane's Publication
Company, 1983), pp. 5–6.
19. Brooks, p. 258; but see Everett-Heath, p. 6, where it is
asserted that KaSkr-I was “flown for the next two years
from Moscow Central Airport by I. V. Mikheyev.” And see
Lennart Andersson, Soviet Aircraft and Aviation 1917–
1941(Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1994),
p. 336, where it is claimed, “On 25 September the test
pilot Ivan Mikheev managed to fly some 200m at 2–2
1/2 m, but the KASKR was later extensively damaged
before getting really airborne. The airframe was
repaired at Zavod No 39 and modified into the KASKR-
2.”
20. “Kamov and Skrzhinsky: Russian Gyroplane Pioneers,”
International Autogyro 1/4ly, no. 10 (October 2001):
18–23, 18.
21. Andersson, p. 335.
22. There is some confusion about which model C.19 the
TsAGI 2-EA most resembled. Brooks maintains it was
the C.19MkI, while Andersson claims it was the
C.19MkII. Compare Brooks, p. 260, with Andersson, p.
335. Everett-Heath stops short and merely claims that
the TsAGI model resembled the C.19 (p. 6). Ogden,
however, comments that the 2-EA was similar to the
Cierva C.19MkIII.Bob Ogden, Aircraft Museums and
Collections of the World, vol. 9, Eastern and South
Eastern Europe and the C.I.S. (Woodley, Berkshire,
England: Bob Ogden Publications, n.d.), p. 102.
23. For a rendition of the 2-EA, see Andersson, p. 335; for a
schematic diagram, seeBrooks, p. 259.
24. Brooks also claims that the A-4 was intended from the
beginning also for civilian uses (p. 261).
25. For a photograph of the A-4 in flight, see Karl-Heinz
Eyermann, Die Luftfahrt der UdSSR 1917–1977(Berlin:
transpress VEB Verlag für Verkehrswesen, 1977), p. 74.
26. Everett-Heath wryly observes, “It was quite difficult to
tell in the early days whether test pilot Korzinshchikov
was testing the aircraft or whether the aircraft was
testing him” (p. 6).
27. For a photograph of the A-4, see Brooks, p. 261.
28. Brooks claims somewhat ambiguously, “However, the A-
4 was never produced in quantity, as had been intended
at one stage. Rather more than ten are believed to have
been built and the type was briefly evaluated by the
military” (pp. 261–62); perhaps Brooks intends to say,
“Rather no more….” Everett-Heath is not very helpful on
the matter, as he states, “Perhaps 30 or 40 A-4s
eventually found their way into military service” (p. 7,
emphasis added).
29. Photographs of the A-6 are found at Brooks, p. 262;
Eyermann, p. 75.
30. For a photograph of the wingless A-14, see Eyermann,
p. 74.
31. For photos and schematics of the A-7, see Brooks, p.
263 (photo and schematic); “Kamov and Skrzhinsky,”
pp. 19–23 (photos and highly detailed cutaway
engineering drawings).
32. Bill Gunston, The Osprey Encyclopedia of Russian
Aircraft (Oxford, England: Osprey Publishing, 1995,
2000), p. 67.
33. Everett-Heath, p. 7.
34. For photographs of the Weymann-Lepère C.18, see
Brooks, p. 90; Town-son and Levy, “History of the
Autogiro: Part 1,” p. 13.
35. Brooks, pp. 90–91.
36. “Kamov and Skrzhinsky,” p. 19.
37. Everett-Heath, p. 8; but see Brooks, p. 264, where the
author claims that the initial weight of the A-7 was
4,354 pounds. The difference may be that the former
refers to the takeoff weight, while the latter includes
only the weight of the aircraft and not the pilot.
38. Brooks, p. 264, which is substantially in agreement with
“Kamov and Skrzhinsky,” p. 20, where the design
takeoff weight for the A-7 is given as 5,069 pounds.
39. Later replaced by a RSI-3 transmitter.
40. Later replaced by the AFA-27A in the production series.
41. “Kamov and Skrzhinsky,” p. 20.
42. Everett-Heath, p. 8.
43. See “Kamov and Skrzhinsky,” p. 20.
44. Brooks, pp. 264–65; Everett-Heath, p. 8. In Gunston,
The Osprey Encyclopedia of Russian Aircraft, p. 67, that
claim is referenced but resolved with, “Same prototype
[A-7] shipped to Greenland 38 to help in rescue of
Papanin expedition,but not needed” (emphasis added).
45. See George Townson, “Autogiro Crop Dusters,”
American Helicopter Museum & Education Center
Newsletter 3, no. 1 (Spring 1996).
46. Hal MacKay, “Bug Fighters,” Popular Aviation 24 (June
1939): 48–50, 82, 50 (photo caption).
47. For descriptions of the combat role of the A-7bis, see
Brooks, p. 265; Andersson, p. 336.
48. “Kamov and Skrzhinsky,” p. 21.
49. Everett-Heath, p. 8.
50. Reference to the obscure AK model is found in Everett-
Heath, p. 8.
51. For information on the A-12, see Brooks, pp. 266–68;
Everett-Heath, p. 9;Andersson, p. 337.
52. Gunston, Osprey Encyclopedia, p. 67.
 Chapter 10

THE AUTOGIRO GOES TO WAR: THE

AXIS
“What is the ultimate, do you think?” Kellett asked.
Together we asserted: “A craft than can go straight up and
down. The Autogiro does the job halfway. A successful
helicopter would be better.”
Kellett smiled: “Yes, perhaps, but we will improve.”
The steady improvement of the Autogiro, more than
anything else, helped to bring about the first successful
helicopter. It was the practical proving ground that gave us
the key to controllable vertical flight.
—Hollingsworth Franklin Gregory, Anything a Horse Can Do

GERMANY
At the start of World War II, a recent engineering graduate,
Friedrich von Doblhoff,1suggested that a helicopter could be
powered with rotor ram jets designed by French engineer
Rene Leduk, which would effectively deal with the torque
caused by mainframe engine placement. Enlisted in the
German war effort as an employee of the Wiener
Neustadter Flugzeugwerke (WNF), a Vienna aircraft
manufacturer, Doblhoff recruited friends Theodor Laufer and
August Stepan in the efforts to design a tip-jet helicopter in
a visionary and unauthorized program of research. The test
apparatus was constructed of magnesium tubing supporting
a rotor with hollow blades, through which compressed air
and vaporized gasoline passed to an automobile spark plug
positioned at a tip exit nozzle designed for ignition.
Although it was destroyed in its maiden test, observing
officials were impressed. The machine had managed to lift
off with an anvil added to the rig to weigh it down.
Destruction had come when it tilted and its rotors struck the
floor, but the results led to a half-million-mark authorization
for an official project to design a jet tip helicopter.
The world's first tip-jet-powered helicopter, the WNF 342
V1, was flying in the spring of 1943. It was designed to
meet a German navy requirement for an observation
helicopter to be carried by submarines and small naval
vessels. It featured a frame of uncovered metal tubing, with
a small twin-finned vertical tail and tricycle landing gear. An
Argus As 411 supercharger was adapted as a compressor to
provide air to the rotors, an arrangement that would then
be employed on all of Doblhoff's prototypes. The V1, slightly
damaged in an Allied bombing raid on August 13, 1943, was
soon followed by the WNF 342 V2, which added a sail-like
rear fuselage fairing with a single fin and an upgraded 90-
horsepower Walter Mikron engine. It was constructed in
Obergraffendorf, where the WNF development program had
been relocated after the bombing. Experience with the first
two models convinced its inventor that the high fuel
consumption of the tip-jets would make the WNF 342
prohibitively costly to operate, so the decision was made to
power the rotors only on takeoff and landing. The rotors
would be unloaded in flight, and the craft would then fly as
an autogyro.
The resulting WNF 342 V3 was constructed with twin tail
booms, each of which supported an oval-shaped vertical fin
and rudder with a horizontal stabilizer linking the booms. A
BMW-Bramo Sh 14A 140-horsepower engine both provided
forward thrust with a pusher propeller and powered the
compressor for the jet-tip rotors. During forward flight,
power (air and fuel) was cut off from the rotor jet-tips as
the engine was declutched from the compressor and power
redirected to the propeller—lift was obtained from
autorotation. The final model of V3 weighed 1,208 pounds
and had flapping and drag rotor hinges—vertical control was
achieved by varying the rotor speed. Unfortunately, the
innovations incorporated in Doblhoff's third model were not
enough to ensure success, and after only a few flights, it
was destroyed by ground resonance vibration.
An additional prototype was constructed before the war
ended, the WNF 342 V4, the largest of Doblhoff's
prototypes. It was in many ways the most significant,
although not for any intended reasons. The V4 could carry a
crew of two in side-by-side open cockpits, and the fuselage
was now faired. It retained the twin-boom layout, but the
two verticals were replaced with a single vertical mounted
on top of a horizontal tail that connected the booms.
Heavier than its predecessors, the V4 weighed 1,411
pounds and had a 32.68-foot diameter rotor, just slightly
larger than the V3's. It also innovatively used air pressure
to control the collective pitch of the rotor blades—the blades
could be pitched for helicopter-powered takeoff and
landings and then changed to allow for autogyro flight.
Testing of the V4 began in the spring of 1945, with twenty-
five hours of flight time having been accumulated by early
April, although it was not tested in forward flight over
twenty-five to thirty mph. But it was too late—on April 7,
1945, Doblhoff and his colleagues could hear the artillery of
the approaching Russian forces as they moved into Vienna,
eighteen miles to the east. After some discussion, the
decision was made to load the WNF 342 V2 and V4
prototypes on a trailer and flee westward to the Americans
and British. For almost twelve days the truck carrying the
designers and mechanics, and towing the trailer, moved
westward over roads often clogged with refugees and others
also fleeing the advancing Russians.
Eventually Doblhoff and his colleagues surrendered to
American forces at Zell am See and were quickly
interrogated by engineering officers who recognized the
importance of the V4 prototype and its designers. The
model was crated and shipped to the United States for
evaluation—followed quickly by Doblhoff, who eventually
went to work for McDonnell Aircraft as chief helicopter
engineer and significantly contributed to development of the
McDonnell XV-1 compound helicopter convertiplane. Of
perhaps greater importance, August Stepan, who had done
the structural design and most of the test-flying of the
prototypes, joined Fairey Aviation in England as chief tip-jet
engineer and contributed to the design of the Fairey
Gyrodyne and Rotodyne, which employed the rotor tip-jet
technology for takeoffs and landing but flew as an autogyro.
There was an additional irony concerning Doblhoff—he had
courted a young Austrian woman in the early 1930s who
had spent a summer in Czechoslovakia. The young woman
was also courted there by a young man whose family had
fled the Russian Revolution—and although neither would
win the girl, both Frederick von Doblhoff and Igor Bensen2
would be instrumental in preserving autorotational
technology in the 1950s.

JAPAN
By 1933 five Autogiros were flying in Japan, three Cierva
C.19MkIVs (two evaluated by the Japanese navy and one
flown by the Asahi Shimbun newspaper) and two Kellett K-3
Autogiros being evaluated by the army. It is obvious that
the attraction of the Autogiro was, in the majority, its
military potential, and neither model proved initially
successful. The navy did not find the fixed-spindle Cierva
suitable for maritime missions, and one of the naval
Autogiros was soon cannibalized to keep the other flying,
the end result being that the navy soon lost interest in the
Cierva aircraft. The Japanese army had a similar experience
with the Kellett K-3 aircraft. One was seriously damaged on
June 28, forty-two days later, and army interest soon faded.
However, war and the development of direct control models
led to renewed interest. The Japanese military may also
have been aware of the American, British, and Soviet
military interest and evaluation efforts.
In August 1939 Okura and Company imported a Kellett KD-
1A for the Japanese military, which was already fighting a
land war in China. That war, as many before, was an
amalgam of the tactics of previous conflicts and the brutal
necessity to innovate brought on by the evolving realities of
combat. The Japanese wartime experience had confirmed
what others had already realized, namely that the use of
observation balloons for artillery spotting and
reconnaissance, a tactic seen almost a hundred years
earlier, was an increasingly, if not inevitably, fatal
assignment. Even fighting the Chinese, in 1939, a relatively
low-keyed effort when compared with the later German
blitzkrieg, clearly demonstrated the vulnerability of the fixed
balloons, which could be downed by an unsophisticated
biplane salvaged from the previous war or accurate ground
fire or just a lucky hit. The artillery-spotting tests of the
imported Kellett were sufficiently successful that a
manufacturing license was obtained from the American
company, but the Kellett was soon damaged in an accident
in February 1940 while being flown at Tachikawa airfield for
the army air force.
Before proceeding with manufacture of the Kellett, the
Japanese military embarked on a study of the Autogiro in
an attempt to improve its military performance. Also, the
wrecked Kellett was shipped to Osaka University in August
1940 for repair and a research and development program,
which was problematic, because by early 1941 the U.S.
State Department made it clear that it would deny export
license to any aviation goods, including Kellett spare parts.
As there was only one Japanese firm doing research into
rotary flight, the Imperial Army Technical Command
requested that K. K. Kayaba Seisakusho undertake repair of
the Autogiro. It was understood that the Kayaba Company
would also develop a Japanese model based on the Kellett
for military use, but the informality of this arrangement,
and indeed, the selection of a relatively insignificant
company, seems to indicate that this effort was not of high
priority.
Kayaba completed its repair of the Kellett Autogiro in April
of 1941 and commenced flight-testing the following month
with pilot Masaaki Iinuma, which would continue until July
1943. The Autogiro achieved outstanding results as various
modifications were tried, and a run of only 100 feet was
necessary for takeoffs, while near-hovering flight was
achieved in a nose-up position with the engine at full power.
The results were encouraging, and the military had even
drafted the former pilots and mechanics from the Asahi
Shimbun. The Kellett KD-1A participated in artillery
observation, liaison, and rescue work, and its outstanding
flight characteristics led to flight-testing on June 4, 1943,
from the deck of the Akitsu Maru, a light aircraft carrier, of
which films still exist. Zero ground-roll landings were
regularly achieved, and with the ship underway, the already
short takeoff run was reduced to forty feet by pilot Zenji
Nishibori.3 These successful tests led to highly successful
experiments in which the aircraft assumed an
antisubmarine patrol mode and was fitted to carry a 132-
pound depth charge. This antisubmarine role was of
particular interest to the Japanese military, which was
becoming concerned about protecting home waters from
American submarines.
The Kayaba Company also had received an order for two
locally built Ka-1 Autogiros4 in June of 1941, soon after
beginning flight-testing of the rebuilt KD-1A. Wartime
modifications included the substitution of a Japanese-
licensed German air-cooled inverted Argus engine for the
original American Jacobs radial engine. These two Japanese
Autogiros were completed in November of 1942, but
difficulties at adapting the German engine led to a delay in
flight-testing until the middle of 1943. However, the military
was so impressed with the aircraft that an order was placed
in November 1942 with Kayaba for 300 Ka-1A aircraft
equipped with the Argus, with the first completed in June of
the following year. A total of 35 Ka-1As were manufactured,
but 10 deployed Ka-1As were destroyed by the Allies, and
the surviving aircraft failed to achieve performance
objectives, primarily due to ongoing and unsolved problems
with the Argus engine. This caused a return to Japanese
versions of the Jacobs engine in subsequent models, called
the Kayaba Ka-2, as production accelerated to meet the
increasing threat of Allied submarine activity in Japanese
waters. The initial Ka-2 models were delivered in the
summer of 1944, and final production is estimated at 60
aircraft. The Japanese also experimented with rocket-
powered rotor blades in a Ka-1 variant dubbed the Kayaba
Ka 1KAI, which utilized the Argus engine but had small
solid-fuel rockets fixed to each rotor tip to over-speed the
rotor and facilitate jump takeoffs. Although a report exists
of a tethered test in April of 1945, during which the rotor
achieved 300 rpm in five seconds, it came too late to have
any impact, and it is doubtful that jump takeoff capability
would have altered the results achieved by the Japanese or
any combatant.
Thus Japan had produced a total of 95 military Autogiros,
the most of any nation in World War II, with no impact. The
Autogiros proved, for all the combatants, inappropriate for
artillery spotting, due to extreme vulnerability, and the
antisubmarine role created by the Japanese was, at best,
inconsequential. It did not lead to any obvious success nor
is there any indication that the British or American naval
authorities were deterred in submarine deployment or
mission profile. In evaluating the use of the
Autogiro/autogyro by the combatants, the inescapable
conclusion was later stated by Peter Brooks: “the gyroplane
had shown itself to be unsuitable as a weapon of war … the
gyroplane had shown itself to lack the essential
characteristics required.”5 This judgment was due partially
to the development of the helicopter that had been
accelerated during the war. Although the Autogiro Company
of America was publishing a lengthy book on the history of
the Autogiro “to clarify certain matters of importance to all
concerned, and to offer specific assistance to those who
may desire to make use of the store of experience and
information we have to offer”6 in 1944,Flying Cadet
magazine pronounced the impending demise of the Autogiro
in its February issue. Written for aviation-minded youth, its
article stated: “Yes, the helicopter is reliable, adaptable, and
equal to almost every situation. She seems to have her
rival, the autogiro, quite outclassed!”7 But little-noted
wartime developments in Germany and England of the most
unlikely of autorotational craft, the rotary kite, would help
rescue Cierva's dream.

ROTARY KITES
England
By the mid 1930s, a Pennsylvania company, Captive Flight
Devices,8 had developed a “rotary” kite, borne aloft by the
air flowing up through the rotors while being pulled forward,
and one had been sent to England in 1937. After brief
experimentation by Cierva Autogiro Ltd., the kites had been
forgotten as the company turned away from Autogiros to
helicopters, but the idea resurfaced in the preparations for
war. The admiralty had briefly considered the use of a
rotary kite to lift barrage cables above ships to limit attack
by low-flying enemy airplanes, but barrage balloons were
able to accomplish the assigned task. However, the British
were developing methods for inserting agents into Europe,
and gliders, parachutes, and rotary kites were considered in
1940. The military naturally turned to one of the most
knowledgeable rotary-wing pioneers, the Austrian Raoul
Hafner, who was a resident in England since 1932 and
briefly interned at the beginning of the war as an “enemy
alien,”9 and who then became an English citizen and offered
his services to his adopted country. The Hafner Gyroplane
Company began development of a rotary kite on October 3,
1940, work that was transferred to the military in December
of 1941. Originally taken up by the Central Landing
Establishment, the development of the Rotachute 'is most
closely associated with the Airborne Forces Experimental
Establishment. Almost all experienced Autogiro pilots and
engineers were either in uniform or working for the military,
and it is not surprising that the first Rotachute10was
designed by Raoul Hafner, O.L.L. Fitzwilliams, and Dr. J.A.J.
Bennett of Cierva Autogiro Ltd.
 Focke-Achgelis Fa-330 Rotary Kite developed for
deployment on German submarines in World War II.
Designed to be towed into the wind.
(Courtesy of Ron Bartlett.)

Hafner had suggested the Rotachute to insert agents into

occupied Europe, it being assumed that the Rotachute's
controlled descent would allow for greater accuracy. Models
were dropped in October 1940 from a Boulton Paul P.75
Overstrand bomber, and a full-size Rotachute was designed
in November. The man-carrying model was extremely
portable, weighing in at only forty-eight pounds, with lift
being provided by a two-blade, fifteen-foot-diameter rotor.
It had a sturdy tubular steel frame with a rubber shock-
mounted central skid to which wheels were added, and
control was achieved by a loop-shaped hanging-stick from
the rotor hub, clearly derived from the C.30 Autogiro.
Hafner and his associates intended this to be launched from
an aircraft specifically modified for that purpose, but this
never happened, as the Rotachute was only tested in tow by
a moving truck.11
 British Airborne Forces Experimental Establishment (AFEE)
Rotachute designed by Raoul Hafner, O.L.L. Fitzwilliams,
and Dr. J.A.J. Bennett of Cierva Autogiro. It was an
individual rotary-kite parachute to insert agents into
occupied Europe during World War II.
(Courtesy of Ron Bartlett.)

First tethered manned flights of the Rotachute Mk.I were

accomplished on February 10, 1942,12 by Flight Lieutenant
Ian Little. Control was enhanced by a rubberized fabric tail,
and the pilot, looking through the loop in the control stick
while seated in an open fuselage, achieved excellent
visibility, a Bren gun with 300 rounds of ammunition by his
side. The initial flights revealed a direction instability, which
the designers corrected with the addition of a 50 percent
larger semirigid tail. The Rotachute Mk.II made its maiden
flight on May 29, 1942, but was followed immediately on
June 2, 1942, by a modified Mk.III.13 Dr. Bennett came to
America in October 1942 to consult with the ACA regarding
a proposed American Rotachute project then undertaken by
the G&A Aircraft Company, the successor to the Pitcairn
Autogiro Company, but that project ended when the
prototype crashed during test-flights.
The final model Rotachute, the Mk.IV, first flew in towed
flights on April 29, 1943. It achieved improved stability with
the addition of twin endplate fins on the tail and installation
of an instrument panel. Weighing just 85 pounds, the
aircraft was designed to carry 285 pounds, but the testing
seems to have clearly indicated that its performance would
not achieve results substantially better than a parachute,
and the project was never fully implemented. However,
more than twenty Rotachutes of various models were
manufactured by F. Hills and Sons and the Airwork General
Trading Company, of which five were eventually brought up
to the Mk.IV configuration. The final unmanned flight-tests
of the Mk.IV were conducted on October 18, 1943, and the
project terminated. It had produced “one of the earliest
applications of the seesaw or teetering rotor, in which the
two blades, integral with a fixed coning angle, rock on a
common hinge at the rotor head,”14 a mechanical
arrangement first tried in 1931 by American Gerald Herrick,
further developed by American Arthur D. Young in 1941,15
and later a seminal feature of Bensen Gyrocopter design.16
Six Rotachutes were sent to America for evaluation, and at
least one ended up at the General Electric facility at the
Schnectady (New York) Flight Test Center, where a young
engineer named Igor Bensen became interested in its flight
characteristics.
There were also two other obscure British experimental
derivative rotary-kite programs, distinguished more by
daring than success, which represent dead-ends in
autorotational development. In April 1942 the AFEE
received a proposal to attach Autogiro rotors to a 3,000-
pound Jeep (and later in November to a 31,295-pound
Vickers Valentine tank), and development commenced in
August. It was dubbed the Malcolm Rota-plane, or more
popularly the “Rotabuggy”17 (or “Rotajeep”). The final
design centered on an American Willys quarter-ton 4×4 that
had, as amazing as it may seem from over a half-century
later, been modified for flight. This ungainly craft, certainly
one of the strangest to ever leave the ground, was initially
tested by the dauntless Ian Little on November 16, 1943,
and first flown eleven days later, towed along a runway. On
what Brooks later called a “horrific occasion,” a Rotabuggy
was towed to 1,700 feet by an Armstrong Whitworth
Whitley V bomber, and this flying Jeep actually landed
successfully.18 Continued control problems due to excessive
vibration doomed the project, however.
Australia
A similar project had been undertaken in Australia, dubbed
Project Sky-wards,19occasioned by the military requirement
to transport vehicles to the troops fighting the Japanese in
New Guinea. Lawrence J. Harnett, head of the Army
Inventions Directorate (AID), suggested that rotary-winged
gliders be used to deliver vehicles. John L. Watkins, senior
aeronautical engineer of the Australian Department of Civil
Aviation (DCA) was assigned to study the problem, and he
became aware of the rumors of the AFEE Rotabuggy project
but was unable to gain any substantive information, as the
AFEE project was classified. The Australians then embarked
on an independent development program based on the
known technology, primarily the Cierva C.30A aircraft that
had been imported during the previous decade, which were
then not in flying condition. Experimentation demonstrated
that the C.30A rotor became unstable at approximately 115
mph, far less than that required by the military to insure
personnel safety, so an ambitious program of rotor
development was undertaken, based on a recent series of
articles in Aircraft Engineering on rotor design authored by
Dr. Bennett. The project, however, was cancelled after six
months, as the New Guinea campaign reached a successful
conclusion and the perceived need for a flying Jeep, or
“Fleep,” no longer existed. At the time of project
cancellation, the prototype was almost completed, and its
developer had no doubt that “it would have worked, given
just a little more time.” But it never flew, and it is only
known from a few references and surviving photographs.20
The fully-loaded 3,300-pound Fleep never flew, but the
more well-known 375-pound Focke-Achgelis Fa-330 rotary
kite21 did and was to have a significant impact on the
survival of Cierva's technology.
Germany
In Germany the Focke-Achgelis company developed a large
gyroplane glider called the Fa-225 in 1942 by combining a
rotor pylon on top of a glider fuselage. The
prototype22successfully flew in 1943, but changing
operational requirements and Allied threats insured that it
never went into production. Of much greater importance,
however, the German submarine campaign utilizing its
sizable U-boat fleet against Allied shipping was in full force
in the fall of 1941, leading the British (and later American)
naval authorities to begin development of effective convoy
techniques. The U-boat commanders requested a means by
which visibility could be increased, to more effectively
identify targets. Focke-Achgelis GmbH, then a subsidiary of
Weser Flugzeugwerke, which had previously developed the
Fa-61 helicopter, began construction of a rotary kite (glider)
that could be easily transported on a submarine, quickly
launched while the boat cruised on the surface, and
recovered prior to an attack. The rotary kite was
constructed of steel tubing with a rudder extending from
the rear of the airframe, lifted aloft by a three-blade rotor
mounted on a pylon behind the open pilot's seat. Control
was achieved by means of a ground-adjustable rotor pitch,
a pedal-control rudder, and a floor-mounted control stick
that tilted the rotor head for longitudinal and lateral
control.23 The rotor was started with a rope, or, if conditions
permitted, the submarine would cruise into the wind and
the kite would lift off, by the air flowing through its rotor
blades.24 The small rotary kite was nicknamed the
“Bachstelze” (Water Wagtail) or “Ubootsauge” (U-boat's
eye).25
The Fa-330 was attached by a cable, and information was
relayed by the pilot using a telephone link. The boat carried
492 feet of cable to raise the Fa-330 to a height of 392
feet,26 but its operational height was about 400 feet, which
enabled an observer with naval binoculars to view twenty-
five miles. Prior to commencing an attack, the kite would be
recovered by a manual winch, but if an emergency arose,
the pilot could release the entire rotor assembly by means
of a control lever placed near the rotor head, disconnecting
the rotor and ejecting a parachute stored on the pylon
behind the pilot. The pilot then released his seat belt, and
the fuselage followed the rotor assembly into the sea while
the pilot floated to the sea, hopefully to be picked up by the
submarine before it submerged. The Fa-330 could easily be
dismantled and assembled by a few men—when not in use
it was stored in a watertight container attached to the deck.
Two or three U-boat seamen per boat, who had generally
never flown before, were trained in a wind tunnel at
Chalais-Meudon, France.27
Initial test-flights were made in the spring of 1942, with
experimental flights from ships later that summer. By early
fall 1942 production began, and an estimated two hundred
Fa-330s were built before the end of World War II. Placed
aboard an unknown number of Type IX–U-boats28 from mid-
1942 on, little is known about the scope of Fa-330
operations, but it is thought that it was probably deployed
primarily, if not exclusively, in the South Atlantic and Indian
Oceans,29 and even then only rarely saw action. The Allies
had developed radar to the extent that the Fa-330 would
have created asignature and rendered the boat vulnerable.
It is perhaps understandable, then, that a U-boat skipper
exchanged a rotary kite for a Japanese floatplane at a naval
base at Surabaya, Java, for naval patrol.30
The Allies had become aware of the Fa-330 when they were
found aboard captured submarines in 1943,31 and more of
the Fa-330 rotary kites survive in museums than any other
autorotational aircraft, as British forces had seized
completed and crated models at the aeronautical factory of
Weser Flugzeugwerke, Hoykenkamp. American JIOA (Joint
Intelligence Objectives Agency) personnel subsequently
entered the factory and discovered several completed Fa-
330s. The few remaining factory workers demonstrated how
quickly a crated model could be assembled, and it was so
impressive that several were sent to the CIOS (Intelligence)
Secretariat in London. At least one was sent to America for
examination by the United States Army Air Corps, where it
was flown in 1949 under contract by George Townson,32
and it was transferred by the Department of the Air Force
on July 7, 1950, to the National Air and Space Museum of
the Smithsonian Institution.33 A motorized version of the
rotary kite utilizing a 60-horsepower engine, designated the
Fa-336, was proposed but never built.34
In 1945 the future of the Autogiro was bleak: Cierva and
Weir were out of the Autogiro business and the Autogiro
Company of America existed only as a licensing company,
with no one clamoring for a license. Pitcairn's manufacturing
company had, after several reorganizations, become the
G&A Aircraft Company and been acquired by Firestone in
1943. By 1946 it would develop two models of helicopters,
but these aircraft failed to gain military support. An abortive
attempt to introduce the larger model into the civilian
market doomed the company, which ceased business in
1948.35Its rival changed its name to the Kellett Aircraft
Company to reflect a wider interest in aviation. By 1945
Kellett had also shifted focus to the helicopter and produced
the XR-8, described as a “flea topped canted side-by-side
rotors with intermeshing blades.”36It survives in the
collection of the National Air and Space Museum and was
the first American synchropter rotary-wing aircraft based on
Anton Flettner's eggbeater configuration. Its success led to
a follow-on military contract for a larger model. The XR-1037
was delivered to the army air force in 1947, but the
program came to an end with a crash in 1948, in which the
pilot was killed when his parachute became entangled in the
rotors. It was the last straw for the company—having
declared bankruptcy in 1946 and operated by trustees, it
lacked the resources to continue and was forced to sell off
its assets, including a large prototype XH-17 flying crane.
The purchaser was Howard Hughes, but the turbojet-
powered crane did not prove successful and was abandoned
in 1952. But both Kellett and the Autogiro Company of
America made unsuccessful attempts to bring back the
Autogiro.
The story of the unsuccessful attempt in 1961 of Skyway
Engineering Company, Inc., to produce and market a
modernized version of the roadable Pitcairn AC-35 Autogiro
under an ACA license has been told, and the Kellett
attempts met a similar fate. In 1949 Kellett was awarded a
developmental contract by the U.S. Navy Bureau of
Aeronautics for a research convertiplane, and Kellett
subsequently proposed to modify the KD-1B that had
previously been flown by John Miller of Eastern Air Lines on
the 1939–40 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania–Camden, New
Jersey, experimental airmail route. The Autogiro had been
placed in storage in a hangar at New York's LaGuardia Field
when the experimental route service had ended in July
1940 and was subsequently sold in December 1940 for
$23,000 to Miller's friend Tex Bohannon. The KD-1B, having
passed through several hands,38 had been damaged in a
minor ground accident when acquired by George Townson in
1953, who subsequently sold it back to Kellett while
simultaneously accepting employment as engineer and test
pilot. The intent was to equip the wingless direct control
Autogiro with short, stub wings and 150-horsepower
Lycoming 0-320 engines with propellers that rotated in
opposite directions to counter rotor torque, much as the
Bratukhin 11EA had done almost three decades before, but
the project never advanced beyond refurbishing the original
Autogiro and a few test-flights. It was designated the KH-
17A.39 The original tilting rotor control system had been
replaced by a feathering rotor control mechanism and, as
its original rotor blades were no longer functioning, with a
three-blade rotor taken from a Piasecki HUP navy helicopter.
This hodge-podge arrangement proved unstable, and the
severe control-stick vibration encountered made the aircraft
unsafe—the project was quickly abandoned.
Kellett made one final attempt to revitalize the Autogiro,40
this time involving a reconstructed41 direct control KD-1A,
during the 1958–60 time period. The airframe came from
the model originally sold to the army, called the YG-1B and
then reconfigured as the XR-3. It had been sold to General
Electric42 after the war as surplus for use in the
development of helicopter rotor blades at the company's
flight-testing facility43 in Schenectady, New York, and
subsequently passed to a private owner in Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania, who leased it back to Kellett. The XR-3 had
not been maintained, and Kellett was forced to refurbish the
airframe and construct new rotor blades. The decision was
also made to recreate a direct control tilting rotor head from
the original specifications, which allowed certification under
the original ATC No. 712. The recreated KD-1A was called
the Cropmaster,44 intended for agricultural uses as well as
“pipeline inspection, geological and mineral exploration
duties that were being performed by helicopters that cost
almost twice as much and had high maintenance costs.”45
Bob Kenworthy served as project engineer, with Townson as
assistant project engineer and test pilot along with assistant
test pilot Roland “Blackie” Maier.46 Townson had flown a
PCA-2 as a crop duster in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and
Florida for Giro Associates of Morristown, New Jersey, in
1938.47 He was undoubtedly of monumental importance to
the project, as it became readily apparent that vital
Autogiro construction and flying skills had been lost by 1958
when the project commenced. Fortunately, shop foremen
were located who had worked on the original Kellett, and
Townson was able to teach Autogiro flying to Kellett's
helicopter pilots and three Federal Aviation Administration
(FAA) flight-test engineers—to no avail. The craft failed to
find a market, even priced at $25,000, far below the price
of a comparable helicopter. Light planes specifically
designed for crop dusting, and the helicopter with its
hovering capacity, were the preferred agricultural vehicles,
and Kellett, forced to abandon its attempt to reintroduce the
Autogiro, terminated the lease and returned the KD-1A to
its owner. Thus all the attempts to reintroduce the
traditional Autogiro ended in failure, and were it not for the
XR-3 and the Rotachute sent to General Electric, historical
obscurity logically would have been the fate of Cierva's
“flying windmill.” But the XR-3 had been sold as surplus to
General Electric, where Igor Bensen first encountered the
Autogiro. It was a fateful encounter.
Igor Bensen, born in 1917, was the son of Alexandra P.
Bensen and a Russian agricultural scientist, Basil Mitrophan,
whose ancestors had originally migrated to Russia from
Sweden.48 As Bensen's father had been educated at the
University of Minnesota in the first decade of the twentieth
century49 and his mother was a graduate of the University
of Kiev, the home environment created a rich intellectual
atmosphere, influencing him to pursue engineering (his
older brother Vladimir studied medicine). It was also a
deeply religious home, and that value would significantly
influence the inventor's later course of life. His father,
having returned to Russia to help develop drought-resistant
crops, was posted to Czechoslovakia in 1917, at the
beginning of the Russian Revolution, while the rest of the
family remained behind. The battling Red and White forces
in the ensuing Russian civil war lead to harsh times, and the
Bensen family was soon reunited in Prague, far from the
Russian turmoil. At the age of seventeen Bensen was sent
to the University of Louvain in Belgium, from which he
received a B.S. degree.
Always seeking educational opportunities, he accepted a
scholarship from the Stevens Institute in New Jersey in
1937 to study mechanical engineering—a truly daring move,
as he only spoke a rudimentary English. Even though
Bensen later claimed to understand only one out of every
three words when he started engineering school,50he
graduated with honors in 1940.51 Because he was not a
citizen, Bensen had been forced to turn down a job offer to
work for Igor Sikorsky, who was at that time engaged in
historic helicopter development under government contract,
and his first job was as an engineer with General Electric at
the age of twenty-three. Initially he worked on nonaviation
projects, but by the time he became an American citizen in
1944, he was seriously interested in helicopter
development. General Electric executives took notice and
assigned the young engineer to the company's helicopter
development efforts. It was a fateful assignment.
General Electric, influenced by the wartime frenzy of
helicopter development occasioned by the Dorsey Bill, was
developing a jet-tipped rotor helicopter. While Bensen was
working on the helicopter project, he encountered the
Kellett XR-3, acquired as salvage by General Electric for
rotor and control system development, and he eventually
gained almost exclusive use of the aircraft as other
engineers lost interest in the surplus Autogiro. Beginning in
1942, Bensen became a highly skilled pilot in the XR-3 and,
in the process of improving the aircraft's control system,
gained a deep understanding of the dynamics and theory of
autorotational flight. The United States Army Air Force had
received some of the recovered Fa-330 rotary kites and
were experimenting with George Townson as pilot. They
also had obtained a Rotachute from England at the close of
the war, and General Electric vice president David C. Prince
first saw the British aircraft at an air force open house at
Dayton, Ohio. When he returned to Schnectady and
expressed enthusiasm for the small rotary-wing aircraft,
Bensen asked his boss to acquire the Rotachute for
evaluation.52 The military agreed to loan the Rotachute,
provided that General Electric agreed not to fly it.
Bensen, placed in charge of evaluating the Rotachute,
eventually ignored the military's requirements and actually
flew the rotary glider. It was first flown in a brisk upstate
New York wind augmented by the prop wash of the XR-3, a
challenging “kiting” experience given the facts that no one
in America had ever flown the Rotachute and that landings
were accomplished, in the absence of any installed gear,
with the pilot's feet! But the flights went well and soon
progressed to a towed format behind an automobile. In
1967 Bensen wrote of that first flight that the Rotachute
“weighed barely 100 lbs. In full flight gear I weighed then
220 lbs, so the pilot could be described not as sitting in this
machine, but more properly as wearing it.”53 The Rotachute,
with its overhead stick and welded steel tube fuselage, as
observed later by Paul Bergen Abbott, “undoubtedly was a
strong influence” on the Bensen Gyroglider and later the
Gyrocopter.54 Bensen even launched the unmanned
Rotachute from the bomb rack of the XR-3 in what proved
to be successful test-flights.
Perhaps because Bensen's early work was clearly based on
the English and German rotary kites, he wrote very little
about the creation of the Gyroglider in his autobiography
but concentrated on the Gyrocopter, the achievement for
which he was most famous. But in 1993 he wrote about the
Bensen B-1, his “first full-scale” rotorcraft creation,55 which
had been created while he was still at General Electric after
experiments with the Rotachute. It was an amateur-built,
120-pound glider based on the Rota-chute capable of
carrying a load of 300 pounds while being towed behind a
vehicle, but it differed, with the addition of nose and tail
wheels, a semirigid rotor in place of the Rotachute's
individual flapping rotor blades, and a control-stick
“reverser” to allow more effective direct control of the rotor.
Little came of the model, but Bensen was gaining a great
deal of knowledge about rotary-glider performance and
design that would contribute directly to later designs. The
B-1 was destroyed in an accident that fortunately did not
injure Bensen, and the crash led directly to the B-2, which
was of an all-metal construction. Under the direction of
Prince, the B-2 led to the G-E Gyro-Glider56 in November
1946, but little came of the G-E model. And subsequently in
Schenectady, the Helicraft Equipment Company developed a
60-pound variant of the Rotachute called the Heliglider57 in
1949. An extremely simple design that flew with a fourteen-
foot rotor that achieved 550 rpm, the lack of weight made it
difficult to fly with an overhead stick control, and the
project was soon abandoned. And while the Schenectady
efforts seemed to lead nowhere, the world was just
beginning to hear from Igor Bensen.
NOTES

1. See J. R. Smith and Antony L. Kay, German Aircraft of

the Second World War(London: Putnam, 1972), p. 589,
for a discussion of Doblhoff; Mal Halcomb, “Vertical Lift,
German Helicopter Development through the End of
World War II,”Airpower Magazine, March 1990.
2. For a description of the courting of the Austrian girl by
both Doblhoff and Bensen, see Igor B. Bensen, A Dream
of Flight (Indianapolis, Indiana: The Abbott Company,
1992), pp. 7–9.
3. For a fuller description of the flight testing of the Kellett
KD-1A by the Japanese military authorities and a
picture of it on the deck of the Akitsu Maru, see Peter
W. Brooks, Cierva Autogiros: The Development of
Rotary-Wing Flight(Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian
Institution Press, 1988), pp. 276–78.
4. As the Ka-1 was presumably built under the Kellett
license, it and all other Kayaba autorotational aircraft
are correctly referred to as Autogiros.
5. Brooks, pp. 281–82.
6. Some Facts of Interest about Rotating-Wing Aircraft and
the Autogiro Company of America (Philadelphia: The
Autogiro Company of America, 1944).
7. “Helicopter or Autogiro?” Flying Cadet 2, no. 2
(February 1944): 46.
 8. Brooks, p. 283.
9. Wing Commander Kenneth Wallis, “From Wing
Commander Wallis” Rotorcraft 38, no. 8 (November
2000): 12.
10. See “The Hafner Rotachute” Fly Gyro! no. 3 (February
2001): 18–19; “Design Classroom,” in Collected Works
of Design Classroom (Anaheim, California: Popular
Rotorcraft Association, 1974), p. 11; Brooks, pp. 286–
87; Ron Bartlett, “Gyroplanes: The Early Years,”
Autogyro Quarterly, no. 5 (n.d.):13 (author's
photograph of the Rotachute exhibited at the Army Air
Corps Museum at Middle Wallop, England).
11. For a rare photograph of the Rotachute being pulled as
a gyroglider, see “Hafner Rotachute,” p. 18.
12. Brooks, p. 326; but see p. 287, where Brooks claims
that the first flight was on February 2.
13. For a photograph of the Rotachute Mk.III, see Brooks,
p. 287.
14. Ibid., p. 288.
15. Ibid., p. 301.
16. Bensen, Dream of Flight, p. 10; Brooks, p. 288.
17. Brooks, p. 289.
18. Ibid., pp. 287–89; for a rare photograph of the Whitley
test-flight, see Brian Johnson, Classic Aircraft: A
Century of Powered Flight (London and Basingstoke,
England: Channel 4 Books, 1998), p. 103; rare film
footage can be found in The History Channel: Heavy
Rigs of Combat: Jeep (video).
19. For a description of the Australian Project Skywards, see
Group Captain Keith Issacs, “Project Skywards,”
Rotorcraft 32, no. 4 (June–July 1994): 6–9; Brooks, p.
287.
20. Issacs, pp. 8–9.
21. For a description of the Fa-330, see Roger Ford,
Germany's Secret Weapons in World War II (Osceloa,
Wisconsin: MBI Publishing Company, 2000), p. 58;
“Flying a Kite: The Focke-Achgelis Fa-330 Rotary Wing
Kite,” Rotor Gazette International 1, no. 2 (July–August
1992): 1–2, 4; “Focke-Achgelis FA-330 Bachstelze
(Wagtail)” Fly Gyro! no. 3 (February 2001): 8–9;
Aircraft of the National Air and Space Museum, 4th ed.
(Washington, D.C., and London: Smithsonian Institution
Press, 1991), see “Focke-Achgelis Fa-330”; Smith and
Kay, pp. 606–8; Johnson, pp. 101–2; Martin Hollmann,
“The Focke-Achgelis Fa 330 Gyroplane Kite,” Gyroplane
World, no. 14 (November 1977): p. 1; Bill Gunston,
History of Military Aviation (London: Hamlyn (Octopus
Publishing Group Limited), 2000), p. 126; Bartlett,
“Gyroplanes,” p. 13 (author's photograph of the FA-330
exhibited at the Musee de l'Air at Chalet Meudon);
Bryan Philpott, The Encyclopedia of German Military
Aircraft (New York: Park South Books, 1981), 95 (rare
photo of British test at sea); and see Brian Ford,
German Secret Weapons: Blueprint for Mars (New York:
Ballentine Books, 1969), which has an incorrect
illustration of rotary kite on pp. 92–93 marred by
misidentification as the FA-230; compare with actual
photographs of Fa-330 cited previously. It may be that
the Ford illustration is of an earlier developmental
version of the Fa-330, but it is not identified as such.
For an excellent rendering of the Fa-330, see Bill
Gunston,Helicopters at War (London, England: Hamlyn,
1977), p. 29.
22. See Brooks, pp. 284–85; Smith and Kay, p. 603.
23. For a detailed description of the Fa-330 control systems,
see Smith and Kay, pp. 606–8.
24. For photographs of the Fa-330 lifting off into the wind
from a German submarine, see Brooks, p. 284; “Focke
Achgelis,” p. 8; Gunston, Helicopters at War, p. 29.
25. Brooks, p. 383; Smith and Kay, p. 606.
26. See Smith and Kay, p. 606, and Gunston, History, p.
126; but see Brooks, p. 284(“The single-seat FA 330
was said to be capable of lifting its pilot-observer to a
maximum height of between 150 and 300 m (500 ft to
1,000 ft), but the normal operating height was about
120 m (400 ft).”); Aircraft of the National Air and Space
Museum (“The U-boat carried enough cable to raise the
Fa-330 to a height of 700 feet; most often it flew at
between 200 and 500 feet.”); “Focke Achgelis,” p. 8
(“The unpowered rotor glider would be towed behind
the submarine, rising to an altitude of 300 to 500
feet.”).
27. For photographs of the wind tunnel training of Fa-330
pilots, see Gunston,History, p. 124; Martin Hollmann,
Helicopters (Monterey, California: Aircraft Designs, Inc.,
2000), p. 68.
28. Brooks, p. 284; Smith and Kay, p. 608 (authors also
maintain that the Fa-330 was possibly used on the Type
IX–D/2 supply U-boat).
29. It is recorded that the captain of U-861 employed the
Fa-330 while on patrol off Madagascar. Smith and Kay,
p. 608.
30. Ibid.
31. See Combined Intelligence Objectives Sub-Committee
“German Submarine Rotary Wing Kite.” (British
intelligence report, London, England, 1945). A model
captured on a German submarine was analyzed in this
 twenty-six-page British intelligence report, complete
with photographs and technical drawings.
32. Paul Hengel, “Portrait of a Pioneer Rotary-Wing Pilot,”
American Helicopter Museum & Education Center
Newsletter 2, no. 3 (Spring 1996): 3.
33. Aircraft of the National Air and Space Museum, “Focke-
Achgelis Fa-330” entry.
34. Brooks, p. 284; Smith and Kay, p. 608; for reference to
the proposed powered version of the rotary kite, see
“German Submarine Rotary Wing Kite.”
35. Frank Kingston Smith, Legacy of Wings: The Story of
Harold F. Pitcairn (New York: Jason Aronson, 1981), pp.
303–20; Jay P. Spenser, Whirlybirds: A History of the
U.S. Helicopter Pioneers (Seattle and London:
University of Washington Press, 1998), p. 381.
36. Spenser, pp. 380–81.
37. Ibid., p. 382 (photograph of the Kellett XR-10).
38. Brooks claims that the KD-1A that was converted to the
KH-17 was initially sold to the Charles H. Babb Co. in
December 1941 (p. 353).
39. For a description of the unsuccessful Kellett
convertiplane development and picture of the Kellett
KH-17, see Howard Levy, “Kellett Gyrations,” Aeroplane
24, no. 1, issue 273 (January 1996): 32–34, 34;
George Townson, Autogiro: The Story of “the Windmill
Plane” (Fallbrook, California: Aero Publishers, 1985),
pp. 122–23.
40. James G. Ray, “Is the Autogiro Making a Comeback?”
Flying 66, no. 1 (January 1960): 34–35, 91–92.
41. Townson maintains that the Kellett aircraft also
incorporated some parts from the KD-1B that had
transported the mail for Eastern Airlines and later been
converted into the KH-17. Townson, Autogiro, p. 138.
42. Brooks, p. 353.
43. For a photograph of the XR-3 at the General Electric
Schenectady facility, see Townson, Autogiro, p. 139.
44. For a photograph of the Cropmaster, see Levy, “Kellett
Gyrations,” p. 34;“Rotary-wing Aircraft,” Flying 67, no. 4
(October 1960): 24–26, 100–101.
45. Levy, “Kellett Gyrations,” p. 34.
46. Townson, Autogiro, pp. 118 (photograph of Kenworthy)
and 138 (photograph of Maier).
47. George Townson, “Autogiro Crop Dusters,” American
Helicopter Museum & Education Center Newsletter 3,
no. 1 (Spring 1996); Paul Hengel, “Portrait of a Pioneer
Rotary-Wing Pilot,” American Helicopter Museum &
Education Center Newsletter 2, no. 3 (Summer 1995);
Hal MacKay, “Bug Fighters,” Popular Aviation24 (June
1939): 48–50, 82.
48. Bensen, Dream of Flight, p. 6.
49. See Paul Bergen Abbott's introduction to Bensen, Dream
of Flight. Abbott, a long-time associate of Bensen and
former editor of the PRA Popular Rotorcraft
Flying/Rotorcraft magazine, fails to name Bensen's
father. It is likely that, although Abbott was undoubtedly
 familiar with Bensen's family story, his failure to name
the father is the result of Bensen's request. It should
also be noted that Bensen himself fails to mention his
wife, Mary, in his book, even though she reportedly
played a significant role in the Bensen Aircraft
Company.
50. Bensen, Dream of Flight, p. 8.
51. “The Reverend Igor B. Bensen,” Popular Rotorcraft
Flying 7, no. 4 (July–August 1969): 18.
52. Igor B. Bensen, “Design Classroom: Bensen Model B-1,”
Rotorcraft 31, no. 4 (June–July 1993): 22.
53. “Design Classroom,” pp. 14–15 (see p. 14, fig. 2, for
Bensen flying the maiden flight of the Rotachute).
54. See Bensen, Dream of Flight, pp. 9–12, for a complete
description of Bensen's involvement with the Kellet XR-
3, the Focke-Achgelis Fa-330, and the British
Rotachute; see also Paul Bergen Abbott, The Gyrocopter
Flight Manual.Introduction by Dr. Igor Bensen
(Indianapolis, Indiana: The Abbott Company, 1983,
1986); “Design Classroom,” pp. 14–15; Igor Bensen,
“Rotachute, Rotary Wing Glider-Kite,” report no. 33200
(Schenectady, New York: General Electric Co., 1946).
55. Bensen, “Design Classroom,” p. 22.
56. “New G-E Gyro-Glider,” Rotorcraft 39, no. 5 (August
2001): 22; reprinted fromWings 1, no. 12 (November
1946).
57. For extremely rare photographs of the Heli-glider, see
“Design Classroom,” p. 14;“Glimpses of History,”
Popular Rotorcraft Flying 2, no. 4 (Fall 1964): 13.
 Chapter 11

IGOR BENSEN AND THE

DEVELOPMENT OF THE GYROCOPTER
Conversation overheard by a PRA-er's wife after a
gyrocopter demonstration: “Hell, this looks like more fun
than chasing women!” said one spectator. “Cheaper, too, I'll
bet” … reflected the other.
Popular Rotorcraft Flying
Igor Benson, now firmly committed to rotary-flight
development, was quick to accept an offer in 1951 to join
Kaman Aircraft, the fourth-largest helicopter manufacturer
in the world, and Bensen was undoubtedly thrilled to be
part of the cutting edge of rotary-wing research and
achievement. But after almost two years of work at Kaman,
during which he had organized and directed the research
department and flown air force and navy helicopters,
Bensen, borrowing money from his brother, left in 1953 to
found his own company in Raleigh, North Carolina.
In 1953 Bensen Aircraft Corporation introduced the B-5
Gyro-Glider, a single-seat rotary-kite towed behind a vehicle
and deriving its lift from the autorotation of an unpowered
rotor. It featured a light tubular aluminum frame resembling
a cross with two pieces, a longer keel crossed by a shorter
perpendicular section. A lightweight aluminum-frame web
set was attached to both the keel and a reinforced metal
mast extending upward from the keel. Control was initially
achieved with a hanging-stick control attached directly to
the rotor hub, which was positioned on top of the mast with
a two-blade rotor. A nose wheel was attached directly to the
front of the keel, while landing wheels were affixed to each
end of the perpendicular crosspiece.1

Diagram of standard Bensen Gryrocopter (Courtesy of Paul

Bensen Abbott.)
The keel, behind the seat and mast, carried a plywood fin
and rudder much as had the Rotachute. It flew well when
towed by even a small automobile, did not require any
license, and was relatively safe. It was also distinguished by
ease of construction, and the builder could either purchase
a kit or build from plans. The materials were readily
obtained, and fabrication could be completed by the
moderately skilled in three to four weeks. It would become
the homebuilt B-6, and the first model would be accepted
into the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian
Institution, the national aviation collection, on July 22,
1965.2
Bensen subsequently developed a Reynolds aluminum
prototype, the B-7 Gyroglider, which flew on June 17, 1955,
at Raleigh-Durham Airport, the sight for future Popular
Rotorcraft Association (PRA) fly-ins. From B-7 came the B-
7M (for “motorized”) (N75355), which first flew on
December 6, 1955, with Bensen as pilot and Charles
“Charlie” Elrod and Tim Johnson as ground crew. It weighed
188 pounds, as the airframe was made of rounded
aluminum tubing and had a wooden propeller attached to a
modest forty-two-horsepower Nelson two-stroke engine,
with the wooden rotor attached to a spindle-type tilting-
head cyclic pitch rotor with a hanging control-stick.3 Bensen
called his creation, clearly derived from the Rotachute, a
Gyrocopter, a term he subsequently trademarked much as
Cierva had previously done with Autogiro. It derived its lift
from the unpowered rotor but received forward thrust from
its engine attached to the frame in back of the flimsy seat.
After three days of successful flight-testing with Bensen as
pilot, the B-7M crashed as its pressurized fuel tank failed.
Bensen, a highly experienced Autogiro pilot, set the aircraft
down in woods adjacent to his North Carolina factory. He
later ascribed the safe landing to “much luck and the good
Lord's will.”4 The B-7M, rebuilt in three days, was flying by
December 17, 1955, a particularly moving experience for
Benson, as that was the fifty-second anniversary of the
Wright brothers' first powered flight. Ever the aeronautical
engineer and pragmatic scientist, Bensen relentlessly
analyzed the flight performance of the B-7M, particularly
those factors that had led to the accident, and the result
was an improved control linkage to the rotor head.
The subsequent B-8M model,5 incorporating the
improvements developed and tested in the B-7M and
powered by a more powerful, seventy-two-horsepower
McCulloch two-stroke piston engine that had been used on
drones for the military, was placed into production in 1957
and became the most produced and copied aircraft design
in history. It provided, in kit form and plan-built, the most
popular way to fly. The Spirit of Kitty Hawk, a B-8M
Gyrocopter in which, on December 17, 1966, Bensen had
personally duplicated the Wright brothers' historic first flight
at Kitty Hawk and with which he had set twelve world and
national Gyrocopter speed, distance, and altitude records
between May 1967 and June 1968, was accepted into the
Smithsonian Institution aviation collection on May 14, 1969.
The Bensen, and its variants and local adaptations, was to
dominate the American Gyrocopter movement for almost
twenty-five years. But although Bensen became the most
well-known and successful of the early American
developers, he was not the only one.
The work of Harris Woods has been virtually forgotten in the
honors and iconic status rendered to Bensen, for, flowing
from his fascination with the Kellett KD-1B used in 1939–40
in the experimental airmail route, Woods invented a
gyroglider6 in 1945, a development apparently unknown to
Bensen. Although Woods later referenced the Kellett, he
may also have been inspired by an article entitled “Gyro
Cars for Fun” that appeared in the November 1945 issue of
Mechanix Illustrated,7 which not only featured an artists'
rendition of the German Fa-330 rotary kite high above a
submarine but also depicted a gyroglider that bore a
resemblance to Woods's first design. It had a welded steel
tube frame covered by fabric, and utilized an original rotor
design, a two-bladed, eight-inch chord with a nineteen-foot-
diameter employing, like the Kellett, vertical and flapping
hinges, and an overhead stick connected directly to the
rotor head. It was, in Woods's evaluation, a “fair flying
machine.” His second aircraft was constructed in 1951 of a
welded chrome-moly tube construction, and employed the
early Bensen symmetrical airfoil rotor blades, but it
eventually crashed in a gusty wind. Woods's third machine
was constructed in 1954 of welded tubing and aluminum
covered with aircraft fabric. This aircraft now utilized a
Bensen rotor head and clearly showed Bensen's influence.
Woods's fourth glider crashed in its first flight, and by 1956
he built a Bensen Model B-7 Gyroglider. Woods went on to
become chief engineer for the Bensen Company and
became PRA member #298 in 1962, the first year of the
organization's existence.
While Woods's early development of the gyroglider had
been independent of Bensen, it had become completely
absorbed by Bensen's impact on the market within a
decade. And Woods's gyroglider is even more impressive
because, unlike that of Bensen, it did not proceed from the
German and British World War II predecessors but rather
was an evolution from the Kellett tractor Autogiros, which
may have even served as the basis for Woods's 1963 tractor
autogyro.8 Nevertheless, it was Bensen who brought the
Gyrocopter to fruition and thrust it aggressively into the
public imagination, a superb achievement, even though he
may have been aware of the World War II German plans to
mount an engine on a Fa-336, a subsequent model never
built.
Bensen seriously advertised in such magazines as Popular
Mechanics, with the invitation to “Build this machine, teach
yourself how to fly, fly in your own backyard.”9Thousands
responded and ordered the Bensen plans and began
construction of their own aircraft. One builder, writing of the
experience many years later, described receiving the
requested Bensen plans in Chile as feeling like “holding the
originals of the Dead Sea Scrolls.”10 Most were attracted by
the modularity of Bensen's concept—they could begin by
constructing a Gyroglider, capable of flight while being
towed, and then, after flight proficiency had been acquired,
add a motor. He also aggressively sought out publications
geared toward men, to whom he had targeted his aircraft.11
Bensen's approach was to prove the beginning for others
who would significantly advance this technology and make it
the most popular aviation pursuit in the world. Lacking
either Bensen's vision, simplicity, zeal, success, or luck,
most have been either forgotten or relegated to footnote
status. But in unique ways, each contributed to the survival
of Cierva's vision and to application of the innovative
autorotational technology. Arliss Riggs, who would achieve
the accolade of the “grand old man of gyro-planes”12 and “a
legend in his own time,”13 was designing and attempting to
fly Cierva-type tractor gyroplanes during the mid-1950s–
mid-1970s, with much attention and little success. But
Riggs's efforts at constructing a wingless Autogiro (which he
called a gyroplane, avoiding any legal difficulties from the
use of Cierva's term) kept that legacy alive,14 and others
such as Galen Bengston,15 Joe Kirk with his Gizmo,16Jim
Eich with his JE-217 and later XNJ 790,18 Ron Herron with
his series of Little Wing auto-gyros,19 and John
VanVoorhees with his Pitbull have continued the
tradition.20And the tractor configuration would be carried on
by Afro-American artist-designer David Gittens, who would
design and build the Ikenga 530 Z, a strikingly original,
award-winning gyroplane21 currently in the collection of the
National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian
Institution. It is the only Afro-American designed aircraft in
the national aviation collection. And Groen Brothers Aviation
has recently introduced its Hawk 6G, a modified Cesna
Model 337 Skymaster with its wings removed and the Groen
Brothers Hawk 4 rotor system added. The result is a “heavy
hauler” Cierva-type tractor gyroplane specifically designed
for patrol and repair of oil pipelines.22 But the mainstream
of Gyrocopter success was to be found in those who began
with Bensen kits and then pursued their own directions.
Bensen had been described as “a burning-eyed Russian
immigrant who speaks with the fervor of a revival
preacher.”23 Having earned a Doctor of Divinity degree from
the University of Indiana, he was ordained a priest in the
Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of America and
Canada on June 1, 1969, in New York City by His Eminence
Archbishop Ireney.24 Bensen's missionary zeal for the
Gyrocopter led to the creation of the PRA in 1962, operating
out of the North Carolina factory and consisting of Bensen's
employees and associated dealers.
Ed Trent, who was one of the earliest employees of Bensen
Aircraft, had the idea to form an organization so builders of
Bensen Gyrocopters would have a way of connecting with
other builders. He set up a publication called Popular
Rotorcraft Flyingas a quarterly magazine for the members.
This was in 1962, and the first issue of the magazine was in
winter, 1963…. the magazine was more like a newsletter. It
was a communication vehicle.25

English registered G-BIGU Bensen Gyrocopter utilizing an

Air Command–type nose pod and long-range fuel tanks—
motor test without rotor blades.
(Courtesy of Ron Bartlett.)
The PRA popularized the Bensen Gyrocopter and, becoming
the premier gyroplane association in the world, it would be
instrumental in the preservation of Cierva's legacy, which
was at grave risk in the early 1960s. The British
government ended the Fairey Rotodyne project in February
of 1962 and ordered the only flying model destroyed. It was
a genuine tragedy for autorotation aviation, as the
Rotodyne represented the most technologically advanced
embodiment of autorotation ever achieved and, as such, will
be discussed in the following chapter. But that period also
saw the death of Harold F. Pitcairn, and circumstances
surrounding the tragic events of April 23, 1960, reveal
much about the growing obscurity of the Autogiro.
Pitcairn's offer to forego wartime patent royalties, accepted
by the Wartime Royalty Adjustment Board for the duration
of the hostilities plus six months, had expired on March 2,
1946. The ACA then became legally entitled to collect 5
percent of the cost of each helicopter manufactured by
those making use of its numerous patents, but these fees
did not materialize.

Cricket Bensen-Type Gyroplane (G-BTVB) lifting off from

Henstridge Airfield, England, flown by Jim Pumford.
 (Courtesy of Ron Bartlett.)

While United Aircraft Corporation, corporate parent of

Vought-Sikorsky, renewed its ACA license, Kaman Aircraft
Corporation, Bell Aircraft, Piasecki Helicopter Corporation,
and Hiller Helicopters ignored the Pitcairn and ACA patents,
challenging Harold F. Pitcairn to take legal action. Internal
memoranda circulated at the new rotary aircraft companies
clearly demonstrated that they were well aware of the
seminal nature of the patented technologies.26 Pitcairn
undertook an evaluation of his standing vis-à-vis patent law
and a detailed investigation of a Bell-47 helicopter,
concluding that there was indeed serious patent
infringement and that his patents, drawn by Synnestvedt &
Lechner since 1924, gave him a strong position from which
to seek legal relief. His original strategy was to sue Bell
Helicopters and then to use a court victory to force the
other infringing companies to agree to royalties, so a suit
was filed in United States District Court of Northern New
York in 1948, but that suit would soon be withdrawn.
Military contracts had, since 1910, contained language by
which the supplier assumed all responsibility for patent
infringement and indemnified the United States; that is,
they insured the government against claims of patent
infringement. Thus anyone selling to the military could be
sued if patent infringement were determined, and this was
precisely the goal of Pitcairn's lawsuit, but it rapidly became
apparent that it would not nor could not achieve its goals of
industry compliance. The other helicopter manufacturers,
taking a public wait-and-see attitude, embarked on an
intense behind-the-scenes lobbying of the military to
change the defense procurement policy. Having made his
point with commencement of the lawsuit, Pitcairn quietly
withdrew the suit and sought to negotiate an industrywide
settlement—what he got shocked him and led to a legal
entanglement that would result in the longest patent suit in
history. And although it would end in victory, Harold Pitcairn
would not live to see its conclusion.
The navy announced that it was reformulating the standard
procurement contract to now hold the suppliers harmless. It
meant that any suit for patent infringement for military
goods would have to proceed against the government itself,
and anyone embarking on such a course of action would
have to face the might and power of the United States of
America. It was a daunting task for the ACA and Pitcairn.
The object of any ACA lawsuit was to enforce basic rotary-
flight patents, the intellectual product and property of
Harold Pitcairn's life, all that remained of his foray into
Autogiro development; to validate what remained of the
Autogiro, he would have to sue his country. Pitcairn had had
little difficulty surrendering his airfield to the navy for
military training or forgoing patent royalties during World
War II as patriotic gestures; the decision to sue the United
States was both difficult and distasteful. Pitcairn later wrote,
“If I had been aware that the government would become so
hostile to the payment of reasonable royalties, our
Company certainly would not have embarked on the
development of rotary-wing aircraft.”27
After much preparation, the lawsuit was filed against the
United States of America on September 21, 1951. Autogiro
Company of America vs. The United States of Americafound
Synnestvedt & Lechner opposing a seemingly inexhaustible
supply of government lawyers, ready, willing and apparently
encouraged to object to every point, and able to bury the
claimants in monumental flurries of legal briefs. The
discovery part of the trial, during which each side seeks to
gain information from the other to fully understand the
issues and strengths of the other and which may lead to
settlement, took over four years of constant contest. It was
an exhausting process, wearing on all parties, but finally the
case actually began on May 18, 1958. The position set forth
by the Autogiro Company of America was strong,
methodically presented, each point reinforced by expert,
convincing testimony. Jim Ray, H. Franklin Gregory (now a
brigadier general), Pitcairn, Franklin Institute Professor
Ralph H. McClarren, and Frank N. Piasecki testified—to a
successful conclusion, for on March 5, 1966, the trial
commissioner issued a 232-page opinion containing a three-
part finding: the ACA/Pitcairn patents were valid, they had
been infringed, and the United States government was
liable to the Autogiro Company of America for an
unspecified amount of damages. The government appealed
the finding, and the Supreme Court eventually affirmed the
verdict. Only then could the damages determination phase
begin, which commenced on July 9, 1973. On July 12, 1977
the court awarded the plaintiff $14.4 million in unpaid
royalties and $17 million in “delay compensation,” and the
Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal on July 23, a
fitting end to the longest patent suit in United States
history. Harold F. Pitcairn, however, was dead.
On Friday, July 22, 1960, almost six years before the first
successful ruling in the lawsuit, Harold Pitcairn was
preparing for a gala occasion, the celebration the following
night of his brother Raymond's seventy-fifth birthday in the
large assembly hall of the nearby Bryn Athyn Cathedral. He
was undoubtedly thinking of the festive evening for more
than 450 guests, the remarks he would make as master of
ceremonies, and the honors and celebratory telegrams that
had arrived from dignitaries, including former president
Eisenhower and industry and civic leaders. But it's not
unlikely that Pitcairn also thought of that day twenty-nine
years earlier when he stood next to another president and
received the Collier Trophy on the White House lawn. By all
accounts Raymond Pitcairn's seventy-fifth birthday party
was a glittering occasion on Saturday evening and Harold
was in a particularly jovial mood. After returning home
Pitcairn went into his study, which was located on the
ground floor. Ever since the kidnapping of the son of Charles
Lindbergh in February, 1932, in Hopewell, New Jersey, it
had been Pitcairn's nightly practice to check all the
accessible windows and doors to insure security for his
family, and he was accustomed to do so with a loaded
Savage .32-caliber semi-automatic pistol. His wife, Clara,
assumed he would come to bed after making those rounds,
but soon she was drawn back to the study by the sound of a
gunshot. Having rushed down the stairs, she found her
husband dead at his desk from a gunshot to the head.
The circumstances of Harold Pitcairn's death remain unclear
even after four decades. The death was immediately
reported as a suicide by the media,28 a rushed verdict
seconded by at least one later author.29 As asserted by
Pitcairn admirers Frank Kingston Smith30 and Frank Anders
Jr.,31 “police investigation disclosed that two shots had been
fired; one had penetrated the ceiling directly over the desk
in the first floor study, another had struck Pitcairn in the
eye.”32 The widowed Clara requested that the inquiry be
ended, and she claimed that she never wished to speak of it
again. Harold Pitcairn became, in the words of Frank
Anders, the “Forgotten Rotorcraft Pioneer”—the only
remaining part of his legacy being the check from the
United States Treasury, and that was for contributions made
to helicopter development. Although Steve Pitcairn, flying
“the only remaining flying PCA-2 Autogiro, Miss
Champion”33 at air shows, never fails to elicit the crowd's
attention and admiration, Cierva's vision was preserved in
the humble Bensen Gyrocopter and advanced by the
Popular Rotorcraft Association. And others around the world
were taking note of Bensen, with profound implications for
the proliferation of the Gyrocopter.
In Canada, Bernard Haseloh followed his youthful
fascination with windmills into an involvement with
Gyrocopter aviation, and with PRA #202, he was an early
first-year member of the fledging organization. The family
legend is that he inquired of the Canadian Ministry of
Transport in the 1950s about building a helicopter. When he
was informed that private individuals could not build
helicopters with powered rotors, “without engineering
courses, never having flown, using whatever materials he
could find, he invented a free-wheeling rotor.”34 He later
stated that “I figured it was pretty safe … But I took a
chance, too, and sure I broke my nose and all those things
but that's part of the game.” Rotary Air Force (RAF) was
founded in 1987 to manufacture and sell a two-place,
enclosed-cabin Gyrocopter when Bernard's nephews Dan
and Peter Haseloh, his niece and her husband, Linda
(Haseloh), and Don LaFleur acquired the initial gyroplane
plans. Establishing a modern manufacturing plant and
securing government certification of their craft in Canada,
England, the United States, Germany, Russia, New Zealand,
Australia, and parts of South America and the Middle East,
RAF has emerged as a world-class gyroplane company
although its lack of a horizontal stabilizer has generated
controversy and concern about flight stability.35
In 1957 Chuck Vanek began his odyssey of gyroplane
development and design. His company, Vancraft, whose
name changed to Sport Copters, “single-handedly invented,
produced, developed and marketed his own aircraft.”36
Vanek's significant contributions to gyroplane technology
include the “tall-tail gyroplane,” the first experimental two-
phase gyroplane, and later the first enclosed ultralight
gyrocopter.
While on a tour with the American Air Force in 1958, Royal
Air Force Wing Commander Ken Wallis purchased plans for a
Bensen B-7 Gyroglider and began construction after he
returned to England.

Wing Commander Ken Wallis flying one of his autogyros.

(Courtesy of Ron Bartlett.)
Wallis experienced the usual difficulties of fabricating a
Bensen from plans but also immediately began to devise
ways of improving the glider. Realizing that he would need
government permission, he sought aid at the Ministry of
Aviation and was fortunate to encounter an old friend,
Michael Vivian, who was deputy director of flight safety. It
was an unexpected meeting, as Wallis did not know that his
friend worked at the ministry, and it was of great
significance for future autogyro development in the UK.
Vivian was instrumental in securing permission from the Air
Registration Board (ARB) for Wallis to develop what would
be the first postwar powered Gyrocopter in 1959 in the UK,
but of greater importance, the ARB gave Wallis the power
“to experiment within reason, function as [his] own design
organization and building under their formal authority.”37 It
was extraordinary giving Wallis “developer” status, which he
has maintained throughout his career, made possible by
Vivian's vouching for Wallis as a skilled pilot and self-taught
engineer, and it would allow him to develop a seminal series
of designs that influenced the European gyrocopter
movement into directions away from the American
adherence to the basic Bensen configuration. This was to
result in a series of innovative models and patents on
mechanical improvements that continue to influence both
European and American designers, and Wallis emerged as
the first international autogyro/gyroplane celebrity since
Cierva.
Kenneth Horatio Wallis38 was born in 1916 at Ely,
Cambridge, and received his education at the King's School,
Ely. Upon graduation, he entered into his father's motor and
cycle business and raced high-speed boats (which employed
air and underwater propellers). His family had an aviation
orientation from the early part of the century, his father and
uncle having built in 1910 the Wallbro monoplane in
Cambridge,39 thought to “have the had the first steel-tubed
airframe in the world.”40 And the family legend is that when
Wallis's father and uncle were moving the Wallbro
monoplane through town to a field, it caused a commotion
at the local school, as children dashed to windows to see
the strange craft coming up the street. The teacher later
met the pilot of the aircraft, and the product of that union
between Miss Emily May Barker and Horace Wallis was
Ken!41 Ken's first boat-racing success came in 1934—the
last coming in 1957, his fifty-sixth. In 1937 he obtained his
pilot's “A” license and joined the Civil Air Guard. During
World War II he served as operational pilot on Lysanders in
the No. 268th Squadron and flew Wellington bombers over
Germany once the war had commenced. Remaining in the
RAF after the war, he would retire in 1964 with the rank of
Wing Commander (Lieutenant Colonel). Very inventive, he
created subminiature cameras (1944) and firearms, a
bomb-loading trolley during World War II, and the first
electric slot cars and racing circuit (1942), an idea
commercially developed by others.
Wallis approached the Bensen design with an experienced
aviation innovator/pilot's experience and, as a foreigner,
almost totally lacking the devotion that would later
characterize Bensen's self-nurtured iconic status among
Americans. Wallis may also have felt free to modify the
design because he was clearly aware that “Bensen had
based his design closely on the wartime Rotachute, a towed
autogyro glider.”42 He later stated that “I found a number of
things with the Bensen design that I didn't like. Some
things I modified because I simply would not fly it that way,
but I was careful to stick largely to the original design in
case things had been made thus for a particular reason.”43
Wallis built a modified version with improved controls,
including replacing Bensen's overhead control with a
conventional floor-mounted stick that was immediately
more effective than any Bensen development, a more
effective rotor head, more extensive instrumentation, and
fuel tanks on either side of the keel to balance the load,
unlike the Bensen with its single side-mounted tank. It flew
well and Wallis responded to many invitations for public
demonstrations, including the Battle of Britain Days in
1959. That first Wallis autogyro would be placed on exhibit
in the Manchester Air and Space Museum, but it proved to
be only the beginning, for even before its completion, Wallis
was designing his own aircraft.
In designing his own flying machine, Wallis turned from
Bensen, although not Bensen's scale, and began with a
blank sheet of paper. As the army had become interested,
perhaps based on its earlier experience with the Rota
Autogiros but more likely flowing from Wallis's well-received
public appearances, the new machine was designed with
potential military applications. Wallis had experienced
frustration with the Bensen's lack of a prerotator, as takeoff
often required waiting until a nearby fixed-wing aircraft was
taking off so that the small Gyrocopter could catch the prop
wash and spin up its rotors, so an effective prerotator was a
necessity. And it was ingeniously developed utilizing a
flexible shaft and belt arrangement that spun up the rotor
with power from the engine, made out of old surplus Jumo
engine starter units from his military armament testing
days. (He is rumored to never throw anything away.)
Additionally Wallis, who had experienced various stability
problems with his first machine, set out to design an
improved rotor head, the result being the “offset gymbal, a
fundamental mechanical fix for which Ken was granted
various patents,”44 which has been found on almost every
gyroplane since, leading to a dramatic increase in gyro
stability. This design and testing in 1960 of a new model
attracted the interest of Frederick and George Miles and,
thorough them, Beagle Aircraft Ltd. This British company
dedicated to the development of light aircraft agreed to
construct the aircraft with the Wallis-built model as
prototype and to undertake an expensive certification
process, a necessary step for future military duties. The
resulting aircraft, the sixteenth single-engine Beagle
aircraft, was called the Beagle-Wallis 116, and while it
revolutionized European autogyro design, it failed, as so
many gyroplanes before, to achieve a viable military role.
Beagle constructed four WA-116 aircraft,45 some of which
were tested by the British military during the winter of
1962–63. With a Bensen-style open fuselage, the little
autogyro was not yet fitted with a cabin or even a front
nacelle, and the unfortunate British pilots found it
uncomfortable to fly on winter days. The engine also
experienced carburetor-icing problems, leading to a severe
impact on performance. Additionally, the military required
the small aircraft to carry a wet battery and a heavy,
unreliable tank radio for communications, further degrading
flight capabilities. It was not unsurprising, then, that the
military opted for enclosed-cabin Bell 47 helicopters over
the WA-116. With the waning of military interest, Beagle's
interest waned as well, and their commitment to the Wallis
WA-118 lapsed. Although it was the only certified autogyro
in England, Beagle did not see a civilian future, and Wallis
had made “an early decision not to aim at the recreation
and sport market, as he felt that pilots might not take them
seriously enough—a recipe that could easily generate a rash
of mishaps and the inevitable bad press.”46 In 1964 Wallis
and Beagle parted upon his retirement from the RAF, and it
looked as if the autogyro would remain his personal pursuit
—but the WA-116 was about to become an international
film star.
Wallis first encountered the world of motion pictures when
engaged to provide the sound effects of airplane engines for
the 1964 film Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying
Machines by the film's consultant Air Commodore Wheeler.
The sound technicians recorded his McCulloch engine and
then played it back at speeds designed to simulate earlier
aircraft motors. In 1966 Wallis was engaged to fly the WA-
116 in an Italian film, Dick Smart Agent 2.007, which was
filmed in Brazil and Italy in 1966.47 This film, apart from the
four Wallis autogyro sequences, is eminently forgettable;
had his film career rested on its success, no one would have
ever heard of him, as the film has achieved a thoroughly
deserved obscurity.48 But fortunately for Wallis, he was
interviewed on radio just prior to departing for Brazil, and
the interviewer asked the retired RAF wing commander if he
would like to go up against a helicopter in his autogyro.
Perhaps still smarting from the army decision to buy Bell 47
helicopters over his WA-116, Wallis answered
enthusiastically, “Give me half a chance!”49 This resonated
with Ken Adam—the art director for the latest James Bond
film, You Only Live Twice, which was completing its
preproduction and preparing to begin filming in Japan in six
weeks—who contacted Wallis. Ken's WA-116 had been
shipped to Brazil, and the only autogyro available had been
“pranged”50by his cousin, so he was at first resistant to a
flying audition and sent a film instead. This served to whet
the film crew's interest, but they demanded a
demonstration, not unreasonable for a multimillion-dollar
international film production.
Wallis took an available WA-116 to Pinewood Studios for a
flying audition just three days before he was to leave for
Brazil, only to discover that the film's aviation consultant,
Group Commander Hamish Mahaddie, thought it was a
miniature helicopter. But the screen test went well, and he
was engaged to fly in the Albert R. “Cubby” Brocolli and
Harry Saltzman production in Japan six weeks later. They
informed Wallis that his autogyro had to be painted in a
dramatic scheme and fitted with prop weapons, including
machine guns, rocket packs, air-to-air guided missiles,
parachute-launched grenades, and simulated
flamethrowers. And all of this had to be done, and the
aircraft had to be in Japan in six weeks! Wallis agreed and
went off to Brazil—the WA-116 that was to emerge as Little
Nellie six weeks later went to the special effects shop. They
would be reunited when filming began.
Wallis doubled for Sean Connery as James Bond in You Only
Live Twice, the first major autogyro film role since 1934. As
Wallis later explained, there had been a famous music-hall
performer from the 1930s named Nellie Wallace, so “you
were apt to be nicknamed ‘Nellie.’ ”51 This tradition was
undoubtedly known to the film's English producers, so the
WA-116 became the most famous autogyro in history, Little
Nellie.52While filming in Japan and Spain,53 Ken Wallis
brought autogyro derringdo to a global audience, becoming
in the process the only internationally recognized autogyro
pilot in history. The thrilling six minutes of screen time
actually required forty-six hours of flight time spread over
eighty-five flights and two countries. The shots of Little
Nellie flying over the sea of Japan to the Sakurajima
volcano on the volcanic island of Kyushu remain among the
most beautiful autogyro scenes ever filmed, but what are
most remembered are the aerial combat sequences, which
were filmed in southern Spain over the Sierra de Mijas
mountains. This was necessary because Japanese law
prohibited the firing of guns, even theatrical props, in the
air over Japan,54 and these Spanish scenes presented
unique problems. The rockets were apt to turn around after
launch, and the parachute grenades tended to tangle in the
autogyro's landing wheels. The flamethrowers presented a
particular hazard, and Wallis insisted upon dropping them
after their use—and later wondered if any filmgoers noticed
that they were missing for the rest of the combat
sequences.55
Wallis flew Little Nellie extensively in promotion of the film,
and as in the movie, the little autogyro traveled in the cargo
hold of large airliners. Promotional flights were made at
Morristown, New Jersey, Wallis and Little Nellie appeared on
the Today andTonight television shows, toured Western
Europe and, during Christmas 1967, appeared in Australia.
Wallis continued to fly Little Nellie around the world,
eventually appearing at over 750 air shows, thrilling
audiences and introducing additional thousands to the
autogyro. His first two-seater, a WA-116-T, with Zeus III on
its tail, was featured in two separate episodes of “The
Martian Chronicles,”56 filmed in 1978 and 1979 on Malta
and Island of Lanzarote in the Canary Islands, and also
served as a camera platform to film the volcanic landscape
that served as Mars for the production. Additionally, one of
his autogyros was used for airborne camera work in the
British World War II series on Bomber Command entitled
The Path Finders.
Wallis withdrew from public view after a disastrous fatal
crash of a WA-117 on September 11, 1970, at Farnborough,
Hampshire, England, in front of a large crowd and television
and film cameras. In 1970 the Air-mark firm, seeking to
enter the British civilian market with an autogyro,
purchased a WA-117/R powered by a 100-horsepower Rolls-
Royce Continental engine57 from Ken's cousin to use as a
prototype for Certificate of Airworthiness testing. It was
issued a Permit to Fly for an air show and was flown by
experienced test pilot John W. C. “Pee Wee” Judge for three
of the four days in which it flew prior to the fatal accident.
Judge was forty-eight years old, a licensed British
commercial pilot with ultralight single-seat gyroplanes
endorsements and a private pilot's license (gyroplanes), and
had been granted a Certificate of Test for the Wallis-117R
on July 15, 1970. Although he had over 9,300 flying hours,
Judge had only 5 hours, 30 minutes (22 flights) in the WA-
117 during the months before his death, and 14 hours, 25
minutes (137 flights) in the WA-116 between November
1961 and December 1963. Prior to the certification flights of
the WA-117, Judge had not flown in an autogyro in six and
a half years, and his inexperience was partially blamed in
the official report for the accident. He exceeded the
maximum recommended speed, and the aircraft began to
climb in a nose-up position and experienced difficulty, as
the autogyro could be adjusted (“trimmed”) for low-speed
flight but not for high-speed flight.58 As Judge leaned
forward to reach the trim controls while flying past the
reviewing stand, he relaxed his hold on the control-stick,
and the autogyro began to climb. At that point his fixed-
wing instincts took over59—Judge shoved the stick forward,
and the aircraft dove into the ground, rolled to the right,
bounced, and settled on the engine. The official accident
report concluded that “all damage, except that sustained by
the rotor blades, propeller, fin and rudder, was caused by
ground impact.”60 Only 6.25 seconds had elapsed from the
first climb to the fatal impact!
Wallis cooperated fully in the subsequent British Board of
Trade (equivalent to the FAA) Aircraft Accident Investigation
Bureau investigation with the remaining WA-117, and
although the conclusions vindicated the design and
workmanship, those conclusions reinforced his belief that
his autogyros were not for the amateur builder.61 But his
aircraft were employed in professional endeavors that were
varied and sometimes exotic. He presented the WA series
as platforms for remote sensing, and the WA-117R was
employed with experimental silencers in the 1970 search for
the Loch Ness monster. His aircraft have also been used for
police surveillance, detection of graves and murder victims,
coastal pollution assessment, pipeline observation and
maintenance, archaeological survey, and military
reconnaissance and liaison/communication.
It was in the reconnaissance role in 1978–84 that Wallis
came closest to military acceptance, the first such
acceptance of this role in England since the World War II
Rota. The WA-117R was fitted with an innovative panoramic
aerial reconnaissance camera, and Wallis took 180 dramatic
photos of Central London, some of which were printed in
the Farnborough air show brochure. This international
exposure renewed interest in a military reconnaissance
autogyro by the camera manufacturer, but this was not
realized. Of greater possibility was the interest shown by
the German military as a result of Wallis's participation in
1983–84 UK-NATO joint military exercises in England and
Germany. The German military was so impressed with the
autogyro role in day and night all-weather reconnaissance
that a contract was actually signed for 100 aircraft to be
manufactured by a licensee. The manufacturer
subsequently so modified the design that the prototype
would not fly and the contract was cancelled. This not only
ended the most realistic possibility for the autogyro to
garner a military role but also reinforced Wallis's conviction
that others could not, and perhaps should not, construct his
autogyros, which were then and which continue to be
regarded by some as the finest in the world.62
Held in renown, Wallis's is the most honored name in British
rotary-wing aircraft.63 And perhaps mindful of Igor
Sikorsky's admonition that “[e]very designer should have to
fly what they design. That will get rid of bad designers,” he
set every autogyro world record between 1968 and 1998.
And it was apparent that the advent of the new century and
achievement of his ninth decade had not slowed Wallis
down in his dedication to gyro achievement, as he set a
new record for speed over three kilometers on November
16, 2002!64 He has influenced
autogyro/gyrocopter/gyroplane design because, although
he refused to release plans or sell kits, his designs have
been analyzed and imitated worldwide and his professional
efforts in applications of reconnaissance technologies have
pioneered new roles and reinvigorated old ones for the
aircraft. The British Rotor Association has honored Wallis by
naming its annual fly-in “Wallis Days” (imitating the Popular
Rotorcraft Association's naming of the American annual fly-
in as “Bensen Days”), a fitting tribute to this autogyro giant.
In a similar manner, his fellow designer in Scotland, Jim
Montgomerie,65 also began with a Bensen kit and was so
committed to the Gyrocopter that he became a Bensen
dealer, eventually selling forty-three kits and becoming a
major parts distributor for the UK, but he soon began
innovating his own designs. Performing some of the earliest
market research in the gyroplane industry, Montgomerie
realized that many of his kits remained unfinished due to
the basic nature of the Bensen materials—basically just a
box of metal tubing with no finishing, shaping, welding, or
even drilled holes! His innovation, a finished kit, became the
B-8MR Merlin, an adaptation of the Bensen design but with
the eventual addition of a fully fitting nacelle, an instrument
panel, and internal fuel tank, which could be assembled in
eighty hours. Montgomerie's involvement with Gyrocopter
design, manufacturer, and flight would span four decades
and extend into the twenty-first century. But in many ways,
the greatest European influence of Bensen would be seen in
the person of Jukka Tervamäki, the greatest gyroplane
designer in Finland, whose influence continues to be felt.
NOTES

1. For photographs of the Bensen GyroGlider, see Aircraft

of the National Air and Space Museum, 4th ed.
(Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press,
1991);Paul Bergen Abbott, The Gyroplane Flight Manual
(Indianapolis, Indiana: The Abbott Company, 1996), pp.
54–55.
2. Aircraft of the National Air and Space Museum, “Bensen
Gyro-Glider” and “Gyro-Copter” entries; “Gyroglider in
Smithsonian,” Popular Rotorcraft Flying 3, no. 3
(Summer 1965): p. 19.
 3. For photographs and rotor head diagram of the B-7M,
see Igor B. Benson, A Dream of Flight (Indianapolis,
Indiana: The Abbott Company, 1992), pp. 60–67.
4. Benson, A Dream of Flight, p. 63.
5. For photographs of the B-8M, see Ibid., p. 29; “One-
Man Rotary Wing Craft,” Air Progress 16, no. 3
(June/July 1964): cover and p. 78;Popular Rotorcraft
Flying 4, no. 1 (Winter 1966), cover.
6. Harris Woods, “My 7 Gyros,” Popular Rotorcraft Flying 2,
no. 2 (Spring 1964): 6–7, 10–11.
7. Ed Yulke, “Gyro Cars for Fun,” Popular Mechanix,
November 1945, 74–76, 148.
8. Popular Rotorcraft Flying, fall 1963, p. 7 (photo).
9. Paul Bergen Abbott, “Meet Ken Brock,” Rotorcraft 31,
no. 6 (September 1993): 12–17, 14.
10. Bolek Brunak, P. E., “Visions,” Popular Rotorcraft Flying
14, no. 3 (June 1976): 25–28, 26.
11. See, for example, “Icarus II,” The Dude 3, no. 2
(November 1958); Richard Ashby, “Come Fly with Me,”
Knight 5, no. 7 (July 1966): 63–65; “Ride with Micky
[Dolenz] in his Gyrocopter,” FAVE! 1, no. 7 (March
1968): 25.
12. Jim Eich, “P.S. to ‘Arliss Riggs and Twenty Years of
Gyroplanes,’” Popular Rotorcraft Flying 16, no. 2 (April
1978): 25.
13. Jim Eich, “Arliss Riggs and Twenty Years of Gyroplanes,”
Popular Rotorcraft Flying15, no. 6 (December 1977):
14–16, 16 (photo caption).
14. Ed Alderfer, “A Study of the Tractor Gyroplane,”
Rotorcraft 26, no. 6 (December 1988–January 1989):
17–18; Martin Hollmann, “Pusher Gyroplanes,
Increasing Interest,” Gyroplane World, no. 26
(November 1978): 1.
15. “Tractor Gyros,” Popular Rotorcraft Flying 3, no. 4 (Fall
1965): 32 (photographs of tractor models by Galen
 Bengston, PRA member #60, and Arliss Riggs).
16. Joe Kirk, “Gizmo,” Gyroplane World, no. 10 (July 1977):
1–3.
17. Jim Eich, “The Eich JE-2 Two Seat Gyroplane,” Popular
Rotorcraft Flying 15, no. 2 (April 1977): 18–21;
Homebuilt Rotorcraft 12, no. 11 (November 1999):
cover photograph.
18. Jim Eich, “The XNJ 790 Autogyro,” Rotorcraft 29, no. 3
(May 1991): 10–13.
19. For a description of Herron's Little Wing tractor
autogyro, see Ron Herron, “First Flight of a New Tractor
Autogyro,” Rotorcraft 34, no. 8 (November 1996): 6–
7;Ron Herron, “Flying Backwards in a Tractor Autogyro”
Rotorcraft 33, no. 5 (August 1995): 32–34; Ron Herron,
“History of Little Wing Autogyros,” Fly Gyro!no. 4
(March–April 2001): 12–14; Ron Herron, “Little Wing
‘Roto-Pup,’ ” Homebuilt Rotorcraft 8, no. 11 (November
1995): 12–13; Ron Herron, “Bringing Back the
Autogiro,” Rotorcraft 33, no. 1 (February–March 1995):
12–13 (citing inspiration by the 1930's [David] Kay
Gyroplane).
20. John VanVoorhees, “The Pitbull Autogyro,” Rotorcraft
34, no. 3 (May 1966): 16;Rotorcraft 38, no. 8
(November 2000): 12 (photograph of the inventor with
his tractor gyroplane).
21. David Gittens and Kia Woods, “Ikenga, An Artist's
Approach to Gyroplane Design,”Rotorcraft 27, no. 1
(February–March 1989): 44.
22. Don Parham, “Bensen Days and Sun 'N Fun 2001,”
Homebuilt Rotorcraft 14, no. 5 (May 2001): 9–
13;Homebuilt Rotorcraft 14, no. 5 (May 2001): 14.
23. “The Reverend Igor B. Bensen,” Popular Aircraft Flying
7, no. 4 (July–August 1969): 18.
24. “A Fun Vehicle That Flies,” Mechanix Illustrated 66, no.
502 (March 1970): 60–61, 145–46, 60; “The Reverend
Igor B. Bensen,” Popular Rotorcraft Flying 7, no. 4
(July–August 1969): 18.
25. “A Conversation with Ken Brock: From the First PRA
Convention to the Latest,”Rotorcraft 34, no. 6
(September 1996): 31–32, 31; Paul Bergen Abbott,
“Ken Brock: A Full and Wonderful Life,” Rotorcraft 39,
no. 9 (December 2001–January 2002): 5.
26. Frank Kingston Smith, Legacy of Wings: The Story of
Harold F. Pitcairn (New York: Jason Aronson, 1981), p.
323 (citing a memorandum from Frank Piasecki's patent
counsel stating, “We find that we apparently infringe ten
patents held by the Autogiro Company of America …
The validity of these patents cannot easily be
questioned as they appear to be very well drawn up by
counsel not only skilled in patent practice but very
familiar with the rotary-wing art.”).
27. Quoted in Richard Aellen, “The Autogiro and Its Legacy,”
Air & Space Smithsonian, December 1989/January
1990, 52–59.
28. Smith, Legacy of Wings, p. 334.
29. See, for example, Kathryn E. O'Brien, The Great and the
Gracious on Millionaires'Row (Utica, New York: North
Country Books, Inc., 1978), p. 89. It should be read
with great caution, however, as the author asserts that
Pitcairn “had told his wife he was going upstairs to do
some work,” which clearly incorrectly locates Pitcairn's
study; additionally, O'Brien had incorrectly asserted that
Harold Pitcairn landed the Autogiro on the White House
lawn, a flight clearly flown by Jim Ray.
30. Smith, Legacy of Wings, p. 334.
31. Frank Anders, “The Forgotten Rotorcraft Pioneer: Harold
F. Pitcairn,” Rotor & Wing International (May 1990): 34–
37.
32. Frank Kingston Smith adds, neatly accounting for all the
circumstances, “The next morning it was discovered
that the semi-automatic pistol was defective; when
cocked, it had a supersensitive ‘hair trigger,’ and it had
a faulty disconnector so that it would fire more than one
shot at a time, a condition known as ‘doubling.’ None of
this information ever came out. Mrs. Pitcairn declared
that she never wants to hear another word about the
tragedy.” Smith,Legacy of Wings: The Story of Harold F.
Pitcairn, p. 334; but see Frank Kingston Smith, “Mr.
Pitcairn's Autogiros,” Airpower 12, no. 2 (March 1983):
49, where the author asserts, “At age 75 Harold Pitcairn
died,” obviously confusing Harold's age with that of his
older brother Raymond.
33. For a stunning photograph of Pitcairn flying Miss
Champion, see Aellen, pp. 58–59.
34. David Brownridge, “A Sycamore Seed for Grownups,”
Western People, December 5, 1996, 5–6.
35. Jim Sottile, “RAF Makes Dreams Come True,” Rotorcraft
32, no. 6 (September 1994): 11–13.
36. Jim Vanek, Sport Copter (Scappoose, Oregon: Sport
Copter, Inc., 2000), p. 6.
37. “Profile: Wing Commander K H Wallis,” Popular Flying,
April–May 1996, 13–21, 15.
38. For a comprehensive view of the many careers of Ken
Wallis, see Ian Hancock,The Lives of Ken Wallis:
Engineer and Aviator Extraordinaire, 2nd ed. (Suffolk,
England: Norfolk & Suffolk Aviation Museum, 2001; 2nd
ed., 2002).
39. “Wing Commander Wallis to be Honored,” Popular
Rotorcraft Flying 26, no. 1 (February 1988): 26.
40. “Profile,” p. 13.
41. Hancock, p. 139.
42. Phillip Whiteman, “Pilot Profile: Ken Wallis,” Pilot,
January 1998, 22–25, 22.
43. “Profile,” p. 16.
44. Whiteman, p. 23.
45. For a discussion of the WA-116, see “Beagle Wallis
WA.116 Autogyro: Origin and Development,” Rotor
Gazette International, no. 13 (May–June 1994): 7.
46. Peter Lawton, “Flying a Wallis Autogyro,” Pilot, January
1998, 26–28, 26;Whiteman, p. 25 (“The Wallis autogyro
not in Ken's ownership is retained by Nigel de Ferranti.
Ken refuses to supply amateur builders with plans or
drawings of his autogyros for fear of someone coming to
grief through modifying his designs.”).
47. For a description of the filming in Brazil, see Wing
Commander Kenneth H. Wallis, “Movie Flying in Brazil,”
 Rotorcraft 33, no. 9 (December1995–January 1996):
10.
48. See Wing Commander Kenneth H. Wallis, “I Was 50
before I Was ‘007,’”Rotorcraft 28, no. 2 (April 1990): 8–
14.
49. Recounted in “Profile,” p. 17.
50. He described this model as then suffering from “a bout
of ‘Macitis’” [engine difficulty with the McCulloch
engine]. For a description of the filming of the Bond
film, see Wallis, “I Was 50,” pp. 8–14.
51. Ibid., p. 9.
52. For a detailed technical discussion of Little Nellie, see
Alastair Dougall, James Bond: The Secret World of 007
(London: Dorling Kindersley, 2000), 46–47; additionally,
for a description of Wallis's role in the filming of You
Only Live Twice,including the flying accident that lead to
the loss of a leg by cameraman Johnny Jordan (who
would recover from the YOLT accident but perish when
he fell out of a camera plane during the filming of Catch
22), see Steven Jay Rubin, The Complete James Bond
Movie Encyclopedia (Chicago, Illinois: Contemporary
Books, 1995), pp. 241–42.
53. Wallis described the Bond-movie filming in Wing
Commander Kenneth H. Wallis, “The Longest Spin,”
Rotorcraft 33, no. 3 (May 1995): 18–24, and in “I Was
50,” pp. 8–14.
54. Rubin, p. 242.
55. Wallis, “I Was 50,” p. 11.
56. “Martian Chronicles,” Cinefantastique 10, no. 1
(Summer 1980): 19–23; “Ken Wallis Keeps Busy,”
Rotorcraft 27, no. 4 (June–July 1989): 4.
57. For a listing of the Wallis's autogyros, see Wallis, “I Was
50,” p. 13.
58. “Negative Gravity: An Accident Analyzed,” Gyroplane
News & Small Helicopter,no. 1 (Spring 1990); Wallis, “I
Was 50,” p. 19.
59. See Mel Morris Jones, “Talkshop: A Conversation with
Jukka Tervamäki,” Fly Gyro! no. 1 (September–October
2000): 4–10, 18, 9 (commenting on the Judge accident
in the WA-117).
60. “Negative Gravity.”
61. “Profile,” p. 21 (“My autogyros are not intended for
homebuilding. Some of the techniques are a bit special,
such as electron beam welding.“)
62. “The series of small autogyros built by Wing
Commander K. Wallis represent not only Britain's top
designs but probably the finest of their type in the
world.”Michael J. H. Taylor and John W. R. Taylor,
Encyclopedia of Aircraft (New York: G. P. Putnam's
Sons, 1978), p. 224.
63. His honors include: 1963, the Alan Marsh Medal,
awarded by the Royal Aeronautical Society and the
Helicopter Association of Great Britain; 1969, the
Segrave Trophy, awarded by the Royal Automobile Club
and the Royal Aeronautical Society to the individual who
has most contributed to British aviation; 1975, the
Silver Medal, awarded by the Royal Aero Club; 1975,
the Rose Trophy, awarded by the Helicopter Club of
Great Britain; 1980, Honorary Fellowship, awarded by
Manchester Polytechnic; 1982, the Reginald Mitchell
Medal, awarded by Stoke-on-Trent Association of
Engineers; 1984, the Rose Trophy, awarded by the
Helicopter Club of Great Britain (second award); 1985,
the Segrave Trophy, awarded by the Royal Automobile
Club and the Royal Aeronautical Society (second
award); 1989, the Salomon Trophy, awarded by the
Royal Aero Club; 1995, Rotorcraft Gold Medal, awarded
by the Federation Aeronautique Internationale; 1996,
Member of the Order of the British Empire, awarded by
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II; 2003, Ph.D. (honoris
causa) and designation as a Gyroplane Pioneer by
Hofstra University
64. See Wing Commander Kenneth H. Wallis, “Autogyro
World Records: Past, Present and Future…” Fly Gyro! no.
6 (July–August 2001): 14–18; Ian Hancock, email to
author, November 17, 2002.
65. Jim Montgomerie, “Autogyro Basics and World Record
Flights,” Rotorcraft 27, no. 2 (April 1989): 12–13; “The
Jim Montgomerie Story: A Man and His Gyros,” Rotor
Gazette International, no. 17 (January–February 1995):
3–5, 10–11; “Latest Merlin GTS,” Fly Gyro! no. 4
(March–April 2001): 16–17.
 Chapter 12

BENSEN, TERVAMÄKI, GROWTH OF

THE PRA, AND THE FAIREY
ROTODYNE
[I]t's not the pilot, it's the machine that is a good flier.
Igor Bensen, Popular Rotorcraft Flying
I suspect there are some bureaucrats in Washington who
would like to swat your mosquito-like whirlybirds out of the
skies, or spray them with DDT, and hope they would die.
But we can't let that happen. We must permit these new
designs to develop and to become more useful. I think it's
absurd that these beautiful machines that I saw flying all
day today can't be sold here in the U.S. for commercial and
many other uses. I can think of many uses for it in
agriculture. I am sure that there are others. So that's
something I am certain that FAA will have to look at.
Congressman Harold Cooley from North Carolina, Chairman
of the House Agriculture Committee, at 1965 PRA Fly-In,
Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina
The article entitled “Brave New Aircraft” appeared in the
June 14, 1954, issue of Lifemagazine presented the Bensen
Gyroglider (N3785C). Bensen, wearing goggles and white
shirt complete with tie, was shown piloting the $295,
eighty-six-pound glider, which was being towed by a truck.
The article was to inspire many but immediately gained the
rapt attention of young Jukka Tervamäki in Finland.
Tervamäki had become interested in aviation from the
earliest period of his life—at the age of four he drew a
postcard of himself flying an airplane and sent it to his
father, who was fighting against the Russian invaders during
World War II. He was struck by the fact that although
aviation was generally beyond the reach of the average
person, the Bensen aircraft was “such a simple machine
that even a schoolboy could build it.”1 Responding to a
Gyrocopter advertisement in Popular Mechanics, Tervamäki
began a correspondence with Bensen, who was delighted to
nurture his enthusiasm. Tervamäki eventually ordered a set
of Gyroglider plans, purchased the Bensen factory-
manufactured rotor head, and in 1957 started to design his
own powered Gyrocopter with a Triumph engine. Even
though his approach was innovative, it was unsuccessful
due to design inexperience. But Igor Bensen was so
impressed that Tervamäki came to America and began to
work at Bensen's North Carolina factory in 1959.
Although Tervamäki's time with Bensen was primarily spent
producing standard B-8M machines, Bensen asked him to
test the Triumph engine installation. This second (and final)
attempt did not fare better than the first, as even with the
consultation and aid of the Bensen factory engineers,
connecting rods were not sufficiently tightened and the
engine exploded. But upon his return to Finland, Tervamäki,
by now familiar with the origins of the Autogiro and the
work of Juan de la Cierva, decided to specialize in rotary-
wing aircraft in his studies at the Helsinki University of
Technology, from which he graduated in 1963. He took a job
at the Finnish air force headquarters as a maintenance
engineer for helicopters, learned to fly, and met a skilled
helicopter pilot/engineer with whom he would go on to
design autogyros, Aulis Eerola. Tervamäki's engineering
background and experience were to lead to significant
innovations in gyroplane design.2
The two young enthusiasts initially began their design
efforts with fiberglass rotor blades, an innovation unknown
even in helicopter technology of that period. Tervamäki
tested the blades on their unpowered gyroglider, the ATE-2
(Autogyro-Tervamäki-Eerola), which was a modified version
of Tervamäki's 1958 JT-1, serving as a towed testing
platform for blade development. He and Eerola began in
1966 to develop a new autogyro utilizing the fiberglass
blades, the ATE-3. After much development and some truly
hair-raising experiences, including blade flutter during the
first test-flight, the design was proved and successfully
flown in 1968. In addition to its airframe of welded steel,
which differed from the more commonly used square
aluminum tubing, the ATE-3 was innovative in the use of
glass-reinforced plastic rotor blades, propeller, cockpit, and
tail surfaces. The fiberglass cockpit had been appropriated
(Tervamäki would sometimes use the word “stolen” or claim
it had been scrapped)3 from a Finnish UTU fiberglass
sailplane under development at the same time.

(Courtesy of Jukka Tervamäki)

A side benefit of using a sailplane cockpit was that it

afforded the pilot great protection, as it had been stressed
to 6 Gs, while the ATE-3 could only achieve 2.5 Gs. And
while Ken Wallis had saved the world in Little Nelliein 1966,
the ATE-3 (OH-XYV) had a flying role in the 1969 Spede
Pasanen and Ere Kokkonen Finnish film Leikkikalugangsteri
(Toy Gangster). That film began with perhaps a knowing
tribute to Ken Wallis in that the film's hero, a toy company
executive/playboy, is first shown engaged in slot-car racing.
Although both inventors flew for the movie, Eerola did most
of the flying. The film shows off the Gyrocopter's abilities
but clearly lacks the production values, stunning
photography, scenery, thrill, and world-saving rush of James
Bond.
On January 7, 1973, Tervamäki first flew the JT-5, a single-
seat autogyro featuring an enclosed fiberglass cockpit with
a sideward opening Plexiglas canopy. The design made
extensive use of internal structures of glass fiber reinforced
epoxy resin. For maintenance and preflight checks, the
instrument panel cover and pilot seat back, which formed a
firewall to the rear engine compartment, opened together
with the canopy. This innovative use of fiberglass came from
Tervamäki's experience in reinforced fixed-wing design and
plastics technology gleaned as the project manager for the
development of an all-fiberglass glider-towing aircraft for
his alma mater, Helsinki University of Technology, in 1972.
As his interest shifted to motorgliding, Tervamäki sold the
JT-5 manufacturing rights to Italy's Vittorio Magni4 in 1973,
but Tervamäki continued to sell JT-5 plans and to pioneer in
the creation of computer programs to aid in gyroplane
development.5 In 1980 Magni, now a close friend, asked
Tervamäki to design a two-seat cabin autogyro. The MT-7,
for Magni-Tervamäki, was a stunning two-passenger, side-
by-side composite aircraft with an aerodynamic shape,
sweeping Plexiglass canopy, and twin tails similar to those
on the first JT-5. The MT-7, called the Griffon, first flew in
1985. It was reported to have crashed some years later in
France, but its influence lives on in subsequent Magni
models.
Even as Europeans were engaging and then adapting
Bensen's designs and taking autogyro/gyroplane
development in new and exciting directions, Bensen's zeal
and enthusiasm and continued development were leading to
constant growth. The eventual growing pains would
radically change his position within the movement he had
created, and 1972 was to prove a watershed year for the
American gyroplane community. Igor Bensen (he was not
yet “Dr. Bensen”), at the urging of his employee Ed Trent,
had founded the Popular Rotorcraft Association in 1962 with
his wife Mary, family members, and close associates. The
first members included Igor Bensen, #1; Mary T. Bensen,
#2; Charles W. Elrod, #3; Edgar B. Trent, #4; Donald Dean,
#5; Morton Roberts, #6; J. Blake Self, #7; David I. Bensen
(son), #8; Ricky I. Bensen (son), #9; Mark V. Bensen
(nephew?), #10; and Dr. V.B. Bensen (brother?), #116 and
a group of associates, employees, and Bensen dealers.
The association's stated goal, undoubtedly written by
Bensen, was to be “a voluntary, non-profit, non-partisan
organization, whose members are dedicated to the
advancement of knowledge, public education and safety of
privately owned non-commercial rotorcraft…. The principal
goal of PRA is to serve as an instrument of unification of
men with the common interest of advancing progress of
rotorcraft for personal flying.”7 The in-house rationale for
support of this organization was “so that builders of Bensen
Gyrocopters would have a way of connecting with other
builders.”8As Bensen was already developing helicopters
and lifting platforms, the association was not limited to
Gyrocopters but included all rotorcraft. It clearly was an in-
house effort—headquartered in the Bensen factory in
Raleigh, North Carolina—and featuring the Bensen machine,
it was pretty much the only game in town. Bensen's own
aircraft (N2588B), in whole or in part, decked out with
pontoons, rolling down city streets, standing next to what
appears to be a large stuffed black bear, and so on, graced
almost every issue of the association's publication, Popular
Rotorcraft Flying .
The PRA became the voice of the American gyroplane
community, speaking with a growing confidence and
authority. As the aviation scene was changing in America
with the growth of private aircraft and the emergence of
homebuilt planes, the government was pressed to produce
new Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs) to promote
individual involvement. The Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938,
the product of a congressional committee chaired by
Senator Harry S. Truman and later the revised Federal
Aviation Act of 1958, did not recognize the category of
amateur-built experimental aircraft and totally ignored
rotary aircraft—understandable since there were no
homebuilt helicopters and Bensen had been selling his kits
and plans for only a few years. The regulations of 1938 and
1958 required that only aircraft with “air-worthiness
certificates” could be flown, and as observed by Bensen in
an editorial in 1963, those who built and flew his
Gyrocopters were technically violating the law.9 Gyrocopters
could not be legally sold in the United States, but Bensen
effectively skirted the law by selling legal Gyroglider kits. If
the enthusiasts desired to add an engine, Bensen would
provide plans, an engine mount, controls, and either a new
ninety-horsepower McCulloch engine or a used engine that
had been factory rebuilt and modified. Additionally, by
1966, at least fifteen sales and service organizations, chiefly
Bensen dealers, advertised parts and assembly services.
There was even an insurance agency offering specialized
insurance for pilots and machines.
The first PRA fly-in took place on June 15, 1963, only a year
after its founding, and had a registered attendance of 275
members from fourteen states and Canada. With fifteen
rotary aircraft present, it was “the world's largest gathering
of private rotorcraft at any one time and place.”10 Beginning
with that very first gathering, the PRA established a
favorable and effective relationship with the FAA, eventually
lobbying for the creation of an official “experimental”
category (more than 51% homebuilt required federal
registration [N] number, an FAA airworthiness inspection
prior to flight, and no commercial uses) and later the
additional “ultralight” category (254 pounds or less), both of
which included gyroplanes (which was the inclusive term
adopted by the FAA). The experimental aircraft was to
prove of tremendous benefit to the amateur market, as it
effectively insulated the designer, kit manufacturer, and
marketer from the liability accompanying certified aircraft.
Legally, the amateur builder is the manufacturer and is
solely responsible for the ship's airworthiness. In fact, each
builder signs an affidavit that is submitted to the FAA in the
registration process naming [himself] as the manufacturer.
It was significant and extremely fortuitous that the FAA
official who would become most responsible for encouraging
the PRA and a knowledgeable and enthusiastic advocate of
amateur rotorcraft,11 fellow North Carolina native Juan K.
“Jay” Croft, was also a “homebuilder” who encouraged
amateur-built aircraft. Representing FAA administrator
Najeeb Halaby (who was made an honorary member of the
PRA), Croft was a rated Autogiro and helicopter pilot and
ideally suited to understand this new amateur aviation
movement. Coming with not only a sympathetic view, he
gained an immediate hands-on involvement such that Igor
Bensen presented him with a bottle of champagne at the
concluding banquet for being the first FAA official to check
out in a dual-seat Gyroglider. He soloed that same day.
On September 5, 1963, in Washington, D.C., Croft presided
over the first meeting of PRA and FAA officials. President
Igor Bensen, Vice President Charles W. Elrod, Vice President
J. B. Self, and Director Edgar B. Trent represented the PRA.
Juan K. Croft, W. B. Masden, M. W. Leaphart, F. M. Kelly, R.
J. Scholtz, and T. D. Sheehan represented the FAA.
Accompanying the PRA delegation were consultants M. J.
Joyce and C. W. Williamson. The PRA-certified minutes of
that meeting reveal a wide-ranging discussion of issues of
concern to the PRA membership. The FAA officials “stressed
the need of maintaining communications between PRA
membership and FAA's Washington offices and praised the
tone and quality of PRA's publication, the ‘Popular Rotorcraft
Flying.’”12Although these minutes may be viewed by a
jaundiced eye as self-serving and-aggrandizing, subsequent
events clearly demonstrate that a viable and productive
relationship had been forged and that the PRA had become
the voice of the gyroplane community in America, a role it
continues to play four decades later. Croft would continue as
an advocate for the PRA until his death at his desk in
Washington, D.C., in 1978—his voice had been heard and
his influence felt for the first sixteen years of the PRA. It
would be missed.
The 1957–74 period saw the appearance of several unique
aircraft and serious, but ultimately unsuccessful, attempts
by well-intended groups to revive the Autogiro in advanced
forms. Each has been largely all but forgotten, ironically so
since the British Fairey Rotodyne, the Russian Kamov Ka-
22, the America Umbaugh (later Air and Space) 18A and
McCulloch J-2 and Canadian Avian 2/180 represent
significant technological achievements. There are currently
only a few remaining flying 18-As and a few museum
exhibits of the Avian and J-2, and little remains of the single
Roto-dyne prototype. They deserve better—much better. Of
these, the Rotodyne and its Russian counterpart, the Ka-22,
are the most unique. Of the American and Canadian
aircraft, three of the four certified gyroplanes were
adaptations of helicopter rotor and control systems, without
the accompanying complexity, to rotary-wing flight by
means of the gyroplane mode. But they represented an
attempt to create an autorotational aircraft that Cierva
would have recognized and to bring it to a mass market—
and are worthy of attention. The McCulloch J-2 is
particularly so, as it had the greatest nongovernmental
financial backing—the McCulloch company eventually lost
$30 million dollars,13 more than six times what Harold
Pitcairn had spent thirty years before. But the most
amazing aircraft was clearly the Fairey Rotodyne, an aircraft
with roots in the past and so far ahead of its time that the
rare films of its flight bring amazement even in the twenty-
first century!

FAIREY ROTODYNE
The Fairey Rotodyne was first flown on November 6, 1957,
at the Fairey facility at White Waltham with Chief Helicopter
Test Pilot Squadron Leader W. Ron Gellatly at the helm,
along with Assistant Chief Helicopter Test Pilot Lieutenant
Commander John G. P. Morton as second pilot. The
Rotodyne14 Y form (XE521) carried a crew of two and forty
passengers, and receiving lift from fixed wings of forty-six
feet, six inches, was propelled forward by two wing-
mounted 3,000-shaft-horsepower Napier Eland N.E.1.3
turboprop engines. But this was no ordinary aircraft—its
fifty-eight-foot, eight-inch fuselage could lift off and cruise
as a helicopter with four tip-mounted pressure jets
powering rotors that provided a disk ninety feet in diameter.
The tip-jets of the stainless steel rotors were powered by
the same Eland engines, which were coupled with
compressors to force air into the tip-rotor pressure jets.
Fuel was mixed with the compressed air and then ignited to
create thrust capable of turning the rotor. But once aloft,
the Fairy Rotodyne would disengage its rotor, which would
then unload and autorotate to provide approximately 65
percent of the aircraft's lift. The first transition from vertical
to horizontal flight was on

Fairey Rotodyne (Courtesy of Augusya Westland)

April 10, 1958, the realization of a quest to merge the

benefits of the autogyro, helicopter, and airplane.15 But
films and a few surviving components in the British
Rotorcraft Museum in Weston-super-Mare—after Westland
Aircraft Ltd. (having acquired Fairey Aviation on May 2,
1960) cancelled the Rotodyne project with the ending of
official funding on February 26, 1962—are all that remain of
this magnificent achievement. In the words of Derek Wood,
author of Project Cancelled, “so died the world's first
vertical take-off military/civil transport.”16
The Rotodyne, the most impressive application of the
Autogiro principles and autorotation technologies developed
by Cierva and Pitcairn, was created by Fairey Aviation Ltd.
Its roots are found in the most unlikely of places, namely
the turning away of the Cierva Autogiro Company Ltd. from
development of the Autogiro to the helicopter. And the
beginning of the untimely end of the Rotodyne is to be
found in an equally unlikely and remote event, the
successful 1946 negotiation and January 1947 acquisition
by Westland Aircraft Ltd. of a license to build a modified
version of the four-seat Sikorsky S-51 (reengineered and
produced as the Dragonfly in 1948) helicopter by Mr. (later
Sir Eric) Menforth and Mr. E. C. Wheel-don. The eventual
government decision that British helicopter development
would be based on Sikorsky engine and rotor technology in
the late 1950s would doom the Rotodyne in favor of
Westland.
Although Cierva's death in 1936 did not stop Autogiro
development in England and America, the former continuing
for three years and the latter hanging on for seven years,
the focus of the Cierva Autogiro Company under Dr. J.A.J.
Bennett, who had become technical director after Cierva's
death, shifted primarily to the design and testing of jump
takeoff rotor heads and the helicopter, a direction that
would inevitably lead to the Rotodyne.
Helicopter development in post–World War II England
resumed after a general hiatus, and the Rotodyne began
with the concept for a compound helicopter developed by
Dr. Bennett and Captain A. Graham Forsyth of Fairey
Aviation, based on 1947 studies. During World War II Dr.
Bennett, along with former Cierva pilot Wing Commander
Reggie Brie, had served as principle technical officer to the
British Air Commission in Washington, D.C. As such he was
well aware of Allied and German rotary-wing developments,
including the work of Flettner and Doblhoff, and Bennett
had advanced the idea for an aircraft that could take off and
land vertically in helicopter mode with a power-driven rotor
using a controllable-pitch propeller for yaw control. In
horizontal flight, however, power would be transferred to
the propeller for forward movement while lift was generated
partially by the autorotating rotor and partially by small
wings. The rotor's collective pitch controlled vertical lift in
the helicopter mode and would change as the throttle was
opened or closed. Roll and pitch were controlled by tilting
the rotor head, while a single tractor propeller in the
starboard wingtip was used to control yaw as well as to
provide forward thrust in the autogyro mode. In this
manner the Gyrodyne,17 as it was named, was also
reminiscent of the control approach taken by Bratukhin in
the 11-EA, with its small wing propellers and helicopter and
autogyro modes of flight.
The first of Fairey Aviation's compound helicopter
prototypes, the Gyrodyne, first flew on December 7, 1947,
based in part on the 1938 design for the Cierva S-22/38, in
response to a Royal Navy specification for a ship-based
helicopter. It was powered by a relatively powerful 520-
horsepower Alvis Leonides radial engine and established a
new world's helicopter speed record of 124.3 mph on June
28, 1948. The technology, although derived from known
sources, embodied a leap into the unknown in terms of
metal fatigue, for which the previous experience of other
developers did not provide—both the pilot and the observer
died when the rotor head disintegrated and the Gyrodyne
crashed ten months later. This tragedy made Fairey Aviation
realize that while it was attempting to incorporate known
technological achievements into an innovative aircraft form,
such a combination would require a great deal of new
research and development, and they embarked on four
years of effort. The result was a second prototype, which
featured a completely redesigned transmission system and
strengthened rotor designed to withstand the stress of
helicopter takeoff and landing, autogyro flight, and the in-
flight conversion between the two. And although the
company attempted to convey to the public the new and
innovative nature of its second compound helicopter by
naming it the Jet Gyrodyne, it was actually powered by the
same type of Alvis radial engine that powered the original.
That is where the similarity ended, however—the original
gearbox transmission that shifted power from the rotor to
the engine was replaced by a pair of engine-driven modified
Super-marine Spitfire superchargers that served as
compressors to force air into miniature jet nozzles located
at the tip of each rotor. Fuel was forced into the nozzle by
the centrifugal force of blade rotation and then ignited—
effectively a Doblhoff tip-jet powered helicopter. Much
development and testing had gone into the technology of
this new model, which first flew in January 1954. The first
in-flight transition involving autogyro mode was on March
24, 1955, by test pilot John N. Dennis. It proved to be both
underpowered and, reminiscent of the fuel-consumption
problem previously confronted by Doblhoff that led to his
decision to power the rotor only in takeoff and landings,
could carry enough fuel for only fifteen minutes. However,
the Jet Gyrodyne was not designed for production but as a
proof-of-concept testing platform for the technologies that
would power a much grander vision that was simultaneously
being developed—the Fairey Rotodyne.
Dr. Bennett and Captain Forsyth had begun articulating the
Rotodyne concept in 1947, before the potential of a larger
transport helicopter was recognized. A turbine-powered
design was submitted to the British government on January
26, 1949, for a compound craft capable of carrying twenty
passengers, with a four-blade rotor powered by two
Armstrong Siddeley Mamba engines, but the research on
the Jet Gyrodyne would result in an eventual design that
incorporated jet-tip rotors. However, even though the Jet
Rotodyne was still years away, Fairey began almost
immediately to modify the Rotodyne design and by March of
that year had formally submitted three alternative new
designs: a model now powered by Mamba or Rolls-Royce
Dart engines for forward flight and providing pressurized air
for jet-tipped rotors in helicopter flight mode; a model with
three Mamba engines, two of which would be for forward
flight and one to power the jet-tipped rotors with
compressed air; and a third design with two wing-mounted
Mamba or Dart engines for forward flight and auxiliary air
compressors for the jet-tipped rotors. An initial
development contract was awarded in October 1950 for a
model based on the Dart engine, but that was modified
when Lord Ernest Hives, who had originally been head of
the Rolls-Royce experimental shop and chief test driver,
complained that the Rolls-Royce engine design team was
overcommitted. The government then decided in late 1950
that the Rotodyne project would go forward with Armstrong
Siddeley Mamba engines with auxiliary compressors, a
power plant then dubbed the “Cobra.” However, by July
1951 Fairey itself had completed a redesign of the Rotodyne
to meet, in part, the requirements of the British European
Airways (BEA) articulated in 1951 for a ten- to twelve-
passenger helicopter to provide service between British
cities. Two new designs were submitted, one with two
Mamba engines and a four-blade rotor and a second with
three Mamba engines and a five-blade rotor. The former had
an all-up weight of 20,000 pounds and the latter, due to the
increased lift of its rotor, was projected at 30,000 pounds.
However, neither of these designs was to be—for, like Rolls-
Royce previously, Armstrong Siddeley complained to the
government that its production facilities were also then
overloaded.
There can be little doubt that the design difficulties
experienced by Fairey with regard to engine procurement
were an accurate reflection of the frenetic research and
development effort in postwar British aviation. But there is
also another possibility that is far better reflective of the
politics that would eventually doom the Rotodyne project
and the abandonment of jet-tip power in the British rotor
industry. In 1949, just after Fairey's first design submission
to the government, the director of engine research had
publicly strongly objected to support being given to the
Rotodyne project18—eventually total support would be
withdrawn and the project killed in favor of Westland and its
application of its licensed Sikorsky technology. But while the
opposition was known in the early 1950s, the eventual end
was not, and Fairey pressed on with an alternative design.
By June 1952 the Rotodyne design now featured a de
Havilland H.7 turbine engine combined with auxiliary
compressors, the former for forward flight and the latter for
rotor power. But again this was not to be, as agreement
could not be reached with de Havilland, and Fairey
complained to the Ministry of Supply that it was being
neglected. Subsequently, after consultation with the
ministry, Fairey settled on the just-introduced Napier Eland
engine in April 1953. Napier, under the developmental
direction of A. J. Penn and Bertie Bayne, had entered into
the development of gas turbine engines, and its Eland
engine would be produced from 1952 until 1961.19 The
Rotodyne Y prototype then went forward, with two Eland
N.E.1.3 engines with auxiliary compressors and a now-
enlarged section four-blade rotor with an all-up weight
projected to be 33,000 pounds. Projected, but never
realized, was a cargo version, with the larger Eland N.E.1.7
engine and a flying weight of 39,000 pounds.
The British government had continued to fund Rotodyne
development, but funding for the proposed Eland prototype
was not approved until April 1953 and itself was not free
from controversy. Fairey had suggested that £710,000
would be sufficient for development of the airframe, but its
estimate was met with great skepticism as a result of its
inability to effectively project (or control) developmental
costs of the Gyrodyne. The remaining Jet Gyrodyne (XD
759) had been converted to jet-tip rotor propulsion using
auxiliary compressors powered by the Leonides engine to
test the Rotodyne concepts, but the costs of this conversion
had escalated from a projected £75,000 to a spectacular
£192,000, a cost overrun of 156 percent! Nevertheless,
even though the government had reportedly been staggered
by the cost overrun of the converted Jet Gyrodyne, the
Ministry of Supply entered into a contract with Fairey
Aviation to construct the Roto-dyne Y prototype in July
1953. The contract specified a forth-to-fifty-passenger
model with a 150-mph cruising speed and a range of 250
nautical miles, and it was understood that a larger machine
would follow.20Construction was under the direction of
Captain Forsyth, because in April 1952, as a result of a
disagreement with Fairey, Dr. Bennett had left to join Hiller
Aircraft in the United States. The man who had spanned the
golden age of rotary aviation, from Cierva to the Rotodyne
left the project, but there was every reason to be optimistic
in 1953 and to believe that the Rotodyne would indeed be
the most successful application of Cierva's autorotational
principles. It was not to be.
Officially called an experimental compound helicopter, the
Rotodyne Y (XE521—a military registration number)
featured a single four-blade main all-metal, primarily
stainless steel rotor carried above its fifty-eight-foot, eight-
inch-long fuselage on a large, fully faired dorsal pylon
structure. The ninety-foot-diameter rotor was driven by
pressure-jet units at the rotor tips. In horizontal flight the
rotor was unloaded as an autogyro and allowed to
autorotate, providing approximately 65 percent of the
aircraft's lift, the remaining lift coming from a forty-six-foot,
four-inch cantilever high-wing on either side of the fuselage.
The wings were all-metal two-spar construction. The boxlike
rectangular cross-section fuselage, featuring double
clamshell doors at the rear to allow for efficient cargo and
vehicle loading, was an all-metal semimonocoque structure.
The all-metal tail, boxlike, was a braced monoplane type
mounted on top of the fuselage and originally featured two
endplate fins and two rudders, but a third central fin was
added in early 1960 to improve control and increase
stability. The Napier Eland N.E.1.3 turboprop engines were
seated below each wing in underslung nacelles—each
driving a de Havilland four-blade propeller. Fuel was carried
in tanks located within each wing. The landing gear was a
tricycle type, with the main wheels retracting into the
bottom of the engine nacelles. Taxiing and landing were
cushioned by the use of Oleo-pneumatic shock absorbers.
The cockpit was set forward in the nose of the fuselage and
featured dual controls and an unrestricted view. With an
overall height of twenty-two feet and a design gross weight
of 33,000 pounds, but sometimes flown at 38,000 pounds,
it was the largest helicopter of its day, with the tail
assembly being built at Fairey's Stockport factory and the
fuselage, wings, and rotor assembly being constructed at
Hayes.21 Assembly of the component units took place at the
airfield at White Waltham, with a full-scale static test rig
having been constructed at the Aeroplane and Armament
Establishment at RAF Boscombe Down, Wiltshire. There the
rotor and power plant were assembled and tested, including
a twenty-five-hour test of the tip-jets, in conformance with
a required ministry approval test. The aircraft's weight was
proving to be an issue, for by 1956, the rotor system
weighed in at 5,503 pounds, which was 68 percent above
the originally estimated 3,270 pounds. But despite the
weight and also excessive noise produced by the tip-jets,
the testing went well and the civilian aviation community
began to take interest. Fairey, anticipating the civilian
market and the Rotodyne's ability to land in helicopter (or
autogyro) mode in the midst of cities, took the noise issue
very seriously and by late 1955 had tested forty different
types of noise suppressors. Based on the measurements
taken with the Jet Gyrodyne fitted with tip-jets, Fairey
anticipated that the Rotodyne noise level at an altitude of
two hundred feet from both engines would be 106 decibels
(dB). Fairey hoped to reduce this to a more acceptable 96
PN dB, but although the estimated sound level was correct,
the reduction was never achieved and the Rotodyne
remained a loud machine. The claim, however, that the
Rotodyne failed because of its noise level is overly
simplistic.
BEA was consistently updated as to the Rotodyne testing
program and the general expectation was that, as London-
to-Paris center-city service had been discussed in December
1954, the Rotodyne would enter civilian service with an
eighty-eight-minute flying time. Additionally, Fairey had
proposed that the second anticipated, larger prototype
would be capable of carrying vehicles for the military.
Things were definitely looking up, but in early 1956 the
government imposed serious budget limitations and there
was a marked reduction in enthusiasm for programs such as
the Rotodyne, which had been funded as part of the defense
budget. It had been a logical way to further the
developmental program, given the RAF and army interest,
but it also left the Rotodyne vulnerable to government
cutbacks—which now came. The Defense Ministry withdrew
further financial support by stating that there was no
further military interest in the Rotodyne, effectively
throwing the entire project into the civilian sector, which
now had to bear not only the whole developmental costs
but also the funding to develop the Eland N.E.1.3 engines
for Rotodyne application. After much discussion during
1956, the government agreed to fund the Rotodyne and
Eland projects until the end of September of 1957, a
deadline subsequently extended through the end of the
year, subject to three conditions: (1) the Rotodyne had to
be a technical success; (2) Fairey Aviation must secure a
firm order from BEA and intents-to-purchase from other air
carriers; and (3) Fairey Aviation and English Electric, the
corporate parent of Napier, must fund a proportion of the
developmental costs. Fairey agreed because, although the
first flight had slipped from its projected 1956 date, the
company was confident that the Rotodyne would finally take
to the air in 1957 and that commercial success would surely
follow.22
The Rotodyne first flew on November 6, 1957, and its first
successful transition from vertical/horizontal/vertical flight
was on April 10, 1958. There was much publicity of the
Rotodyne achievement, and it was the center of industry
attention and public acclaim at the SBAC Show at
Farnborough in September, where it performed vertical and
horizontal flight, a successful demonstration resulting in an
order for a Rotodyne and options for two more from
Okanagan Helicopters Ltd. of Vancouver, Canada. This was
not surprising given that Fairey Aviation had previously
expanded in Canada23 in 1948 with a plant at Eastern
Passage, Nova Scotia. At the time it was viewed as a savvy
business move, as the air component of the Royal Canadian
Navy (RCN) was being expanded, with the acquisition of
Canada's first fleet carrier, the Warrior, and its Fairey Firefly
aircraft. It was correctly perceived that significant
opportunities for repair and conversion work would result.
The company then went on to purchase a hangar at Patricia
Bay, in response to the 1954 RCN commissioning of VU33
and VC922 in late 1954. In January the local newspaper, the
Victoria Daily Times, quoting unnamed Fairey officials,
speculated that “construction of a jet-powered helicopter of
revolutionary design, with rotor, ixed wings and speeds
equal to that of a DC-3, likely will be one of the first long
term projects of Fairey Aviation Co. at its Patricia Bay
plant.”24
Okanagan officials had followed the public announcements
of Rotodyne developments with great interest and avidly
reported on its application to intercity transport with
enthusiasm in its 1958 annual report, announcing that the
company would proceed with applications for permission to
operate the Rotodyne in “triangle-service” between
Vancouver, Victoria, and Seattle. In September 1959 Mr. Alf
Stringer, vice president of engineering, and Carl Agar, vice
president of operations of Okanagan, had spent two weeks
at Fairey examining the Rotodyne. While impressed with its
flight characteristics, Stringer commented on the noise
created by the tip-jets, observing that they could be heard
ten miles away and that this would be a significant obstacle
to intercity service, as few, if any, municipalities would be
prepared to allow such noise in town. Indeed, the
Rotodyne's noise was to prove fatal to the project, but that
was not evident at the time. In fact, developing commercial
interest pointed to a bright future for the Rotodyne.
Fairey Aviation had been engaged in negotiations with New
York Airways (NYA) in 1958 for potential purchase of the
Rotodyne for intercity service, while Japan Airlines had
arranged to visit Britain to evaluate the prototype. Indeed,
on January 5, 1959, the Rotodyne established a world
speed record for convertiplane-type aircraft of 190.89 mph,
bettering the old record by 30 mph. It also delivered an
outstanding performance in June at the 1959 Paris Air
Show, complete with safe autogyro landings. Kaman Aircraft
Corporation had negotiated a sales and service contract and
a Rotodyne manufacturing license for military25 and civilian
production of the Rotodyne in the United States, and NYA
was so impressed by the Rotodyne's performance that it
had signed a letter of intent to purchase five Rotodynes at
$2 million each, with an option for fifteen additional aircraft.
The latter order was subject to successful testing of the
initial five, and the cost was then anticipated to be $1.5
million per aircraft. This was of great significance, as NYA
was recognized as the world's first scheduled airline to
exclusively use rotary-wing craft, flying commuter flights
from the top of the Pan American Building in the heart of
Manhattan to various outlying airports. This successful
company, well versed in such commuter service and its
hard-nosed economic realities, had calculated that the
Rotodyne, with an enhanced sixty-five-passenger capacity,
could reduce the airline's operating cost per seat per mile
by at least 50 percent over the helicopter.26 Interest was
then also expressed by Chicago Helicopter Airways and
Japan Airlines, the latter who now stated that it was
considering the Rotodyne specifically for travel between
Tokyo and Osaka.
It was obvious, then, that the commercial desirability of the
Rotodyne depended on its economic viability, and
development of the larger model would require an
additional £8–10 million expenditure. Fairey, with orders,
options, and economic analyses in hand, approached the
British government of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan for
help. The prime minister had written on June 6, 1959, to
the Honourable Aubrey Jones, minister of supply, in support
of the Rotodyne project, stating that “this project must not
be allowed to die.”27 Fairey justifiably felt that it had cause
to believe that its appeal for additional funding would be
favorably received. Although such appeared to be
superficially the case, the conditions attached to an offer for
half of the additional funding were to prove onerous and
ultimately fatal.
The British government made its offer of continued support
contingent on a firm order from BEA, but both BEA and NYA
made their orders dependent on a larger prototype flying by
fall 1961. Such a larger model was also perceived as
desirable because the military was pressing for a model
capable of carrying seventy-five troops. It was to prove a
daunting task, as Fairey was encountering ongoing
difficulties at reducing the noise produced by the Rotodyne's
tip-jets. And BEA, having announced in January 1959 intent
to purchase six Rotodynes, insisted that all its
requirements, including noise reduction, be met.28
Fairey, having encountered difficulties working with the
Napier Company, had also become dissatisfied with the
Eland engines, and it was readily apparent that a sixty-five-
to seventy-five-passenger model would require significantly
more powerful engines. Although the prototype Eland
N.E.1.7 engine was to have started at 3,000 horsepower
and to have improved to produce 4,200 horsepower, it
never achieved more than 2,550 horsepower! This caused
Rotodyne pilots to enrich the fuel mixture to achieve
necessary power, which, in turn, resulted in unacceptably
high fuel consumption and was responsible, in part, for the
increased noise level that concerned all potential
purchasers.29 The company, giving up on Napier, turned
back to Rolls-Royce, with its Tyne engine. This second-
generation turboprop had been designed by Lionel Haworth
in 1954–55 to take over where the Dart ended, at 2,500
horsepower, but the engine had proved far more powerful
and, by the time that Fairey considered it, was comfortably
rated at 4,220 horsepower. Fairey, confidant that the Tyne
could be pushed to 5,000 horsepower, felt it would be
sufficient for the projected Rotodyne Z. The Ministry of
Supply promised to finance 50 percent of the Tyne-
Rotodyne development costs (to a defined maximum), but
this was also on the condition of a BEA order.
Fairey, then, confidently approached the design of the
Rotodyne Z. What emerged from the first design efforts was
a craft with a 56-foot, 6-inch span and with a rotor
diameter now increased to 104 feet. Fairey, in an attempt to
spur both civilian interest and military support, circulated
the new design, and for a time it was rumored that the
United States Army was interested in acquiring two hundred
of the new, larger Rotodynes. But this never materialized,
as such an arms procurement required evaluation, and even
if Fairey had entered into production of the larger model,
military import into the United States was prohibited.
Although it was then suggested that Eastern Airlines
(having had Autogiro experience with the 1939–40
Philadelphia 30th Street Post Office–Camden, New Jersey,
Autogiro mail flights) purchase a civilian model and lease it
to the army for trials, nothing came of this. Fairey also
sought Mutual Aid Money, which was conditioned on an RAF
order for twenty-five Rotodyne Zs, but the RAF publicly
stated that it would not commit to more than twelve. Other
events were even then coming to a head, however, that
would shortly doom the Rotodyne and insure that the larger
model would never be built. While the Tyne engine would
continue to be made for over thirty years, the Rotodyne had
less than three years left.
NOTES

1. Mel Morris Jones, “Talkshop: A Conversation with Jukka

Tervamäki,” Fly Gyro! no. 1 (September–October 2000):
4.
2. See, for example, Jukka Tervamäki, “Some Thoughts of
Autogyro Design: Part 3,”Sport Aviation 15, no. 4 (April
1966): 36–37; Jukka Tervamäki, “Some Thoughts of
Autogyro Design: Part 2,” Sport Aviation 15, no. 2
(February 1966): 11–13;Jukka Tervamäki, “Some
Thoughts of Autogyro Design: Part 1,” Sport Aviation14,
no. 11 (November 1965): 6–8.
3. Jukka Tervamäki and A[ulis] Eerola, “The ATE-3
Project,” Popular Rotorcraft Flying 7, no. 4 (July–August
1969): 21.
4. Jukka Tervamäki, “The Sleek New JT-5 from Finland,”
Sport Aviation 23, no. 2 (February 1974): 61; Howard
Levy, “Italian Import: The Magni Gyroplane Makes Its
U.S. Debut,” Kitplanes 18, no. 2 (February 2001): 41–
44.
5. Jukka Tervamäki, “Losing Faith in Autogyros and
Gaining It Back Again,” Sport Aviation 20, no. 5 (May
1971): 40–41.
6. Directory of PRA Members: 1966 (Raleigh, North
Carolina: Popular Rotorcraft Association, Inc., 1966).
7. As stated in every early issue of Popular Rotorcraft
Flying. See, for example,Popular Rotorcraft Flying,
spring 1963, 2.
8. Paul Bergen Abbott, “From the First PRA Convention to
the Latest: A Conversation with Ken Brock,” Rotorcraft
34, no. 6 (September 1996): 31–32; see also Paul
Bergen Abbott, “Meet Ken Brock,” Rotorcraft 31, no. 6
(September 1996): 12–17.
 9. Igor B. Bensen, “Wanted: Teamwork,” Popular
Rotorcraft Flying, summer 1963, 2.
10. Edgar B. Trent, “PRA Fly-In: Let's Do It Again!” Popular
Rotorcraft Flying, summer 1963, 3–4.
11. “The First Fly-In–PRA International Fly-In: Raleigh-
Durham Airport, June 15–16, 1963. (We Did It!)”
Popular Rotorcraft Flying, summer 1963, 8–11.
12. Edgar B. Trent, “FAA meets PRA,” Popular Rotorcraft
Flying, fall 1963, 5–7.
13. The $30 million is quoted by Bill Hines, McCulloch sales
manager (1970–74) and air show demonstration pilot,
who delivered his first J-2 to Ben Parker of Carson City,
Nevada, on July 2. “Return of the Flight of the Phoenix,”
Popular Flying,January–February 1971, 10. Martin
Hollmann, however, maintains that the actual McCulloch
loss was only $8 million dollars, but this is otherwise
undocumented.Hollmann, Flying the Gyroplane
(Monterey, California: Aircraft Designs, Inc., 1986), p.
50.
14. For “rotary aerodyne.” See Jean-Pierre Harrison, “Fairey
Rotodyne,” Air Classics22, no. 44 (April 1996): 44–47,
60–62, 64–66, 79–80, 47.
15. The amazing abilities of the Rotodyne were routinely
reported in the world's aviation press. See, for example,
“Rotodyne Demonstrates VTOL Features,”Aviation Week
69, no. 14 (October 6, 1958).
16. For a description of the Fairey aircraft, see H. A. Taylor,
Fairey Aircraft Since 1915 (London, England: Putnam
Aeronautical Books, 1974; Annapolis, Maryland: Naval
Institute Press, 1988).
17. For “Gyratory aerodyne.” See Harrison, p. 46.
18. See Derek Wood, Project Cancelled: British Aircraft That
Never Flew(Indianapolis and New York: Bobbs-Merrill
Company Inc., 1975), 109–29.
19. The Eland would be almost the last hurrah for D. Napier
& Son—in 1960 the company was divided, and Napier
Aero Engines Ltd. became a subsidiary of Rolls-Royce in
1962, a year after it had ceased production of the Eland
power plant.
20. The Rotodyne Y was much smaller than the projected
commercial version, the Rotodyne Z, which was to be
powered by two Rolls-Royce Tyne turboprop engines
and to carry fifty-four to seventy passengers. It was
never built.
21. For a history of the evolutionary steps in Rotodyne
design, see George S. Hislop, “The Fairey Rotodyne”
(paper presented before the Helicopter Association of
Great Britain and the Royal Aeronautical Society,
London, England, November 7, 1958).
22. Indeed, in November 1956, Fairey Aviation's
advertisements for the Rotodyne announced that it “will
be the first large transport aircraft to offer high cruising
speed with the ability to operate from small landing
sites” and that “[t]he Rotodyne, being independent of
conventional runways, will bring the advantages of air
transport to almost every locality.” See the Aeroplane,
November 23, 1956, 26; see also the Illustrated London
News, August 30, 1958, in which the Fairey Aviation
advertisement, touting “Rotodyne travel” and showing
the Rotodyne being boarded by passengers in Paris with
the Eiffel Tower in the background, announced that
“[f]orty-eight people will settle themselves in the wide,
comfortable cabin of the Fairey Rotodyne, as some
small open space in the middle of a town. The Rotodyne
will lift them vertically far above chimney-smoke and
church spires—and then, gradually transferring the
power of its two turbine engines from the big rotor to
the forward propellers, it will whisk them across land
and water at nearly 200 m.p.h. Over the destination—
the center of a city, not some airport far outside—the
rotor will lower them, straight down, to a safe arrival. A
new conception in aircraft design has brought this kind
of travel into plain sight—the Rotodyne which is neither
aeroplane nor helicopter, but something of both, and
the world's first Vertical Takeoff Airliner.”
23. For a description of the Fairey Aviation Canadian
involvement, see “The Fairey Rotodyne: Nearly the
Answer,” West Coast Aviator, September/October 1995,
35–37.
24. As cited in David Parker, “The Fairey Rotodyne—Nearly
the Answer,” West Coast Aviator 5, no. 1
(September/October, 1995): 36.
25. Harrison, p. 60 (photo caption); Charles H. Kaman,
Kaman Helicopters and the Evolution of Vertical Flight
(General Harold R. Harris “Sight” Lecture, presented
before the Thirty-third Wings Club, New York, May 15,
1996), 23.
26. NYA calculated that the break-even load for the
Rotodyne, with enlarged capacity, would be 45–50
percent whereas that of the largest passenger
helicopters, the Sikorsky S-61L and Vertol 107 II
(seating twenty-five and twenty-eight, respectively)
rose to 80 percent. The projected Rotodyne operating
cost was estimated to be four cents per seat per mile,
while the Vertol would cost at least twelve cents and the
Sikorsky even more. The Rotodyne's economic
efficiency was derived, in part, from its ability to land in
the inner city and avoid the necessity of extensive
ground travel to and from an outlying airport. See
Harrison, p. 62.
27. Wood, Project Cancelled, p. 120.
28. Wood, p. 121.
29. In fact, noise had already proven an insurmountable
problem in the mid-1950s for an American predecessor
convertiplane, the McDonnell XV-1 compound helicopter,
which was similar in concept but much smaller (twenty-
six feet long; 4,277 pounds weight empty; 5,505
pounds gross weight) than the Rotodyne. In 1949, while
the Rotodyne vision was first being articulated, the
Convertible Aircraft Congress in America sought to
stimulate development of an observation and
reconnaissance convertiplane. Of the designs that were
submitted and selected for development, the McDonnell
XV-1, a compound helicopter (more properly,
convertiplane) was one of the most impressive. Chief
engineer was jet-powered-rotor pioneer Friedrich von
Doblhoff, and the XV-1 was powered by pressure jets
and tip-burning rotors. It carried two passengers and
derived its lift in takeoff, landing and hovering from a
three-blade pressure-jet-driven rotor. In forward flight
lift came from an unloaded rotor, small wings with
thrust coming from a pusher propeller located between
a twin-boom configuration. The XV-1 made successful
conversions between helicopter and autogyro modes in
1955 and achieved speeds of 200 mph (initially a record
for helicopters, but later rescinded as the craft was
redesignated a convertiplane); “configuration-induced
aerodynamic problems and the excessive noise of the
tip jet burning prompted the phaseout of the XV-1.” See
John J. Schneider, “Rotary-Wing V/STOL,” in Walter J.
Boyne and Donald S. Lopez, VERTICAL FLIGHT: The Age
of the Helicopter (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian
Institution Press, 1984), pp. 178–79 (emphasis added).
The XV-1 was discontinued in 1956, and today the
McDonnell XV-1 Convertiplane (SN 53-4016) resides in
the United States Army Aviation Museum, and National
Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution,
Washington, D.C.
 Chapter 13

FAILURE TO REVIVE THE AUTOGIRO:

VARIOUS COMPANIES TAKE THE RISK
“What is the ultimate, do you think?” Kellett asked.
Together we asserted: “A craft that can go straight up and
down. The Autogiro does the job halfway. A successful
helicopter would be better.”
Kellett smiled: “Yes, perhaps, but we will improve.” The
steady improvement of the Autogiro, more than anything
else, helped to bring about the first successful helicopter. It
was the practical proving ground that gave us the key to
controllable vertical flight.
Hollingsworth Franklin Gregory, Anything a Horse Can Do
While Fairey's attention was justifiably focused on the
Ministry of Supply, events in the Ministry of Aviation were
even then darkening the skies for rotary aircraft. The
Honourable Duncan Sandys, minister of aviation, wanted to
consolidate, or “rationalize,” the British helicopter industry,
and he felt that Westland was the logical choice, as it was a
major supplier of Sikorsky-licensed and -derived helicopters
for the military and civilian markets. Wielding government
subsidies as a scalpel to dissect and reorder the British
helicopter industry, Sandys, son-in-law of Winston Churchill,
selectively withdrew government support and forced
company mergers.1 In 1959 Westland took over Saunders-
Roe Ltd. Then, on March 23, 1960, Westland acquired the
Helicopter Division of Bristol Aircraft Ltd., based at Weston-
Super-Mare, Somerset, renaming it the Bristol Helicopter
Division of Westland Aircraft Ltd. Less than seven weeks
later it was Fairey's turn.
Sandys had withheld further contracts and support for
Fairey Aviation, and the company found itself without
further funding for fixed-wing aircraft or guided weapons. It
was made abundantly clear that the price for further
development funding for the Rotodyne would be the sale of
Fairey's aviation interests, apart from specialized
manufacturing such as hydraulic components, to Westland.
With a monthly bill of £70,000 just to keep the smaller
Rotodyne prototype flying and mounting developmental
costs for the larger, Z version, Fairey had no choice and
agreed to the sale. On May 2, 1960, it sold the Rotodyne
and its aviation interests to Westland. At the time of the
sale the Rotodyne had flown a total of 120 hours and had
made 350 flights and 230 transitions between helicopter
and autogyro—without any accident. This safe aircraft
continued to amaze all who saw it fly, and there was no
reason, now that Sandys had successfully engineered the
consolidation of the helicopter industry, not to proceed with
its development. Accordingly, Westland received a
government development contract in the amount of £4
million and a promise of an additional £1.5 million to
facilitate the larger Rotodyne entering BEA service.
As the development of the Rotodyne Z continued, the
design became even larger. The final version of the aircraft
was to weigh 58,500 pounds, with an increased rotor
diameter of 109 feet and an equally impressive 75-foot
wingspan. The military version of the revised design would
have been capable of carrying seventy-five troops with
operational equipment, armored cars and trucks (via the
double clamshell doors in the rear of the fuselage), missiles
or the fuselage of a small aircraft and would have been able
to function as a flying crane, capable of lifting a 100-foot
bridge span, vehicles, and disabled aircraft. As admirable as
these projected capabilities were, the RAF was not then
interested in a compound helicopter—its focus and budget
were on nuclear deterrence. So even though there was
some mild military interest, it never reached a critical mass.
It was readily apparent that the civilian market would have
to carry the entire project—and it was not to be. All that
was left was to write the final chapter in late 1961.
The linchpin was always the BEA order, and its precondition
that all its terms be met now came back to haunt Fairey in
what proved to be the Rotodyne's death throes. Although
concerns were voiced about the increase in weight and
rising costs, the continuing noise issue became the focus of
growing criticism. But before this resulted in a final cry to
end the project, the issue of engine design arose one last
time, this time not to be resolved successfully. It was
obvious that the enlarged design would require more power
than even that which would be produced by the Rolls-Royce
Tyne power plant. It was suggested that power be increased
by fitting a Rolls-Royce RB. 176 auxiliary booster engine in
the rear of each Tyne nacelle. Government policy continued
to be that development costs be shared by industry, a policy
that would have required Rolls-Royce to invest an estimated
£9 million—an expense the company was not then willing to
assume.
The government then pounded the final nail in the Rotodyne
coffin, when it rejected a requested Westland quote for
delivery of twelve Rotodyne Zs for the RAF and an
additional six for BEA, stating that the military was no
longer interested. Official funding was withdrawn on
February 26, 1962, and the Rotodyne was dead, as the
British government and Westland were fully committed to
those aircraft derived from its Sikorsky license. Thus the
lead in compound helicopters and the most successful
application of Juan de la Cierva's autorotational flight
ended. The government, which owned the prototype, had
the Rotodyne Y dismantled and almost completely
destroyed, with only a few components surviving at the
British Rotorcraft Museum, Weston-super-Mare, Avon,
accessible to serious researchers with prior appointment.
Even the tooling used to create the Rotodyne was
destroyed, but a film record remains, a rare visual record
that even today, four decades later, never fails to awe the
few viewers who happen upon it.2
Analysis of the noise issue clearly indicates that it is
incorrect to ascribe the downfall of this incredible aircraft to
decibels.3 By February 1962 the noise cancellation project
had resulted in ninety-six dB at 600 feet, but those intent
upon making this a seminal issue either failed to note or
deliberately ignored the fact that the rotor would be
powered only for approximately one minute at takeoff/climb
out and one minute during landing. And to additionally
minimize the Rotodyne noise, it was estimated that a
vertical climb upon takeoff of 250 feet before acceleration to
600 feet and a standard approach angle of fifteen degrees
for landing would further reduce its noise. And to make a
point about the reality of Rotodyne flight in the inner city,
Chief Pilot Gellatly twice flew over downtown London and
made multiple landings and takeoffs at the Battersea
Heliport on a calm morning, with no complaints raised. Only
two comments were received as a result of the Battersea
flights: A lady inquired, on behalf of her son, if that indeed
had been the Rotodyne; and a second woman commented
that her “light sleeping baby” had not in the least been
disturbed by its flight.4 In fact, the Eland engines on the
Rotodyne prototype produced less noise than the DC-8, and
at the time of project cancellation, “the continuing
development of the silencers had further reduced the noise
level by another 16 dB.”5
Politics doomed the Rotodyne even though almost a
thousand passengers had participated in demonstration
flights, including a significant number of the world's airline
leaders and military and government officials, with no
accidents reported. This compound helicopter flew in every
Farnborough and Paris air show from 1958 through 1962 to
constant acclaim—truly a machine far ahead of its time. It is
now unfairly cited as one of “the world's strangest aircraft,“6
but twenty-five years earlier, the Rotodyne had been
included in Milestones of the Air: JANE'S 100 Significant
Aircraft.7
The Fairey Rotodyne was the most developed application of
autorotational technology but was not the only one. Its
death signaled a precarious future for the rest, however,
and the Kamov Ka-22, which most closely resembled the
Rotodyne and came the closest to success, suffered a
similar fate. The other attempts were viewed either as
developmental craft not destined for production or as the
product of limited vision and even more limited
capitalization. The creations of Bruno Nagler, the Nagler
Heli-Giro Aeronca conversion and VG-Vertigyro have all but
been forgotten, and the late 1960s VFW (Vereingte
Flugtechnische Werke) H-3 three-seat heli-gyro did not
prove a viable proposition. Additionally, Anton Flettner again
reappeared, now the founder of his own company in New
York after the war. The Fl 201 Heligyro, evolving out of his
earlier work on the Fl 185, was a thirty- to forty-passenger
twin-rotor helicopter designed to take off and land as a
helicopter but fly as an autogyro. Under United States Navy
sponsorship the Fl 201 Heligyro was tested at New York
Naval Air Station, Floyd Bennett Field, but the model never
advanced beyond the testing phase.8

KAMOV KA-22 (THE “RUSSIAN ROTODYNE”)

Known in the Soviet Union as the Vintokrulya (Vintokryl)
(“Screw Wing”) and dubbed “Hoop” by NATO, this
impressive aircraft also was called the “Russian Rotodyne,”9
and it suffered a similar same fate to that of Fairey
Rotodyne. It was a transport convertiplane equipped with a
rear ramp for cargo loading. The Ka-22 was larger than
even the proposed Rotodyne Z and could easily carry 80–
100 passengers or 36,500 pounds. It had an all-metal
fuselage with a flight deck raised high above the glazed
nose to allow excellent vision for landing in small areas. It
was powered at the end of each wing by two Ivchenko AI-
20V propeller-turbines, one mounted at each end of a
ninety-foot tapered wing, alternatively reported as a 6,500-
horsepower Soloviev D-25VK engine, a nine-stage single-
spool turboshaft modified from the D-25V engine previously
used on the Mil Mi-6, Mi-10, and V-12 helicopters.
Each engine drove both a conventional four-blade propeller
for forward flight and a four-blade rotor for takeoff,
hovering, and landing, like the Rotodyne. In forward flight
each rotor, which was at the end of each wing rising from
the turbine engine, was unloaded, and the plane derived lift
from its wings and the unloaded rotor functioning in
autogyro mode. Flight testing began on April 20, 1960, with
a crew consisting of D. K. Yefremov, V. M. Evdokimov, V. B.
Alperovich, E. I. Filatov, and Yu. I. Emelianov. The Ka-22
made its only public appearance at the Soviet National
Aviation Day display at the Tushino Airshow on July 9, 1961.
The Ka-22's Class E.II speed record of 221.4 mph over a
fifteen- to twenty-five-kilometer course, set on October 7,
1961, and its load record of 36,343 pounds to a height of
6,562 feet, set on November 24, 1961, still stand for
convertiplanes.10
Four aircraft were built in 1959–63, one at the Lubertsy
experimental plant and three additional models at Tashkent.
Despite their impressive performance and appearance, the
program was apparently cancelled in 1964 after a crash in
1964, although its designer, Nikolai Kamov, maintained that
the configuration was “still active” in 1966.11There is one
ironic note to the Ka-22, the echo of a voice heard before in
the field of helicopter/autogyro/fixed-wing compound
aircraft—that of Professor Ivan Pavel Bratukhin. Prior to the
disbanding of his engineering bureau in 1950, he proposed
a twin-rotor, ten-seat convertiplane, dubbed the B-11, in a
configuration that strongly resembled the later Kamov Ka-
22. Although Bratukhin's proposal was officially ignored, the
logical speculation is that his work “may have been passed
on to Kamov's staff.”12

NAGLER HELI-GIRO AERONCA AND VG-

VERTIGYRO
The work of Austrian Bruno Nagler remains generally
unknown.13 After moving to America and settling in White
Plains, New York, Nagler embarked on several areas of
aviation research and development. One of these was a
pressure jet rotorcraft similar to the Fairey Rotodyne.
Although Nagler is usually cited for his helicopter designs
incorporating this technology, there are photographic
records of at least two different attempts to evolve a
convertiplane that could take off as a helicopter and fly as
an autogyro. The obscure Nagler Heli-Giro Aeronca
conversion was a pressure jet–powered rotor affixed to
what appears to be a converted Aeronca K Scout with
modified control surfaces, the wings removed, and a
reconfigured tail.14
Less obscure, the Nagler Vertigyro VG-1 was a converted
Piper Colt adapted to prove Nagler's Vertigyro,15 which
resembled the earlier Pitcairn and Kellett direct control
Autogiros in that it was an airplane fuselage topped by a
direct control pressure-tip rotor and a tractor propeller
mounted in front. It could fly as a helicopter and as an
autogyro and could convert between the two. And using
cold-pressure compressed air, the craft avoided the noise
issue that recently brought down the Rotodyne. Although it
was stated in 1965 that the VG-1 prototype
(N5395Z)16would be followed by a definitive VG-2 model,
there is no record of that happening, as Nagler was invited
by investor Darrow Thompson to set up a facility near
Phoenix, Arizona, to develop a single-seat homebuilt
helicopter. Nagler worked on this project until his death in
1979, but his conversions and use of pressure-tip
technology for a low-cost, off-the-shelf convertiplane
remains a product of the same creative impulses and
fascination with the flight possibilities of autorotation that
motivated the Ka-22 and Rotodyne, and the fate of Nagler's
creations was equally fatal.

VFW H-3
Designed by German engineer Christian Fischer, and
manufactured by VFW GmbH, the H-3 three-seat heli-gyro
of the late 1960s and early 1970s represented an additional
attempt to combine autogyro and helicopter technology to
gain the benefits of autorotational flight. Fischer, an admirer
of the “ingeniously simple design of the Bensen
gyrocopter,”17 improved, like Nagler, the cold jet–powered
rotors. The prototype, developed in 1967, was a sleek
aerodynamic design with an enclosed single-seat cabin and
a variable control three-blade cold jet-tipped rotor to
achieve helicopter flight. In autogyro mode the power from
its Allison 250 gas-turbine engine was shifted to side-
mounted ducted fans on each side of the fuselage forward
of its V-tail, while the unloaded rotor provided lift. By 1971
VFW was flying the H-3 in three-seat configuration in tie-
down and hovering flight-tests, with VFW-Fokker test pilot
Heinz Hoffman. After testing, VFW decided not to continue
the program, and this adaptation of compound
technologies, like the Rotodyne, Kamov Ka-22, and others,
disappeared.

UMBAUGH (AIR & SPACE) 18A

The largest market for autorotational aircraft had been the
United States, however, and since the founding of the
Popular Rotorcraft Association, that market had continued
to develop, albeit with much smaller Gyrocopter aircraft. It
should not be surprising that attempts were also made in
America and Canada to create a larger, jump takeoff
gyroplane that was commercially viable. One was the
Umbaugh 18A,18 and it ultimately fared no better than its
predecessors, contemporaries, or successors. Its fate,
moreover, was the product of strikingly similar events to
those that had doomed Pitcairn and others—bad business
decisions and a bit of government interference—and this
stunning gyroplane, an outstanding performer, has all but
disappeared. Its fate was shared with two other certified
gyroplanes, the American McCulloch J-2 and the Canadian
Avian 2/180, but it represented the boldest attempt to
realize Cierva's dream.
Raymond E. “Ray” Umbaugh, founder of Umbaugh Chemical
Fertilizer Co., was successful in the specialized agricultural
custom-blend fertilizer market. These commodities were
sold by salesmen who traveled from farm to farm, a costly
form of so-called missionary marketing. Looking for an
easier, more cost-effective manner for his personnel to visit
farms, Umbaugh became interested in the Bensen
Gyrocopter, after trying fixed-wing wing aircraft and
helicopters. He even unsuccessfully experimented in the
late 1950s with an enclosed-cabin configuration of a
Bensen,19and then decided to manufacture an enclosed
two-passenger jump takeoff model. After studying the
history of Autogiro design, Umbaugh hired noted
aeronautical designer/engineer Gilbert Devore to design a
low-cost, easy-to-fly, safe autogyro that could be produced
in volume for an anticipated mass market by the Umbaugh
Aircraft Corporation, which had been created by Ray and his
financial backers. As this was, from the beginning, designed
to be manufactured, Umbaugh knew that the aircraft would
have to be certified. Devore was to oversee the FAA
certification process, eventually assisted by former Pitcairn
pilot Slim Soule and chief test pilot Ken Hayden.
Manufacture of the prototypes for the certification process
was subcontracted to Fairchild Engine and Aircraft
Corporation of Hagerstown, Maryland, but the seeds of its
failure had already been sown.
In many ways, the failure of the Umbaugh project was, with
hindsight, readily evident in the grandiose vision of its
founder—Umbaugh stated that he intended to become the
“Henry Ford of aviation”20 and announced the expansive
goal on December 1, 1958, of delivering 1,000 aircraft
between January 9, 1959, and October 16, 1959.21 All this
came from a man who had not previously manufactured
anything. It sounded too good to be true, and that is
exactly what the reality proved to be, but nothing stopped
Ray from gaining publicity and arousing great public
interest, including an interview inBusiness Week.22
The Model 18 was announced in press releases in April 1958
during its design, and early sales brochures and advertising
copy listed the price as $7,995 to $9,995, depending upon
options, with a base price to dealers of $6,500, and an
anticipated production of 1,000 per month. It was a
stunning tandem two-place jump takeoff cabin gyroplane
powered by a tested Lycoming 0-260 A1D 180-horsepower
engine mounted behind the cabin in a pusher-mode topped
with a streamlined pylon and a three-blade rotor. The
design also featured a long boom extending to the rear of
the cabin and three vertical tail surfaces on top of a
horizontal for increased stability. The public responded
enthusiastically, and 132 dealerships were quickly sold for
what was represented as exclusive sales territories. The
initial FAA certification application was filed with the Forth
Worth, Texas, office on January 9, 1959 (the same day that
the 1958 press release had designated for delivery of the
first aircraft!), but the announcement of the Fairchild
subcontract was not announced until eight months later, on
August 14. Type certification was received in September
1961 based on the five Fairchild prototypes, but Fairchild
was no longer associated with the project, having severed
its contract with Umbaugh and his associates via arbitration
in May of that year. It had become apparent that, as finally
produced, however technologically sophisticated and
advanced, the Umbaugh 18A was no longer economical at
the announced price. This did not stop Umbaugh, and by
January 1962 he announced that the company had received
“8,000 orders based on the $9,995 figure and this is not
subject to change.”23 It also received a favorable review in
the January 1971 Flying, when pilot A. C. Bass, after
describing the gyroplane's performance, stated that as “a
business tool it has a vast potential and should attract a
great deal of interest in this still relatively new area of short
haul business transportation.”24
At this point Umbaugh had relocated the project to Muncie,
Indiana, but the production line was still far into the future.
And Umbaugh's house of cards was about to come tumbling
down, a process begun in 1963 when he informed his
dealers that the $6,500 price was actually subject to change
and would in fact have to be raised, as the actual
production costs for the 18A were $6,657. As Umbaugh sold
dealer franchises, he colored in a Rand-McNally U.S. map—
and by now that map looked like a checker-board.25
Dealers, frustrated by the seemingly endless delays in
production, called for accountings, went into court to seek
legal remedy in the form of receiverships, and charged that
overlapping franchises and territories had been
misrepresented as being exclusive. After a year of litigation,
during which the company had not made any progress in
production, the federal district court of Tampa, Florida,
ordered the assets sold to the Air & Space Manufacturing,
Inc. (A & S), a group of about one hundred former
Umbaugh dealers and distributors who either still believed
in the 18A, or who just wanted to get their money out of
the deal and saw A & S as they only way to do so.
The model was renamed the Air & Space 18-A, and it finally
looked as if the dream would become a reality for the first
certified gyroplane since Pitcairn and Kellett. A marketing
executive with the new company, Mort Linder, mindful of its
corporate predecessor's reputation, stated in an interview in
the April 1965 issue of Flying.26
The general image now is a mixed one of fast talk and a lot
or promises and a lot of dates set that were never made.
The new image is predicated solely on the idea that we are
here to correct whatever has to be corrected to make the
aircraft in volume quantity. We hope to keep the price below
$14,000.
Production began in June 1965, and dealers eagerly took
delivery of newly improved and recertified aircraft with a
completion of one aircraft per day. The first model was
delivered to Florida dealer John T. Potter in June, and he
was soon booked solid with appearances and was delighted
with its improved performance. The improvements had
made recertification necessary, and the delivery price had
risen to $18,540, but sales slowed considerably after the
first aircraft27 had been produced and delivery actually
commenced. This was the product of an economic decline in
the private aviation market and a series of fatal accidents
that plagued the 18-A. The FAA temporarily withdrew the
aircraft's type certification, effectively grounding all models
while conducting an official investigation. The certification
was returned several weeks later when the FAA determined
that the accidents had been alcohol-related28, but the
damage had been done, and many prospective purchasers
now considered the 18-A unsafe. Additionally, A & S
management, given the confirmed orders, had decided to
expand to a production rate of three per day and to that
end, went forward with a successful $2.5 million dollar stock
offering to raise capital for expansion of the production
facility.
However, the company's aeronautic expertise did not extend
into the world of finance, and they soon fell afoul of the
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which charged
management with an illegal sale of securities across state
lines without the necessary national registration. Additional
federal charges of misrepresentations and fraud quickly
followed, and the company found itself embroiled in costly
litigation when its naive offer to repurchase the stock and
start over with the required registration was rejected. It
would take two years for the lawsuit to be dismissed, but by
then the company was effectively out of business, as
purchasers withdrew their deposits and the company slid
into bankruptcy. It seemed that the Air & Space dream of a
certified, technologically advanced jump takeoff gyroplane
was dead, but there were a few more chapters to the 18-A
saga, and they would prove worthy of soap opera.
Normally, in a bankruptcy the owners become “debtors-in-
possession” and, under the scrutiny of the federal
bankruptcy court, seek to reorganize the company, but
given the charges against the A & S managers, it is not
surprising that the company was placed under the direction
of a federal trustee. The trustee, understandably knowing
little of the gyroplane market, closed the factory for a year,
rejected proposed reorganization plans, and finally disposed
of the assets in 1967 when the government dropped the
securities fraud lawsuit. The assets were sold to the Weldon
Stump Company of Toledo, Ohio, who sold A & S to Pearl
Equipment, Inc. of Nashville, Tennessee.29 The Crown Tool
Corporation of Dayton, Ohio, owned by Les Smithhart,
purchased at auction the manufacturing rights, certification,
tooling, and a few completed machines, with the hope of
restarting production. But this never materialized, for Crown
soon experienced its own hard times and had little
experience with this kind of production. Smithhart
eventually sold the production rights and tooling to an
investor group that wanted to get the 18-A flying again.
Smithhart, eager to be free from the expenses of storage
and insurance of the tool-and-die and parts, agreed to send
them to a warehouse leased by the purchasing group while
they arranged for financing, but delays ensued and
payment was not forthcoming. Smithhart, an experienced
businessman, finally became suspicious and demanded that
the delays end and the deal go forward, only to learn that
one of the group had embezzled the purchase money and
that the remaining members had been stalling for time,
hoping to get alternate funding. But it was worse than
merely a deal gone bad—the rent had not been paid on the
warehouse, and its contents were to be sold at public
auction! It seemed that the 18-A had come to the end of
the road, but another white knight appeared on the horizon,
and for a while it appeared that the gyroplane would soar
again. That man was to become one of the most famous
and genuinely liked members of the American gyroplane
community—Don Farrington.
Ira Donald “Don” Farrington Jr. was born in 1931 and
graduated from Purdue University with a degree in
aeronautical engineering in 1952. He came to aviation when
he joined the air force after graduation, and he would
remain in the reserves after leaving active duty four years
later, eventually retiring with the rank of lieutenant colonel.
Although he spent some time in the family automobile
business, the lure of aviation continued to call and
Farrington embarked on a flying career with Pan American
Airlines in 1965. He would continue to fly for the airlines
until reaching the required-retirement age of sixty, and that
paycheck allowed him to pursue other aviation interests. He
had been one of the original investors in Umbaugh's dream,
and even though he had grimly watched his money
disappear, he had not lost faith in the 18-A. He had
purchased various 18-A aircraft when they became available
and now bid and won stored 18-A parts and tooling at the
warehouse auction. Smithhart, who now had little use for
the remaining parts and tooling, sold them to Farrington
Aircraft Corporation, located at the airport Don established
southeast of Paducah, Kentucky, where he flew and
maintained the 18-As.
Farrington teamed with Umbaugh alumnus chief test
pilot/designer Gil Devore and made several significant
improvements to the 18-A—includ-ing greater noise
reduction by means of redesign of the engine exhaust
system and engine cowling, substitution of a lighter
propeller, improved mechanics and landing gear, refined
instrumentation, and greater fuel capacity—in anticipation
of industrial uses. Each of these improvements were signed
off by the FAA, a continual, sometimes tedious, always
expensive, process of gaining supplemental type
certificates, but the end result was an improved flying
machine, and Farrington aggressively attempted to market
his refurbished models. Farrington Aircraft Corporation sent
two aircraft to England, at least one of which was for
experimental flights with the London Metropolitan Police
Department, which did not result in a sale. By August 1973
these models were for sale,30 as Farrington sought to avoid
the cost of returning them to America, but at least one (G-
BALB) remained unsold in a hangar in Biggin Hill until 1984,
where it was discovered by Ireland's Pat Joyce and Jon
Todd.31 Farrington had removed the instruments, and the
model, lacking rotor blades, was definitely a fixer-upper, but
its lines excited Joyce, who entered into protracted
negotiations with its owner. Farrington sold Joyce the 18-A
in 1984, and Joyce finally restored it to flying condition in
1997, partially by using parts taken from the other 18-A
that had remained in England. An Air & Space 18A flown by
John Potter was briefly featured in the obscure32 1972 New
Television Workshop production ofBetween Time and
Timbuktu, loosely based on a collection of Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
short stories. Ron Menzie flies a second Gyrocopter in the
film, a B-8M (N3891) Gyrocopter. And while it must have
seemed ironic that the 18-A was supposedly flown by the
hated police of an authoritarian state in the film, given that
the federal authorities of the SEC had previously put the
company out of business, the image of a police gyroplane
was exactly what Farrington was then marketing in England.
The only remaining part of the picture was the most
important—the manufacturing rights, which remained with
Smithhart, as the sale had never been completed—
eventually, even this was sold to Farrington. It was 1991,
and Farrington had finally retired from Pan Am; Farrington
Aircraft Corporation had by then grown since 1971 to
become the West Kentucky Airpark, employing twenty
people and offering flight training33 in his two-seat certified
gyroplane and other rotorcraft, aircraft maintenance
services, fuel and hangar rentals and continued refurbishing
of the 18-A models34 as they came on the market.
Farrington had gained a reputation as a solid citizen in the
American rotorcraft movement, and his airpark flight
training facility was considered the best available for the
aspiring gyroplane pilot. By 1994 the company announced
the production of an improved 18-A, now dubbed the
Heliplane, and an intent to engage in worldwide sales.35
Additionally Farrington Aircraft manufactured and marketed
a two-place open-cockpit trainer called the Twinstar36 in kit
form. Both the Twinstar and the 18-A were well received,
and Farrington had reason to be optimistic. Their success
was, however, not to be.
By 1997 Farrington's holdings were worth an estimated $10
million; he was finally ready to ramp up to serious
production of the Heliplane and Twinstarr (Farrington added
the additional r when the French Aérospatiale company
complained that it already had a model called the Twinstar),
and he was prepared to raise capital to fund this expansion.
Perhaps mindful of the previous financial debacle that had
sunk the operation, a separate investor group was
incorporated as Air & Space Holdings, and this group was to
acquire Farrington Aircraft Corporation and its various
divisions by means of a purchase option and was to raise
the necessary millions of dollars in the stock market. That
public offering was only partially completed when Don
Farrington died (as the result of a heart attack while flying a
demonstration in the 18-A at the Experimental Aircraft
Association Sun 'n Fun Fly-In at Lakeland, Florida) on April
13, 2000, and its purchase option subsequently expired.
Farrington's estate, lacking his familiarity with the highly
personal business and the confidence to carry his dream to
realization, and needing funds for settlement of outstanding
obligations, auctioned off the company's assets on April 21,
2001.37 The sale, it was rumored, had barely covered the
outstanding debts, for although noted European instructor
and gyroplane enthusiast Bart “Woody” de Saar acquired
the tooling, parts, and manufacturing rights to the
Twinstarr, the 18-A certification and manufacturing rights
went unsold. Whether Don Farrington's dream of reviving
the 18-A remains ultimately unfulfilled or merely deferred
remains to be seen, but what is certain is that it
represented perhaps the most sophisticated embodiment in
America of the vision of Pitcairn and Cierva, and as a
certified two-place aircraft, it was used for many years to
train new pilots.

MCCULLOCH J-2 GYROPLANE

The second American certified gyroplane was also created
during this same period but had even less success and, by
all accounts, little to recommend it. Talented and considered
a genius by some,38 its designer was Drago K. Jovanovich
of El Segundo, California, a highly skilled engineer,39 who
had previously designed the rotor hub and blades for the
Hughes 300 series helicopters and the small JOV-3 tandem-
rotor helicopter. Its development and eventual commercial
certification were achieved by the McCulloch Aircraft
Corporation's helicopter division, and in 1949 Jovanovich
became its chief designer. His own company, Helicopter
Engineering and Research Corporation, was renamed Jovair
in the middle/late 1950s and turned its attention to the
design of advanced tandem-rotor helicopters and an
enclosed-cabin two-passenger tandem autogyro, the J-2. It
first flew in June, 1962, the same year that Igor Bensen and
his associates founded the PRA. Jovanovich then began a
search for an aviation manufacturing company for his
enclosed-cabin, three-blade rotor gyroplane and at various
times announced that it would be produced under the
names of Jovair and Lear, but in 1969 he finally settled on
McCulloch, with which he was familiar and which was willing
to commit to a major investment. After laying out the
manufacturing facility in Lake Havasu, Nevada, and
successfully completing the FAA certification process, the
McCulloch J-2 Gyroplane,40 as it was now called, entered
production at the beginning of 1971, having received FAA
certification, with a basic price tag of $20,000.41Production
continued between 1971 and 1974, with an estimated
eighty-three to ninety aircraft produced.42 It met with a
decidedly mixed response from the aviation public.
In February 1971 Peter Garrison, writing in Flying, which
had nine years earlier praised the Umbaugh 18A, published
an article entitled “Everybody Loves an Autogyro” but
quickly informed its readers that that was not true. Claiming
that the J-2 was too expensive and underpowered, the
author concluded:
Mind you, the J-2 is no worse than the average 100-hp two-
seater in most of these respects; the shame is that it's not
much better. McCulloch is grudgingly admitting that an
extra foot of rotor blade and a bigger engine are being
“studied”; in aeronautics, however, brute force is not the
way. I would think that what is really needed is a much
longer two bladed, unarticulated rotor; but that is for Mr.
Jovanovich to decide. In the meantime, if I had $20,000 for
an unequipped runabout, I think I'd buy a Super Cub and
take my change in Bensens.43
Kas Thomas, associate editor of Popular Rotorcraft Flying,
the “Official Publication of the Popular Rotorcraft
Association,” was far more knowledgeable and, as a result,
even less kind to the J-2. He asked:
What is it that has three wheels, two rudders, and looks like
a teddy bear with rotorblades? … Step up close to the
machine for a better look. What is that you say? A
$20,0000 aircraft with a wooden propeller? Yes indeed, the
McCulloch has a wooden prop; a Sensenich. And the rotor
head? You say the rotor head looks familiar? Why, so 'tis, so
'tis. Straight from Hughes blueprints, 'tis…. The McCulloch J-
2 is a cornucopia of unfathomable design quirks. Its
posterior end sports an ironing-board of a horizontal
stabilizer which, in stark contrast to the rest of the
fiberglass-and-metal machine (and for reasons known
wholly to the Creator), is fabric covered. Also, the J-2
boasts not of one large baggage compartment, but two,
separate baggage compartments—one in the nose and one
under the pilot's seats—neither of which is overly capacious.
Speaking of design oddities, what about those stubby
wings? … according to McCulloch, they just about lift their
own weight in flight … but apart from their cosmetic value,
they really seem to be there just to hold up the rudders.
True, the fuel is located in the wings, but that might better
have been put in the fuselage, certainly increasing the
capacity from the current twenty gallons usable (ten in each
wing tip). Twenty gallons, after all, is not one heck of a lot
for an engine like the Lycoming 0-360-A, which burns
nearly ten gallons an hour. But even if the fuel capacity is
low, the most unkindest cut of all comes with the
knowledge that fuel may be used only from one tank at a
time, and must be carefully managed by the pilot.44
And famed gyroplane designer and engineer Martin
Hollmann commented in late 2001:
When in 1970, the 1,500 lb. gross McCulloch J-2 gyroplane
came on the market, I was surprised that Mr. Jovanovich
had designed this aircraft around the Hughes 269 helicopter
rotor, which had a diameter of 25.3 ft and three blades with
a chord of 6.83 inches. Given this size, the disc loading is
almost 3.0 lbs/sq. ft. There is no way this gyro could
perform well and of course, it did not.45
In June, as Thomas' devastating review was published, he
participated as a ground crew member in the historic Ken
Brock gyroplane cross-country flight. It was only a hint at
the great accomplishments that Brock would go on to
realize as long-time president of the PRA, but the J-2 would
not go on to success—its days were limited. Its manual
stated that it could cruise at 105 mph and actually took off
at 47 mph in 600 feet—it was not nearly enough to survive.
By 1974 McCulloch had enough and ended production after
sinking $30 million in the project. The company was then
also under at least one lawsuit, from a student pilot who
had been injured in an accident in Michigan and charged the
company with product liability.46 Other than the Rotodyne
and Ka-22 government-funded projects, the J-2 was the
greatest single investment in gyroplane technology, and it
fared no better. A super-version of the J-2 had been
produced in the summer of 1972, but it only differed from
the original in having a Hartzel three-bladed constant-speed
propeller. Production passed to Aero Resources in 1974,
which briefly attempted production of the McCulloch J-2
Super Gyroplane powered by 180-horsepower Lycoming 0-
360-A2D flat-four engine, but it fared no better than the J-
2.47 Several J-2s survive—for example, one in the Pima Air
and Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona, one in the Mid
America Air Museum located in Liberal, Kansas, and a Super
J-2 in the collection of the Western Aerospace Museum just
south of Oakland, California.

AVIAN 2/180
The J-2s may remain primarily underpowered, nonflying
museum exhibits, but the Canadian Avian 2/180 has been
almost completely forgotten. It was the third certified
gyroplane of this period, and justifiably the least successful,
although in some ways genuinely innovative and one of the
most distinctive gyroplanes produced.48
The Avian was produced by Avian Industries, formed in
1958 by one of the most colorful inventors of the twentieth
century, Peter Rowland Payne, who had immigrated to
Canada from England in 1956 after gaining experience in
the British aviation industry. Although he died in 1997, his
innovative spirit lives on in such achievements as the
nonlethal rubber bullet, the crash-test dummy
(anthropomorphic mannequin), groundbreaking
mathematical models of how a parachute works, and the
stunning SeaKnife hull.
In 1959 Payne joined with colleagues from Avro Canada to
found a new company, Avian Aircraft Ltd., located in
Georgetown, Ontario, to concentrate on the development of
helicopters and autogyros. The company built two
prototypes, the first of which, the Avian 2/180A Gyroplane,
flew in the spring of 1960. It was a stunning, small two- to
three-passenger enclosed-cabin gyroplane with sleek
aerodynamic lines and a short, squat, streamlined pylon
topped by a three-blade rotor capable of jump takeoffs and
a duct-enclosed two-blade pusher propeller in the rear of
the fuselage. The ring or cowl that surrounded the propeller
featured a vertical stabilizer in back of the propeller, giving
the aircraft a distinctive shape. The Avian also featured a
nonretractable tricycle landing gear, disc brakes, and a
steerable front wheel for ground control.
As the design team had judged jump takeoff ability as
crucial for commercial success, the first prototype was
mechanically distinguished by rotor tip-nozzles for directing
compressed air to achieve a torqueless pre-rotation. The
initial compressed air came from a cylinder attached to the
fuselage, which would be filled in flight by a compressor
powered by the engine. Although Payne and his associates
may have been inspired by the tip-jet success of the
Rotodyne, then successfully flying in England, the Avian
2/180A was not a mechanical success. The problems of
developing a successful compressed rotor system proved
daunting with the prototype; first flying less than a year
later, in early 1960,49 it suffered severe damage in an
accident. Avian then opted for a more conventional, proven
mechanical prerotator system of a belt drive attached to the
engine and engaged by means of a clutch assembly in the
second, 2/180B prototype.
Three aircraft were produced and about three hundred
hours of flight-testing accomplished by 1964, when the
Canadian government announced that it would fund the
additional development and testing for certification. The
design was significantly improved, with aluminum and fire-
resistant fiberglass fairings replacing the 2/180A's heavier
steel structure, which resulted in better performance, as
cruise speed was increased from 80 mph to 100 mph, with
an impressive top speed of 120 mph. Although maximum
rotor speed was 263 rpm in forward flight, the three-blade
rotor could be prerotated to 360 rpm to achieve jump
takeoffs. When the rotor reached the maximum, the engine
was declutched and the blades were collectively placed into
an eight-degree positive angle, causing the kinetic energy
stored in the rotor blades to lift the Avian into the air. It was
a convincing demonstration, and certification was granted in
196750 or 1968,51 but the aircraft never entered production.
Refining a prototype is a demanding task, and certification
can be exhausting, but production is an altogether daunting
challenge that has frustrated more than one talented
designer, and the Avian fell victim to the estimated cost of
production.
Although the company advertised and apparently received
116 advanced orders,52that was not enough to actually
commence production. By 1972 it had been placed into
receivership and was subsequently sold to a group of
Listorvel, Ontario, businessmen led by Harvey Krotz that
apparently counted on further government support to enter
production. It was not to be, and by January 1977 it was
reported that the three remaining Avian prototypes,
production rights, and plans were available for around
$200,00,53 although it is not known if a buyer was found.
The Avian 2/180 then disappeared from view and, never
having achieved production, had virtually no impact on
subsequent development, but it then resurfaced when a
surviving model was sold to Pegasus Rotorcraft Ltd. along
with both the certification rights. In 2002 notice appeared
that the aircraft had been renamed the Pegasus Mk III.54 It
is a tribute to the vision of Rowland Payne that the Pegasus,
virtually identical to the Avian, may yet become a successful
commercial venture; the company has announced the intent
for future production, a result that would stand in contrast
to the only single-passenger certified gyroplane, the
Beagle-Wallis 116, which was never intended for the
commercial market and which failed to gain acceptance by
the British military.
NOTES

1. “TSR2: If Only…,” Aircraft Illustrated 34, no. 6 (June

2001): 50–54, 53.
2. “A Fairey Rotodyne Storey,” Traplet Video Productions,
Worcestershire, England.
3. In 1989 one publication, apparently abandoning the
party line of cancellation due to noise, claimed that the
Rotodyne was cancelled because “the lumbering
Rotodyne was a clumsy aircraft to fly.” “The Flat Risers:
The Ups and Downs of VTOL (Part 2),” Take-off 1, part 5
(1989): 138–14, 139.
4. Jean-Pierre Harrison, “Fairey Rotodyne,” Air Classics 22,
no. 44 (April 1996): 44–47, 60–62, 64–66, 79–80, 61.
5. Frank Anders, “The Problem Solver,” Air Classics 30, no.
10 (October 1994): 50–58, 53.
6. Michael Taylor, The World's Strangest Aircraft: A
Collection of Weird and Wonderful Flying Machines (New
York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1996), pp. 89–91.
7. John W. R. Taylor and H. F. King, Milestones of the Air:
JANE'S 100 Significant Aircraft (New York: McGraw-Hill
Book Company, 1969), pp. 136–37.
8. Martin Hollmann, Helicopters (Monterey, California:
Aircraft Designs, Inc., 2000), pp. 130–31.
 9. John Everett-Heath, Soviet Helicopters: Design,
Development and Tactics(London: Jane's Publication
Company, 1983), p. 33; Charles Gablehouse,Helicopters
and Autogiros: A Chronicle of Rotating-Wing Aircraft
(Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1967) pp. 108–9.
10. Everett-Heath, pp. 162–63; World and United States
Aviation and Space Records(Washington, D.C.: National
Aeronautic Association, 1987), pp. 89–90.
11. Everett-Heath, p. 33.
12. Ibid., p. 32.
13. For a description of Nagler's life and work, see Don
Parham, “The Bruno Nagler Story,” Homebuilt Rotorcraft
12, no. 3 (March 1999): 8–12. For a specific analysis of
the Nagler Vertigyro, see Don Parham, “Nagler's
Vertigyro,” Homebuilt Rotorcraft 14, no. 7 (July 2001):
8–10.
14. George Townson and Howard Levy, “The History of the
Autogiro: Part 2,” Air Classics Quarterly Review 4, no. 3
(Fall 1977): 113 (photograph of Nagler Heli-Giro
Aeronca conversion).
15. For a picture and technical description of the Nagler
Vertigyro VG-1, see William Green and Gerald Pollinger,
The Aircraft of the World (New York: Doubleday and
Company, Inc., 1965), p. 338; Parham, Don “Nagler's
Vertigyro,” p. 9.
16. Popular Rotorcraft Flying 2, no. 2 (Spring 1964): 15
(photo of Nagler's Vertigyro in flight).
17. Albert G. Fischer, “Germany's VFW Sports a Hollow-
Bladed Helicopter-Autogyro—with a McCulloch!” Popular
Rotorcraft Flying 5, no. 3 (September 1967): 30;“VFW
Joins the Parade,” Popular Rotorcraft Flying 9, no. 4
(July–August 1971): 31.
18. Kas Thomas, “The Umbaugh Story: Rags to Riches (and
Back?),” Popular Rotorcraft Flying 10, no. 2 (March–
April 1972): 10, 23; “‘It's All Yours’ he said: Kas
 Thomas Flys the 18A,” Popular Rotorcraft Flying 10, no.
2 (March-April 1972): 8–9; Glenn Bundy, “A Dream Dies
Again, But Is It the Last Time?”Rotorcraft 39, no. 5
(August 2001): 41–42; A. C. Bass, “Pilot Report:
Umbaugh Gyroplane,” Flying 70, no. 1 (January 1962):
44–45, 110–12; “Newly Returned to the Rotorcraft
Scene: The Air & Space ‘Heliplane,’” Rotor Gazette
International,no. 13 (May–June 1994): 3–4, 6. For
photographs and renderings, see covers ofAero Modeller
27, no. 320 (September 1962) and Meccano Magazine
47, no. 6 (June 1962); “The Queer Birds: Air & Space
Model 18-A,” Flying 76, no. 4 (April 1965): 40–41, 45–
46.
19. Igor B. Bensen, A Dream of Flight (Indianapolis,
Indiana: The Abbott Company, 1992), p. 13, 39–40
(photograph of Umbaugh making his only flight in a
cabin-equipped B-7M).
20. Thomas, “Umbaugh Story, p. 10; Bass, p. 110
(Umbaugh interview).
21. Thomas, “Umbaugh Story,” p. 10.
22. John T. Potter, letter to author, July 7, 2002.
23. Bass, p. 110.
24. Ibid., p. 112.
25. Potter, letter to author.
26. Thomas, “Umbaugh Story,” pp. 10, 23, citing “Queer
Birds.”
27. There is some confusion as to how many gyroplanes
were actually produced by A & S. Thomas maintains
that “Air & Space manufactured and delivered nearly 70
finished gyroplanes before their untimely demise. At the
time Air & Space closed their doors, they had
approximately 50 ships under their roof in various
stages of construction, and more back orders than they
could have filled in years.”Thomas, “Umbaugh Story,” p.
23; but see Bundy, p. 41 (“By the end of 1965 a total of
110 machines had been built”); John T. Potter in a draft
article entitled “Gyroplane Outlook” claims that at the
end of 1965 Air & Space had “over 200 fully committed
[orders] in local escrow account.”
28. Potter, letter to author.
29. Thomas, p. 23.
30. The advertisement for the two 18-As can be found on
page 27 of Popular Rotorcraft Flying 11, no. 3 (August
1973).
31. Woody De Saar, “First PPL(G) on Air & Space 18-A in
Ireland,” Rotorcraft 39, no. 1 (February–March 2001):
11, 44–45.
32. Long thought to have vanished, this film is only
available in the NTWWGBH archives in Boston,
Massachusetts, and there is a copy that can be viewed
in the Museum of Television and Broadcasting in New
York City.
33. Don Farrington, “Rotorcraft Training,” Rotorcraft 28, no.
4 (June–July 1990): 42.
34. For a photograph of the refurbished and improved 18-A,
see the cover of Popular Rotorcraft Flying 19, no. 3
(June 1981).
35. “Newly Returned,” pp. 3–4, 6.
36. For background information on this dual-control two-
seat tandem recreational and training autogyro, see
Michael J. H. Taylor, (chief ed.), Brassey's World Aircraft
and Systems Directory 1900/2000 (London, UK:
Brassey's, 1999), p. 358.
37. For the announcement of the Farrington Aircraft
Corporation Air & Space America, Inc. auction, see
Rotorcraft, 39, no. 2 (April 2001): 35.
38. Peter Garrison, “Everybody Loves an Autogyro,” Flying
88, no. 2 (February 1971): 66–68, 66.
39. “Return of the Flight of the Phoenix,” Popular Flying,
January–February 1971, 10.
40. For photographs of the McCulloch J-2, see Martin
Hollmann, Flying the Gyroplane(Monterey, California:
Aircraft Designs, Inc., 1986), p. 51; “Return of the
Flight of the Phoenix,” p. 11; Bill Sanders, “The Rebirth
of N4353G and N4364G,”Rotorcraft 28, no. 4 (June–July
1990): 14–19.
41. Garrison, p. 68.
42. The estimates of J-2 production range from eighty-two
to ninety. In part this confusion may be compounded by
the fact that the successor company, Aero Resources,
apparently completed some unfinished models and
constructed one, or possibly two, Super J-2 models with
more powerful engines. See Sanders, p. 14(“The
McCulloch Corporation had built only 85 J-2's, mostly
during 1971 and 1972.”).
43. Garrison, pp. 66–68.
44. Kas Thomas, “Like a Theodore Bear,” Popular Rotorcraft
Flying 9, no. 3 (May–June 1972): 11–16; the Spanish
Aeronautica Industrial SA (AISA), which had built some
of the earliest Cierva Autogiros in the late 1920s, also
produced an autogyro in a stub-wing, twin boom tail,
three-blade rotor configuration very similar to the J-2.
David Mondey (ed.), The Complete Illustrated
Encyclopedia of the World's Aircraft (Secaucus, New
Jersey: Chartwell Books, Inc., 1978; updated by Michael
Taylor, 2000), p. 98.
45. Martin Hollmann, “Designing Rotor Blades,” Rotorcraft
39, no. 9 (December 2001–January 2002): 18–23, 18;
Hollmann, Flying the Gyroplane, p. 50.
46. “Rotary Connection,” Popular Rotorcraft Flying 13, no. 5
(October 1975): 23.
47. Ron Herron, designer of the Cierva-type “pusher” Little
Wing autogyro, owns and flies a 1972 Super J-2.
48. For photographs of the Avian 2/180, see David Mondey,
Complete Illustrated Encyclopedia, (2000) p. 115; John
W. R. Taylor, Helicopters and VTOL Aircraft(Garden City,
New York: Doubleday, 1968), p. 78; Giorgio Apostolo,
The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Helicopters (New York:
Bonanza Books, 1984), p. 44 (rendering); Harry
McDougall, “Avian Gyroplane,” Flying, 74, no. 4 (April
1964): 44–45, 79–80.
49. John W. R. Taylor, Helicopters and VTOL Aircraft, p. 78;
Mondey, Complete Illustrated Encyclopedia, p. 114;
Martin Hollmann, “The Avian Gyroplane,”Gyroplane
World, no. 4 (January 1977): pp. 2–3, where the author
asserts that the first prototype never flew.
50. Apostolo, p. 44.
51. Mondey, Complete Illustrated Encyclopedia, p. 114.
52. See letter to editor from Ross Bowes in Popular
Rotorcraft Flying 10, no. 2 (March–April 1971): 24.
53. Hollmann, “The Avian Gyroplane,” p. 2.
54. “Avian 2/180 Gyro May Be Revived,” Homebuilt
Rotorcraft 15, no. 11 (November 2002): 4.
 Chapter 14

TRANSFORMATION OF THE PRA: KEN

BROCK, MARTIN HOLLMANN, AND
THE ULTRALIGHT REVOLUTION
Shown in the photo at the controls of her husband's
gyrocopter, Mrs. Rose was quoted as saying: “It's thrilling to
fly this machine and not at all dangerous. Any woman could
use one.”
Cy Rose, Popular Rotorcraft Flying
By the late 1960s the Vietnam war dominated the nightly
news and America was losing an increasing number of
personnel as aircraft were downed beyond prudent or
possible rescue-helicopter range. The United States Air
Force embarked on an experimental program to develop the
DDV, or Discretionary Descent Vehicle.1 This was to be an
integral part of an ejection mechanism and provide for a
controlled, and hopefully safer, landing in an area not
threatened by the enemy. Bensen, having worked with the
Rotachute, designed almost a quarter of a century earlier to
accomplish a similar task, immediately saw an application
for his Gyroglider and Gyrocopter and submitted a proposal.
The air force engaged Bensen Aircraft Company to produce
three different experimental (or “X”) concept aircraft, with
the first being the X-25, a rudimentary rotary glider, in
response to the mission requirement of a disposable, “one
use” aircraft. It was a basic Bensen frame with an attached
seat and a rotor that would deploy upon ejection. As the
rotor began to spin, the lift created would allow the pilot to
then steer by means of a pedal-controlled rudder. This was
even more basic than either the Fa-330 or Rotachute, as
each of these rotary kites had direct control of the rotor.
The X-25A and B corresponded to the Bensen Gyrocopter
and Gyro-glider configurations, but with a floor-mounted
stick control. This was presumably to make it easier for the
downed pilot to fly, as he would be more familiar with that
arrangement, which was found in virtually every fighter
plane rather than the overhead hanging-stick. The X-25A
was a B-8M Gyrocopter powered by a 1,600-cc McCulloch
horizontally opposed four-cylinder engine, with which the
air force was thoroughly familiar, as it had previously
proven its reliability in target drones while the X-25B was a
B-8 Gyro-glider.
The X-25A first flew in May 1968 and proved a successful
concept aircraft. Even though the X-25A was more complex
than called for by the “disposable aircraft” mission profile, it
established the feasibility of rotary-wing aircraft for the
projected military rescue mission, even at jet-fighter
speeds. However, the DDV never entered production, as the
government ended funding in the early 1970s. All three
models were then sent to the Air Force Museum located at
Wright Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, but only
the X-25A (68-10770) and B (68-10771) were intended for
display.2 The X-25 was apparently dismantled. It was yet
another military opportunity for the Gyrocopter that failed
to materialize. But the late 1960s and early 1970s were to
see far more dramatic changes to the American rotorcraft
movement, with the rise of its most significant influence,
Ken Brock of Anaheim, California, and his fifteen years'
leadership of the Popular Rotorcraft Association.
Ken Brock, born in Hollis, Oklahoma, in 1932 and
subsequently described as perhaps “the most successful
person ever involved with homebuilt rotorcraft,”3 started
with Bensen plans in 1957. He had previously served in the
United States Air Force and after being released from
military service, returned to Vernon, Texas, where he met
Marie, who would become his wife after a whirlwind
courtship. It was to prove a most productive and long
relationship for the American rotorcraft movement. Even
though he had opened a small machine shop in Long Beach,
California, and had both access and skill with tools, it took
him almost two years to complete the project. As there
were no Certified Flight Instructors (CFIs), he taught
himself how to fly, first with a Gyro-glider and then with a
powered machine. Flight training was so unsystematic that
Brock and Ed Nielesky destroyed several sets of wooden
rotor blades as they unlearned the lessons from the
gyrogliding and then mastered powered flight.
There were no PRA Fly-Ins, so the Bensen Gyrocopter was
taken to Experimental Aircraft Association gatherings. When
Brock read of the first PRA Fly-In at the airport in Raleigh-
Durham, North Carolina, home of the Bensen manufacturing
facility and the new PRA, he decided to attend. It was his
initial contact with the Bensen PRA organization and a
revelation—he had been one of the first to actually
complete an aircraft from plans, and his experience and
skills as a machinist served him extraordinarily well. Brock
had fabricated parts including his own spindle-type rotor
head and wooden blades and had gotten proficient flying at
what would become a site he would use throughout the rest
of his life, the El Mirage dry lake northeast of Los Angeles.
He came to the first North Carolina PRA Fly-In as a skilled,
experienced pilot with an intimate understanding of how the
Bensen Gyrocopter was built and flown. Given his interest
and at Marie's suggestion, it was natural, then, that he
should in 1965 become a Bensen dealer.
Ken Brock first began selling Bensen plans, then kits, and
he remained the West Coast representative for Bensen
Aircraft for many years. And his machine shop, which would
become the renowned Ken Brock Manufacturing, Inc., soon
began selling Gyrocopter parts and engine mounts for the
Bensen craft. But Brock proved to be an effective
combination of two contradictory themes, curious visionary
and committed pragmatist, and this was to lead him and
the gyroplane movement into a new direction. He was often
quoted as saying, “There's nothing that's ever been made
that can't be improved on,” and “Don't tell me, show me.”
He immediately saw ways of improving the Bensen design,
proceeded to make changes, and then proved the
effectiveness of the new designs by extensive personal
flight-testing. His regular air show performances at the
annual EAA Fly-Ins at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, thrilled hundreds
of thousands of spectators, who were almost completely
unaware that this gyroplane pioneer was born shortly after
the start of the Great Depression and had been flying for
over four decades! All they saw from the ground were steep
turns, moves that caused one's heart to pound and breath
to stop, tight spiral descents, and a signature finale—a fall
from high altitude with engine off, ending in a dramatic
flared landing that always brought a thunderous applause.
It was fortunate that Ken Brock was taking fixed-wing flying
lessons at Long Beach in the late 1950s while constructing
his Gyrocopter from Bensen plans. As a fixed-wing pilot he
had mastered the use of the control-stick mounted on the
floor, but Bensen's control system was based on an
overhead control-stick, an angle of metal directly connected
to the rotor hub ending in a horizontal T-bar. The gyro pilot
held the T-bar with two hands and tilted the rotor head to
achieve control, as previously developed for the Rotachute.
Brock, perceiving that if the Gyrocopter had a familiar
control system, it would be easier for experienced pilots to
make the transition to rotary flight, proceeded to innovate a
control-stick system that is currently employed in over 90
percent of all gyroplane designs.
 kenBrock in is KB-2, awaiting takeoff at the Great
Wester Fly-In at Sacramento, Caçifornia (Courtesy
of Stu Fields.)

Additionally, Brock significantly improved the Bensen “flying

lawn chair” design, with “its plywood tail, canvas seat
sprung with strips of old inner tubes, heavy steel wheels
and an upside-down control stick.”4 Addressing each
component, Brock systematically improved the Bensen
design, and builders took note. Observing that the Bensen
design called for an externally mounted gasoline can (like
the one in a garage used to refuel a lawn mower), Brock
realized that such an arrangement created aerodynamic
drag and negatively impacted performance. His answer, now
universally accepted except by those passionately
committed to the purity of the original Bensen design, was
to incorporate the fuel tank into the seat itself.5 Sales of the
seat-tank, as described by Brock in a 1993 interview, “just
took off like a rocket.”6 He also improved the engine mount
and throttle and introduced quality manufactured parts and
a complete support service for builders. The end result was
that by 1970 the Brock KB-2, originally fashioned on the
Bensen model, had assumed its own identity and found a
following.7 It was at that point that Bensen and Brock
agreed that because the KB-2 had deviated from the
specified Bensen plans, it would henceforth be called
agyroplane. Two years later Brock would become president
of the PRA and lead it in new directions, even as he would
himself gain new heights.
In 1971 Brock achieved national recognition when he
departed Long Beach, California, on June 11 and arrived at
First Flight Airport at the Wright Brothers Memorial
monument eleven days later. The official Kitty Hawk, North
Carolina, Register read: “June 21, 11:53 Ken Brock,
Anaheim, Calif. NONE N2303 gyrocopter, coast-to-coast,
Long Beach to Kitty Hawk.” His route had followed
Interstate Route 40 and then Route 66, had taken eleven
days and ten nights with stops at forty-four airports along
the way, as well as stops at at least one trailer court in
Needles, California, several truck stops and gas stations
when he could not find the local airport, and one landing on
an incomplete bridge overpass.8 Accompanied by his
volunteer ground crew of John Bruce and University of
California student Kas Thomas, then associate editor of
Popular Rotorcraft Flying, Brock would roar into the sky and
down the highway for each flight segment, only to land and
wait for the ground crew to catch up. Encountering the
possibility of danger at each turn, it was the first gyroplane
transcontinental flight since the May 1931 Autogiro flight by
Johnny Miller and the June 1931 flight by Amelia Earhart,
and when questioned as to why he had done it, Brock
stated: “It's something I've wanted to do for a long time…. I
guess you could say I just wanted to show that it could be
done.”9 Although Brock's achievement would also be
duplicated by Howard Merkel in October–November 1989 in
a Jerrie Barnett gyro-plane,10 it would not, nor could it,
have the same impact.
It is clear that much more was going on in 1971 than a
transcontinental flight and that it was to be of paramount
significance for the American gyroplane movement. Brock
had, deliberately or perhaps inadvertently, focused attention
on the capabilities of his KB-2 model, N2303, which is today
on permanent exhibit at the EAA Museum in Oshkosh. That
recognition was not long in coming. Ken met Marie and his
son Terry at the 1971 PRA Fly-In at Edenton, North
Carolina, which had begun unofficially on Thursday, June
24, with pilot check-in. Edenton had been the next-to-last
stop on his flight to Kitty Hawk, and Brock now returned in
triumph. At the concluding Saturday evening banquet FAA
official (and PRA member) Juan Croft was the featured
speaker, who eloquently praised the PRA, but the highlight
of the evening was undoubtedly the awards ceremony
conducted by Popular Rotorcraft Flying editor and Bensen
associate Ed Trent—Brock received six trophies,11 but also
“won something that no judge could award. Ken Brock won
the respect of not only the two hundred people that
attended the banquet, but also of every air-minded person
in the world that heard of his coast-to-coast flight. Ken
received not just one, but three standing ovations!”12 In
honoring Ken the membership was also honoring his
innovations, the significance of which was not lost on PRA
president Igor Bensen.
In 1972, ten years after founding the PRA, Bensen stepped
down as its president, assuming the title of president
emeritus and passing leadership responsibility to Ken
Brock.13 In many ways the imperative that Bensen step
down was predictable—the seeds of member discontent had
been sown in the very foundation of the association.
Viewing the directors as primarily advocates of and
participants in Bensen marketing (at least half of the
directors were Bensen dealers) and Popular Rotorcraft
Flying as a Bensen in-house newspaper and promotional
tool (not surprising given its origins), there was a chorus of
criticism regarding the constant PRA emphasis on Bensen
designs, the necessity of using only Bensen parts, and the
general unwillingness to allow for innovation. But most of
all, however unwillingly, Bensen recognized that there would
be a revolt of members if he did not step down. Although
Bensen and his adherents would continue to advocate his
designs and factory parts14 years after he resigned and
chapters would complain of continued Bensen domination of
the PRA,15 it is clear that the association was entering into
what might be justly characterized as its most productive
and innovative period under the leadership of Ken Brock.
In his farewell address16 delivered at the concluding
banquet on June 24 at the PRA annual Convention and Fly-
In held, not in North Carolina, but in Rialto, California,
Bensen cited a previous editorial statement made in 1964
that he would “be perfectly happy to yield my job to anyone
who can provide PRA with an equal degree of leadership
and competence….” The citation of his previous statement
was accurate but disingenuous, as it was perfectly clear that
there was not anyone competent enough to replace him in
1964, but it had become equally obvious in 1971 that Ken
Brock was such a leader. Bensen also cited his 1969
ordination as a priest in the Russian Orthodox Greek
Catholic Church of America and Canada17 and the need to
spend weekends in pursuit of his ministry. But he also spoke
of a darker and ultimately more significant need for a
change of leadership, as he acknowledged that “wearing
two hats as president of the PRA and as president of Bensen
Aircraft inevitably led to the accusations that I have used
my high position in the PRA to promote the interest of
Bensen Aircraft Corporation.” He had, in fact, anticipated in
1964 that this could happen, when he wrote, “When I
accepted the job of PRA president in October, 1963, I
anticipated with a heavy heart that my motives would be
questioned and my connection to Bensen aircraft
Corporation used to throw doubt on my impartiality.”18 This
member view was reinforced with the preeminence of
Bensen dealers on the PRA board of directors and with the
PRA headquarters located in the Bensen North Carolina
factory. Then, and until 2001,19 the PRA directors were
elected by and selected from those with lifetime
memberships, and twenty-three life members elected the
new board, which consisted of Ken Brock and Ed Trent and
five new directors: Chuck Beaty, Tampa, Florida; Bob
Thomas, El Monte, California; Steve Phaneuf, Burbank,
California; Niel Kilchriste, Las Vegas, Nevada; and Jim
Duke, Fullerton, California.
With five of the seven from California and Nevada, it is not
surprising that at the first meeting convened in Anaheim on
Monday, June 26, the new PRA board elected Ken Brock
president and voted to relocate the PRA headquarters to
southern California. Ed Trent, who had been the fourth
member of the PRA and had been a Popular Rotorcraft
Flying editor since its first issue in the spring of 1963,
resigned as editor and PRA secretary and became a vice
president. It marked the changing of the guard, and the
fifteen years of Ken Brock's presidency would see the PRA
go in new and exciting directions.
Under Ken Brock's leadership, there was a new freedom for
experimentation and gyroplane development, even as
Bensen remained president emeritus and a genuinely
revered figure to the PRA membership. The Sun-state Rotor
Club, the local chapter of the PRA, honored Bensen by
naming its annual Wachula, Florida, fly-in “Bensen Days”
and scheduling it to celebrate his February birthday. This
event was later shifted to April to coincide with the larger,
EAA-sponsored Sun 'n Fun Fly-In at Lakeland, Florida, and it
was at Bensen Days in 1993 that the Gyrocopter pioneer
took his last flight, in a unique three-seat autogyro flown by
famed designer Bill Parsons.20 Bensen Aircraft had closed its
doors in December 1986,21 having fallen on hard times
after the death of Mary Bensen a few years earlier, who had
been a major, if unacknowledged, factor in its success, and
after liability lawsuits that had drained its funds. Bensen
announced at Bensen Days on April 5, 1991, that he was
starting a new Canadian company called Bensen
International Gyrocopter Transport Company (BIG-T
Company and a new association called Universal Flying
Organization (UFO). Neither this new company or rival
organization got off the ground, and Igor Bensen died in
February of 2000, mourned by the thousands who had first
glimpsed the vision of flight from the seat of a “flying lawn
chair.”
It was equally evident in the 1970s that the PRA was largely
a white male–dominated organization, as it remains today.
Indeed, a member of PRA Chapter 31 from San Diego,
California, complained in early 1977, “Looks like the gyro
movement has just about hit bottom!—Seems that an
article about gyros written about Chapter 5 and Ken Brock
appeared in a nudie magazine. What our movement was
doing there is anybody's guess. Maybe we've got something
we don't know about!!”22 Although a significant minority
presence or influence would not emerge, women were
beginning to play important, if often unacknowledged, roles.
Mary Bensen had served as a director and treasurer and as
chief supporter of her husband, Igor Bensen, for most of
the early years of the PRA, and Marie Brock functioned as
Ken Brock's business associate in all his endeavors.23 As
observed by noted gyro journalist, author, and then-editor
ofRotorcraft Paul Bergen Abbott, “No article about Ken
Brock is quite complete without including Marie.”24 Mary
Bensen and Marie Brock each shared in and very
significantly contributed to her husband's accomplishments.
Marion Springer, a proud descendent of Choctaw Indians
and a member of the Choctaw Nation, became an
outstanding pilot, the first female CFI,25 and a respected
journalist. Marion, in her Blue Angel, which was later
converted to the white Born Free Gyrocopter (N2066), was
a frequent participant in the regional fly-ins in California,
and she and her husband, Al, appeared in the 1982 film The
Great Skycopter Rescue. In that otherwise eminently
forgettable B movie, Marion's husband appears in the
credits as Doc Springer, undoubtedly taken from his
nickname of “Docko.”26
Springer was the most visible female Gyrocopter pilot and
also wrote prolifically on safety issues.27 For many years
she gathered and analyzed accident reports, a tradition
later admirably carried on by Ken Brock, based on a yearly
compilation of National Safety Transportation Board. Helen
Darvassy, who attempted to solo in the fall of 1964, only to
have the rotor come off while taxiing down the strip,28
became the Editor East of Popular Rotorcraft Flying and
made a lengthy and outstanding contribution with her
thoughtful commentary. Loyal to Bensen, she continually
stressed fidelity to his vision and design and the necessity
of using only Bensen parts. In a very real sense the
rotorcraft movement moved beyond her, but she was still
writing in such a manner in 1978, years after Bensen had
stepped down. But contributing editors Springer, Darvassy,
Mary Van Hoten, and managing editor Arlene Baker (1974–
88) carved out editorial roles that others would assume in
the future—Stephanie Gremminger and Kathryn Fields
would each become editor of the PRA signature publication
Rotorcraft. And in 2001 Alida “Lisa” De Vries,29 only the
third woman to be designated a gyroplane CFI, following in
the footsteps of Marion Springer and Patricia Thomas,30 was
further honored as a Master CFI, a status achieved by fewer
than 300 of the then 78,000 CFIs in the United States.31
During the years 1972–87 of Brock's leadership, the PRA
had held conventions and fly-ins from California to
Oklahoma, and “very un-Bensen-like rotorcraft began
appearing at these conventions including Jerrie Barnett's
gyros, distinguished since 1962 by their ruggedness
resulting from the use of welded steel tubing and heavier
certified aircraft engines, with a resulting superb safety
record, and Martin Hollmann's two-place Sportster gyro.”32
This was the direct result of a freer atmosphere for
innovation, the publication of the Guide to Homebuilt
Rotorcraft by Kas Thomas and Paul Bergen Abbott's stream
of flight and construction manuals,33 the entry of companies
such as Vancraft (renamed Sport Copter), Canada's RAF
(Rotary Air Force), Dennis Fetter's Air Command, and Ernie
Boyette's Rotor Flight Dynamics, Inc. But of greatest
significance were the introduction of a two-place Gyrocopter
trainer by Bill Parsons34 and the creation of an entirely new
category of gyroplane that made it possible for thousands of
new pilots to take to the air, the ultralight.
Bensen had progressed from Gyroglider to Gyrocopter, and
his recommended training for new pilots followed a similar
and rigidly defined and mandated regimen, which was set
forth in his building instructions and flight manuals.35 One
learned starting with a ground-based “point trainer” at the
Bensen Plant, boom training (where the Gyroglider is towed
into the wind by a vehicle to which the aircraft is attached
by a rigid boom), and then flying in back of a towed truck to
which a towline is attached, permitting greater altitude and
eventual free-flight when the towline is detached after
ascent. Only after mastering gliding was the pilot allowed to
progress to power Gyrocopter flight, but this mandated
sequence has an inherent flaw—although the Gyroglider
training could be on a two- (or three-) place machine,
powered flight could only be done in a single-seat aircraft
with no possibility for dual training other than in the
prohibitively expensive certified factory-built McCulloch J-2
or Umbaugh (Air & Space) 18-A machines. This lack of a
powered dual trainer resulted in many accidents, as there
were significant differences in performance characteristics
between the glider and powered flight. This inspired Bill
Parsons in 1985 to design a trainer.
Parsons was an experienced flight instructor, and his initial
design reflected that familiarity. His Parsons trainer was a
Bensen B-8M, with a longer keel to accommodate a second
seat, dual controls, and a rotor head attached by an upside-
down-U-shaped tandem double mast.

Martin Holland and the HA-2M Sportster (Courtesy of Martin

Hollmann.)

Although this was not the first two-place autogyro, as

Chuck Vanek had previously flown his two-plane and as
Hollmann's Sportster had been flying for many years, it was
the first based on the familiar Bensen airframe and available
to the average builder. The first Parsons trainer (NWP54)
was used to train over six hundred pilots and is on display
at the American Helicopter Museum and Education Center at
the Brandywine Airport, West Chester, Pennsylvania. The
introduction of the Bensen-based Parsons trainer
revolutionized flight training and ushered in new models,
but the coming of an entirely new category of gyroplane,
the ultralight, vastly increased the availability of flight
opportunities, and that was the creation of perhaps the
most well-educated aeronautic engineer since Cierva and
Bensen—Martin Hollmann.
Martin Hollmann, at six feet, seven inches, is probably the
tallest person ever to fly in a gyroplane, and he has also
been one of the outstanding and outspoken gyroplane
designers and theoreticians whose innovations have
changed the nature of the industry and the manner in which
autorotational technology survived. His interest in
gyroplanes began in 1965,36 and he gained, like all such
enthusiasts at the time, a familiarity with but not an
enthusiasm for the Bensen design. While an engineering
student at San Jose State University, Hollmann was
introduced to the work of Cierva and received a student
fellowship grant for $400 to build and test a set of fiberglass
rotor blades, a design effort that was the beginning of
innovative achievements that would produce two models
that changed the gyroplane industry in America.
Recognizing in 1969 that there existed a need for a
homebuilt two-place gyroplane so that powered training
could become the preferred mechanism for flight
instruction,37Hollmann juggled a new job at Martin Marietta
in Orlando, Florida, graduate studies at the University of
Central Florida, and designing and constructing first the
rotor blades and later the fuselage of his new two-place
gyroplane, dubbed the Sportster.38Receiving his master's
degree in mechanical engineering in 1974, Hollmann
returned to a new job in California, driving cross-country in
a Volkswagen Beetle towing the completed Sportster.
Designed as a side-by-side two-place trainer in 1972,39 it
was the world's first successful two-seat amateur-built
gyroplane, and it pointed to Hollmann's goal of
revolutionizing gyro flight training. Designed to be
constructed by the amateur, it met the FAA requirements of
being more than 51 percent self-built and thus qualified for
the designation as an “experimental” aircraft. Although it
represented a major deviation from the Bensen insistence
that two-place Gyro-Glider training was the only way to
learn to fly, the Sportster also marked a major departure
from the Bensen plans.40 It immediately acquired advocates
and admirers, with Dr. Tom Butler and Hofstra University
graduate Walter “Skip” Tyler becoming the first builders to
construct a Sportster and at the same time signing on as
East Coast distributors. Butler had been the first passenger
in the Sportster and was immediately impressed, as others
would be, by the thorough preparatory engineering analysis
incorporated into the design, which produced outstanding
structural integrity in an aircraft capable of carrying two
large adults. The first plans-built Sportster was constructed
by Tyler and was one of the first gyroplanes to be powered
by a Lycoming 0-320 aircraft engine, at the time a stunning
innovation for the homebuilt rotary market.
The aircraft was introduced at the PRA 1976 Fly-In at
Rockford, Illinois, as an amateur-built experimental aircraft,
and although Hollmann had temporarily lost his student
pilot license and was unable to fly, Butler soloed the
Sportster that Hollmann and Verne Tobin had towed behind
the venerable Volkswagen Beetle 2,300 miles from
California. The public flight of the Sportster was well-
received and generated an enthusiasm that remained
undimmed when the craft unexpectedly settled to the
ground with two pilots aboard the next day—effectively
demonstrating the overall ruggedness of the airframe and
rotor to withstand high-impact loads without failure.
Hollmann and his colleagues dubbed this incident,
potentially catastrophic in other gyroplanes, the “super drop
test.” Although it takes an estimated one thousand hours to
build, this two-place model has remained popular for over a
quarter of a century. It has proven a remarkably safe
aircraft and has spawned several copies, including the
Glanville Skymaster41 from Canada, the Marchetti
Avenger,42 and the Tyler Shadow.43Hollmann, however,
dismissed Kemp Glanville in 1978 as a Sportster dealer
because he modified the design and added doors, and
Hollmann later warned consumers that Glanville had traced
the Sportster blueprints and was offering them for sale.
Hollmann claimed that the modified design was unsafe in a
power-off flying condition, firmly condemning this
“Sportster imitation.”44 Having built a remarkably safe flying
machine, it is supremely ironic that Hollmann's next
innovation would come while he was recuperating from a
broken back as the result of a crash—in a powered motor-
glider called the Condor.
In the interim, however, Hollmann, never a fan of either the
PRA or its president Ken Brock, whom he has continuously
disliked for over three decades,45 came to the conclusion
that the PRA and Popular Rotorcraft Flying were deliberately
neglecting non-Bensen designs, particularly from foreign
countries, based on letters he received in response to his
rotor blades and Sportster designs. He founded an
alternative organization, entitled the International
Gyroplane Organization, and commenced a newsletter in
October 1976. Written primarily by Hollmann during its few
years of existence, Gyroplane World contained a mixture of
articles dealing with the Sportster, historical views of
Autogiros, and a continual direct and indirect criticism of the
Bensen and Brock designs. It was clearly a partisan effort
published out of Hollmann's Cupertino, California office.
Although he claims to have had “up to 4,900 newsletters to
send out each month,”46 the organization folded in 1982
after Hollmann's crash, with little or any evidence of having
had an impact.
In 1982, surviving the crash in his Condor upon takeoff at
Freemont, California, Hollmann dealt with the boredom that
accompanied the immobility made necessary by a broken
back by designing a new, single-place gyroplane that he
eventually dubbed the Bumble Bee. It was to be the first
ultralight gyroplane—the ultralight movement was popular
in the fixed-wing community with the allowable aircraft
weight being no more than 245 pounds and friends had
previously urged Hollmann to design a gyroplane that would
conform to this category. Now that he had the chance,
Hollmann, always the engineer, characteristically began with
stress analysis. Realizing that such a project would be made
possible by the new, lighter Kawasaki TA440-A and Rotax
447 engines coming from Japan and Austria, Hollmann
knew that the time was right for such a design.
Hollmann found the project convenient to his physical
recovery, because having been released from the hospital
after a three-month stay, his doctors cautioned him against
lifting more than 10 pounds, effectively preventing him from
preparing the Sportster for flight, with its 65-pound rotor
blades. He felt that he would be able to manage a lighter
craft, and his analysis and design efforts resulted in a
prototype a year later. The machining was done by his old
friend Skip Tyler in New York and shipped west. The Bumble
Bee prototype weighed just 190 pounds (the kits that
Hollmann eventually sold weighed in at 230 pounds empty
and could carry a useful load of 270 pounds, effectively able
to lift a gross weight of 500 pounds and accommodate all
but the heaviest of pilots). It was 12 feet long and 7.3 feet
wide, with a mast extending 7.7 feet in the air, on top of
which was a 23-foot diameter rotor. This seemingly fragile
aircraft, powered by the dependable Kawasaki TA440-A
engine developing thirty-eight horsepower, could fly at
speeds as low as five mph and as fast as sixty-four mph.
The little flying machine could climb at an impressive 800
feet per minute (fpm), and with its three-gallon fuel tank
(ultralight aircraft are limited to five gallons), it had a sixty-
five-mile range. The kit version employed a Rotax 447
engine (a change necessitated when the original Kawasaki
seized during a demonstration flight), which developed an
impressive forty-two horsepower through a gear reduction
drive spinning a sixty-inch, two-bladed prop, and it could
climb at 1,500 fpm carrying a useful load of 270 pounds.
As an ultralight, the Bumble Bee did not require a pilot's
license, and it could be assembled for flight in fifteen
minutes and dismantled for storage in a garage or spare
room. Although it was still incomplete when displayed at the
Hollister, California, air show in the summer of 1983, it was
enthusiastically received, attracting a large, interested
crowd. One of those who managed to draw Hollmann away
for questions was pilot Allan Tatarian, who became the
Bumble Bee test pilot.47 It was subsequently shown and
verified at the EAA Oshkosh Airshow as the first ultralight
gyroplane. The Bumble Bee was technically sophisticated,
with an extremely simple airframe that could initially be
constructed for about $5,400. Cost effectiveness was
achieved even given that Hollmann had developed a new
and stunningly innovative highly laminar-flow rotor system
that weighed in at an amazing thirty-five pounds, ready to
fly, and was 30 percent more efficient that the best metal
rotor. Hollmann's twenty-three-foot rotor blades, with their
aluminum leading-edge extrusion, foam core, and
multilayered fiberglass construction, made the Bumble
Bee's outstanding performance possible and significantly
influenced the subsequent ultralight revolution.
The ultralight, a single-passenger aircraft produced in
conformance with the Federal Aviation Regulation (FAR) Part
103, weighs no more than 254 pounds, carries a maximum
of five gallons of fuel, has a top speed of no more than
63.25 mph (50 knots), and is forbidden from commercial
use. In exchange for this modest performance, neither the
aircraft nor the pilot need to be licensed (although virtually
every authority suggests and Hollmann insisted on ten to
fifteen hours of flight training before solo flight).
Although there had been a powered ultralight design as far
back as the Piper-Marriott autogyro, which had flown on
October 2, 1960,48 Hollmann was the first to design and
offer an ultralight kit—but others soon followed. While
Hollmann sold only forty Bumble Bee kits, ceasing because
of the intensive labor in the production and inability to
obtain liability insurance,49 he continued selling the plans,
and his aircraft led to a series of derivative designs whose
names echo their heritage, notably Dr. Ralph Taggert's
Gyrobee50 and GyroTECH, Inc.'s Honey Bee.51 Several
companies specialize in ultralight gyroplanes, and many
manufacturers offer an ultralight option, usually a stripped-
down, lighter version of their heavier and more powerful
experimental model, to capitalize on this entry-level
market. Ken Brock even created an ultralight version of his
gyroplane, the KB-3, which has achieved a great deal of
enduring popularity.52
The 1980s were good years for Ken Brock—he flourished as
president of the PRA and in his business. Ken and Marie
Brock had incorporated a second company, Santa Ana Metal
Stamping, and it was doing well with fabrication of high-
quality metal parts for the composite planes designed by
Ken's good friend Burt Rutan and for other homebuilt kits.
He had become a member of the Screen Actors Guild, as he
was increasingly involved as a film and television gyroplane
pilot, and was featured in commercials for Sears. An
Australian gyroplane had even appeared in the 1981 movie
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, in which the “Gyro Captain”
emerged as the hero by the end of the movie.53 But in 1986
it all came to a crashing halt, as Ken was struck in the head
by a rotor and almost died.
In June 1986 Brock was flying his gyroplane at El Mirage
dry lake bed along with PRA board member and longtime
friend Russell W. “Russ” Jansen.54 Brock approached from
the west, passed over some power lines, and safely landed,
but Jansen, failing to see the lines, flew into them and dove
into the ground, an instantly fatal accident. Brock, standing
next to his aircraft, rushed to aid his friend but was struck
by his rotor, which was still in motion. The accident report55
suggested that the usually meticulous and careful Brock had
been felled as his KB-2 was turned by the prop wash from a
nearby aircraft. He always flew with a helmet, and that now
saved his life; friends were amazed when, after weeks of
hospitalization, he attended the EAA AirVenture Fly-In six
weeks later. It was one of the few EAA gatherings at which
he did not fly his trademark exhibitions, but he and Marie
were not about to miss their many long-standing friends. He
would, after arduous physical therapy, resume flying. He
would give up the presidency of the PRA to George J.
Charlet Sr. the following year, but the adventure of a
lifetime was just around the corner!
In September 1989 gyroplane pilot Beverly Johnson, wife of
Academy Award–winner Mike Hoover, asked Ron Menzie to
build a tandem gyroplane “capable of performing in the
harshest conditions on earth while carrying two persons,
survival gear and heavy camera mounts and cameras.”56
Johnson now wanted not only a two-passenger gyroplane,
she and her husband wanted Ken Brock to fly with them in
Antarctica while filming a National Geographic TV special.
The Ron Menzie Ice 90 gyroplane was completed in two
months, transported to Brock's machine shop in California,
where it was tested and further modified before it was
crated, flown to Santiago, Chile, and placed on board a ship
for the final southward leg. And it was duly noted that Lan
Chile, the name of the domestic commercial airline, had
been painted on the tail of the two-passenger gyroplane by
local personnel.
Brock spent January through February 1990 in Antarctica,
during which he flew both gyroplanes for nearly thirty hours
and spent three weeks on the polar ice cap. It was the time
of his life, and when asked if he would go again, he stated
in typical Ken Brock-fashion, “I'd go in a minute! It was just
a lot of fun and good old time.”57 Such photographic survey
work had proven hazardous in the past for naturalists, and
Philippe Cousteau had crashed on just such an expedition
while exploring Easter Island on October 18, 1976, breaking
his tibia and fibula and requiring evacuation to Los Angeles
for medical treatment,58 but Brock's performance under
harsher conditions had been flawless. However, five days
after Brock left for the trip back to California, another pilot,
who was inexperienced with the gyroplane, was killed while
trying to fly the two-passenger model.
Brock remained a revered figure and helped Igor Bensen
whenever he could during the final years of his life as
Bensen experienced financial difficulties and a physical
decline. Brock's performances at the EAA Air Venture Fly-
Ins at Oshkosh were always crowd-pleasers, earning him a
reputation as the finest gyroplane pilot in the world, and he
never missed a PRA national convention/fly-in. But 2001
was to prove his last PRA fly-in, as he perished in a crash of
his T-18 plane on October 19, 2001, when a malfunction in
the tail wheel assembly while landing caused the plane to
swerve off the runway and, striking a post, flip over. Ken
Brock died instantly from a broken neck, and Marie suffered
a minor injury—tributes poured in from around the aviation
world. He was a beloved figure, although he would describe
himself as just “old Ken Brock.” His voice had been stilled,
but the innovation wrought by the KB-2, the first gyroplane,
would continue wherever and whenever pilots took to the
air in his aircraft and in those gyroplanes he inspired.
NOTES

1. Peter Tasker, “Historic Wings X-25A/B,” Autogyro 1/4ly,

no. 6 (2000): 29–31.
2. There is some confusion as to the air force serial
numbers of the Bensen X aircraft. Those given in the
text are from Ibid., p. 29; but see “Bensen Autogyros,”
(pamphlet #30) Aircraft of the World (International
Masters Publishers AB, 1998), which has an illustration
of the X-25A with serial number 10772.
3. Paul Bergen Abbott, “Meet Ken Brock,” Rotorcraft 31,
no. 6 (September 1996): 12–17, 13.
4. Ibid., p. 13.
5. Sheldon M. Gallager and Howard Levy, “New Build-Your-
Own Copters: More Power, Looks, Convenience,” Popular
Science 140, no. 6 (December 1973): 143–45, 46
(photograph of Brock seat-tank).
6. Abbott, “Meet Ken Brock,” p. 14.
7. For Ken Brock's comparison of the Bensen and KB-2,
see Abbott, “Meet Ken Brock,” p. 15.
8. Kas Thomas, Guide to Homebuilt Rotorcraft (New York:
Crown Publishers, 1976), p. 59 (photo of N2303 in
Jackson, Tennessee).
9. For a description of the transcontinental flight, see Kas
Thomas, “From Long Beach to Kitty Hawk … By
Gyrocopter,” Popular Rotorcraft Flying 9, no. 5
(September–October 1971): 10–16; “Staff Interview—
Ken Brock—From Long Beach to Kitty Hawk … By
Gyrocopter,” Popular Rotorcraft Flying 9, no. 5
(September–October 1971): 28–31.
10. “Lone Eagle Gyro Pilot Sets Coast to Coast Record,”
Rotorcraft 27, no. 8 (December 1989–January 1990):
25; Erlene Barnett, “What Kind of a Person Flies Coast
to Coast,” Rotorcraft 28, no. 1 (February–March 1990):
16–17; Howard Merkel, “The Long Way Home: Part 2,”
Rotorcraft 29, no. 2 (April 1991): 50–52; Howard
Merkel, “The Long Way Home: Part 3,” Rotorcraft 29,
no. 3 (May 1991): 24–31; Howard Merkel, “The Long
Way Home: Part 4,” Rotorcraft29, no. 4 (June–July
1991): 42–45.
11. Brock's awards included Longest Distance Flown In,
Best Gyrocopter–Operational, EAA Trophy, Man &
Machine (Over 75 Hours), and the Mechanix
IllustratedTrophy.
12. “The People Come First: 9th International PRA Fly-In,”
Popular Rotorcraft Flying9, no. 5 (September–October
1971): 18–21, 20.
13. See Ed Alderfer, “The Designers: 30 Years of Rotorcraft
Designers,” Rotorcraft27, no. 3 (May Extra 1989): 26–
29.
14. Helen R. Darvassy, “Splinters,” Popular Rotorcraft Flying
16, no. 2 (April 1978): 8–9, 12.
15. Helen Darvassy, editorial complaining of “lost chapters,”
Popular Rotorcraft Flying15, no. 3 (June 1977): 2; See
also Helen Darvassy, “Splinters,” Popular Rotorcraft
Flying 16, no. 2 (April 1978): 8–9, 12: 8. (“Then we
have the group that brushes the whole question aside,
but avers their reason for not attending the Rockford
Fly-in is that it is a Bensen-run outfit anyhow, and they
don't have anything to say about it. May as well forget
about it and start our own club.”)
16. Igor B. Bensen, “President's Farewell Message: Keep
'Em Whirling!” Popular Rotorcraft Flying 10, no. 2
(March–April 1972): 2, 28.
17. “The Reverend Igor B. Bensen,” Popular Rotorcraft
Flying 7, no. 4 (July–August 1969): 18.
18. Igor B. Bensen, “Needed: More Leadership,” Popular
Rotorcraft Flying (Spring 1964): 2.
19. For the announcement that the PRA would henceforth
select directors by popular vote of all its members, see
Rotorcraft 39, no. 1 (February–March 2001): 41. It
should be noted that directors still will be elected only
by those with life memberships.
20. For a video record of that final flight, see Dan Leslie,
Bensen Days 2000 (Macon, Georgia: Rotor/Wings
 Sports TV, 2000), video.
21. The December 1986 date is from Bensen. Igor B.
Bensen, “Where Do We Go from Here?” Rotorcraft 29,
no. 4 (June–July 1991): 25–26. However, Abbott claims
that Bensen Aircraft ceased operations in 1988. Igor B.
Bensen, A Dream of Flight, ( Indianapolis, Indiana: The
Abbott Company, 1992), p. 14 (Abbott introduction).
22. “Buzzing Around with Chapters,” Popular Rotorcraft
Flying 9, no. 2 (March–April 1977): 6–8; Richard Ashby,
“Come Fly with Me,” Knight 5, no. 7 (July 1966): 63–65.
23. “I guess Marie might have been somewhat responsible
for getting me into the business. I was just a participant
and didn't have much time to spend with people who
wanted information. But she did. She talked to Igor
Bensen and we started selling plans. Then we got into
kits and became a West Coast rep for Bensen Aircraft
for a long time.” Abbott, “Meet Ken Brock,” p. 14.
24. Ibid., p. 13.
25. Marion Springer, “In Pursuit of a Gyroplane Rating,”
Rotorcraft 27, no. 3 (May Extra 1989): 16–19.
26. Marion Springer, “Story of a Blue Angel,” Popular
Rotorcraft Flying 8, no. 1 (January–February 1970): 20–
21.
27. See, for example, Marion Springer, “Gyrocopter Pilots
Are Their Own Worst Enemies,” Popular Rotorcraft
Flying 16, no. 2 (April 1978): 7; “Grant Me Patience, Oh
Lord, but Hurry!” Homebuilt Rotorcraft 7, no. 2
(February 1994): 4–5; Marion Springer, “No Training
Wheels, Please,” Rotorcraft 28, no. 4 (June–July 1990):
40. Springer was still writing on safety over twenty
years later. Marion Springer, “Accident Prone and Macho
Personalities,” Homebuilt Rotorcraft 12, no. 6 (June
1999): 13–14; Marion Springer, “Endorsed for Solo,”
Rotorcraft 29, no. 5 (August 1991): 28–30.
28. Helen R. Darvassy, “Breaking the Woman Barrier!”
Popular Rotorcraft Flying 2, no. 1 (Winter 1964): 10–
11, 20.
29. Stephanie Gremminger, “Flying ‘Team’ Makes Transition
to Gyroplanes,”Rotorcraft 36, no. 6 (September 1998):
24.
30. Gary Goldsberry, “Along Time Dream Is Coming True,”
Rotorcraft 27, no. 1 (February–March 1989): 15; “First
Two PRA CFI Scholarships Awarded,”Rotorcraft 27, no. 3
(May Extra 1989): 19; “First PRA Scholarship Recipients
in the Cockpit,” Rotorcraft 27, no. 7 (October–November
1989): 5, 9.
31. Alexander “Sandy” Hill, “Alida ‘Lisa’ De Vries, Master
CFI,” Rotorcraft 39, no. 4 (June–July 2001): 30.
32. Abbott, “Meet Ken Brock,” p. 12.
33. Paul Bergen Abbott, The Gyroplane Flight Manual
(Indianapolis, Indiana: The Abbott Company, 1988,
1992, 1996); Paul Bergen Abbott, The Gyrocopter Flight
Manual (Indianapolis, Indiana: The Abbott Company,
 1977; Indianapolis, Indiana: Cranberry Corners, 1983;
Indianapolis, Indiana: The Abbott Company, 1986);Paul
Bergen Abbott, So You Want to Fly a Gyrocopter
(Indianapolis, Indiana: Cranberry Corners, 1977); Paul
Bergen Abbott, Understanding the
Gyroplane(Indianapolis, Indiana: The Abbott Company,
1994).
34. Bill Parsons, “Why I Prefer the Tandem Trainer,”
Rotorcraft 31, no. 5 (August 1993): 21–22.
35. Bensen Gyro-Glider: Building Instructions with
Operating and Flight Manuals(Raleigh, North Carolina:
Bensen Aircraft Corporation, 1967), pp. 28–36.
36. Martin Hollmann, “Gyroplane Designs,” Rotorcraft 38,
no. 5 (August 2000): 32–35, 32; However, it has also
been reported that Hollmann's interest in gyroplanes
began in 1968 when his instructor at San Jose State
University introduced him to the work of Juan de la
Cierva. Glenn Brinks, “We Fly the Hollmann Sportster
Gyroplane,” Air Progress Aviation Review 1981.
37. “Rotorcraft Trainers,” Popular Rotorcraft Flying,
(Summer 1963), 12.
38. Helen R. Darvassy, “First Showing of the HA-2M
Sportster,” Popular Rotorcraft Flying 14, no. 5 (October–
December 1976): 8–10; Don Dwiggins, “Hollmann HA-
2M Sportster,” Homebuilt Aircraft, (October 1979);
Martin Hollmann, “HA-2M Sportster Tested,” Popular
Rotorcraft Flying 13, no. 4 (December 1975): 34;
Martin Hollmann, Flying the Gyroplane (Monterey,
California: Aircraft Designs, Inc., 1986).
39. Martin Hollmann, “The HA-2 Sportster: An Ultralight
Two Place Gyroplane,” Sport Aviation 24, no. 1 (January
1975): 16–20.
40. Martin Hollmann, “HA-2M Sportster Tested,” p. 34;
Martin Hollmann, “A New Wind Is Being Blown,”
Gyroplane World, no. 13 (October 1977): 2–3.
41. The Glanville Skymaster won the Best Two-Place Gyro
Award at the July 1988 PRA National Convention. Shelly
Goldsberry, “Middletown PRA Convention '88,”Rotorcraft
26, no. 5 (October–November 1988): 18–21 (photo on
p. 20); Martin Hollmann, “Glanville Aircraft,” Gyroplane
World, no. 23 (August 1978): 4.
42. Martin Hollmann wrote, via a telefaxed letter, on March
2, 2001, to the author:
In 1978, Frank [Marchetti] turned up at Rockford with a
VW Sportster type airframe, two place gyroplane which
was incapable of lifting two people adequately. [Walter]
Skip Tyler and I talked to Frank for about two hours and
convinced him to rebuild his airframe and use a
Lycoming 0-320 engine. Skip built and sold to Frank
several of the parts for his aircraft such as the control
stick assembly and both Skip and I talked to Frank on
the telephone numerous times to help Frank with his
technical problems. No mention of this help which was
given free was made. Needless to say, both Skip and I
are a little disappointed that no mention is made of our
efforts to support Frank with his Sportster type airframe
gyroplane. Frank has a nice aircraft and both Skip and I
are proud to have helped Frank.
43. Martin Hollmann, “Gyroplane Designs,” Rotorcraft 38,
no. 5 (August 2000): 32–35, 33.
44. Martin Hollmann, “Sportster Imitation, Buyer Beware,”
Gyroplane World 2, no. 5 (August 1979): 4.
45. Martin Hollmann, letter to author, August 31, 2001.
46. Hollmann, letter to author.
47. Allen Tatarian, “Bumble Bee Gyroplane,” Ultralight
Aircraft/Homebuilt Aircraft(1984): 66–67.
48. William Piper, “The Piper-Marriott Autogyro,” Popular
Rotorcraft Flying 7, no. 6 (November–December 1969):
10–13. Their autogyro weighed just 230 pounds. It was
still flying forty years later; “One-Man Rotary Wing
Craft,” Air Progress 16, no. 3 (June/July 1964): 77–79,
77.
49. Hollmann, Flying the Gyroplane, p. 105.
50. Mel Morris Jones, “Talkshop: A Conversation with Ralph
Taggert,” Fly Gyro! no. 6 (July 2001): 4–6; Ralph
Taggert, “Making the Most of Part 103: The
Gyrobee,”Rotorcraft 28, no. 7 (October–November
1990): 45–49.
51. Steph[anie] Gremminger and Greg Gremminger,
“Choices, Choices, Choices: 2000 Rotorcraft Directory,”
Rotorcraft 38, no. 1 (February–March 2000): 17–
27;Stephanie Gremminger, “GyroTECH, Inc. Aims for
the Entry Level Builder and Pilot,”Rotorcraft 38, no. 5
(August 2000): 30–31.
52. Jack Cox, “The KB-3: An Ultralight Gyroplane,” Sport
Aviation 35, no. 6 (June 1986): 47–48.
53. Tom Milton, “A Gyroplane Movie Trivia Quiz,” Rotorcraft
34, no. 3 (May 1996): 39; see also James Brown,
“Gyrocopters: The Australian Story,” Rotorcraft 28, no.
5 (August 1990): 20–24; Bruce H. Charnov, “A
Gyroplane Film Trivia Quiz, Part 22,”Rotorcraft 39, no. 7
(October 2001): 21–23.
54. For a photo of Jansen flying with the Brock seat-tank,
see Gallager and Levy, p. 145.
55. Doug O'Connor, “Are Gyroplanes Safe?: Part 2,”
Rotorcraft 34, no. 2 (April 1996): 35–39, 37.
56. Ron Menzie, “Ice 90: The Antarctica Expedition,”
Rotorcraft 28, no. 3 (May Extra 1990): 27–29, 28; Ken
Brock, “My Adventure in Antarctica,” Rotorcraft 29, no.
4 (June–July 1991): 20–23.
57. Brock, p. 22.
58. “Gyrocopter Accident,” Gyroplane World, no. 4 (January
1977): 5.
 Chapter 15

THE EMERGING GYROPLANE FUTURE

We're a community that doesn't come from a land of
megabucks, R&D budgets, computer aided design and wind
tunnel testing. We come from a land where people just kick
over ideas that they've written on scratch pads. Somebody
makes a machine in a small shop, and when the time comes
for a flight test, someone climbs in and wrings it out a little
bit. I think there's a little bit of Orville and Wilbur in
everything we do.
Dr. Bill Clem, world altitude record–holder, as quoted in
Rotorcraft
Vittorio Magni 1 was born near Milan in 1938 and by 1956
was employed by Agusta Helicopters in the transmission,
engine, and airframe departments. In 1962 he joined the
helicopter division of Montedison but left for Silvercraft Spa
in 1967 to work on ultralight helicopter development. In the
process he became a licensed pilot, and in 1967 he
purchased, like so many before him, a set of Bensen plans.
In 1968 Magni constructed a Gyroglider, and converted it to
a modified Bensen Gyrocopter with a 1,600-cc VW engine.
Modifications also included a shock-absorber mounted
engine, an original rotor head, steerable nosegear, and
fiberglass tail surfaces. It was the first Gyrocopter in Italy,
and its improvements were also incorporated into a two-
passenger dual-control Gyroglider constructed in 1972. In
1973 the Bensen was further modified with a sixty-
horsepower Franklin engine, an open fiberglass cockpit pod,
a more extensive instrument panel, and installation of an
electrical system. Magni was incrementally and cautiously
introducing improvements to the basic designs, but his next
effort represented significant improvement in technology—
in October 1973 Magni purchased the plans, prototype, and
manufacturing rights to Jukka Tervamäki's JT-5 autogyro,
renaming it the MT-5 Eligyro (MT being derived from Magni
Tervamäki). Encouraged by the growing acceptance of the
model, Magni created VPM (Vittorio P. Magni) in 1976, with
divisions to produce composite parts for the growing
aeronautical market and to develop gyroplane models.
In 1980 Magni asked Tervamäki to design a two-seat side-
by-side autogyro with a powerful 150-horsepower Lycoming
aircraft engine. The resulting aircraft, the MT-7, was a
superaerodynamic composite enclosed-cabin autogyro with
twin tail surfaces off of a horizontal cross piece and an
enclosed pusher engine. It was the most technologically
advanced autogyro at the time and certainly one of the
most beautiful ever produced, and the sale of its production
rights along with the MT-5 to the Spanish Cemenesa in
1986 brought Magni commercial success. Magni then
incorporated the MT advances into his own VMP one- and-
two-passenger models, which went on to worldwide
commercial success. In 1996 the company was renamed
MAGNI GYRO, and it went on to produce the existing
models, develop new ones, and provide quality composite
parts for the aeronautical market. Under the direction of
Vittorio Magni, his sons Luca and Pietro, and his daughter-
in-law Lisa, the company produces the finest autogyros in
the world, incorporating state-of-the-art composite bodies,
utilizing Austrian Rotax engines, and exemplify the highest
quality of amateur and factory-built aircraft.
The excellence of design and superb quality of workmanship
in the kits convinced Greg and Steph Gremminger of Ste.
Genevieve, Missouri, to create Magni-USA L.L.C. in 2000 to
offer the Italian models to the American market.
Gremminger's M16 Tandem Trainer won the award of Best
Gyroplane at the 2000 Sun 'n Fun 2000 EAA Fly-In at
Lakeland, Florida, and three awards at that year's PRA
convention, including Best Commercial Ship and the
prestigious Person and Machine award. It was an auspicious
beginning for Magni in America.
The 1980s also saw the development and introduction of
Jim McCutchen's composite Wind Ryder single-place
enclosed autogyro. McCutchen, of Broomfield, Colorado, had
achieved a notable niche with the formation of McCutchen
SkyWheels Corporation in 1984. At a time when American
rotor blades were made of wood, McCutchen had pioneered
in the introduction of composite construction of rotor
blades, successfully introducing fiberglass-reinforced vinyl
ester plastic molded around an aluminum spar, which
produced blades that were flexible but robust, could be
molded in a variety of efficient shapes, and were
exceptionally strong.2 McCutchen then joined with longtime
friend Kurt Shaw to create Wind Ryder Engineering in 1985
for “the purpose of developing and manufacturing the finest
autogyros,”3 and the two friends succeeded with the
production of the Wind Ryder Hurricane, which was first
offered as a kit in 1989. The kit contained all parts but the
paint and required only 150 hours to complete, as all the
necessary machining and finishing of the metal frame and
composite fuselage and fairing had been done at the
factory. It was a streamlined, enclosed-cabin craft with a
rotor pylon built around a central keel with the landing
wheels on either side to the rear of the cabin enclosed in
fiberglass “pants” and a horizontal composite tail with three
vertical vanes to the rear of the faired Rotax 532 engine.4
The aircraft weighed only 450 pounds the result of being 99
percent composite construction, and could be licensed as an
“experimental” aircraft, as the FAA deemed that assembly
constituted at least 51 percent of its construction. The
gyroplane achieved a top speed of 115 mph and
comfortably cruised at 90 mph, with only a student pilot's
license required. It was, however, at $13,500 (increased in
1972 to $17,000), the most expensive single-place
machine, and its cost contributed to its end.5 Also
contributing to the demise of the Wind Ryder was a fatal
accident in 1992 in Arkansas when Harry Cordon, an
experienced gyroplane pilot and CFI, plunged to the ground
in a friend's Wind Ryder while flying at 400 feet.6
Additionally, McCutchen discovered in February 1992 that a
good friend, to whom he had entrusted the manufacturing
of rotor blades while he was involved with the Wind Ryder,
had been embezzling money for a long time by accepting
funds but not filling orders. McCutchen wrote to all PRA
members informing them of the scam and pledged to make
good on all unfilled orders. The end result was, however,
that the Wind Ryder, having been a successful technological
achievement, failed to achieve a comparable market
success.
Although the composite entry of Richard Bentley of
Cottonwood, Arizona, in 1991 was even more stunning than
the Wind Ryder, it achieved less success and, as it never
entered production, has been all-but-forgotten. The Richard
Bentley–designed Mängoos Stealth Gyroplane was a two-
passenger cabin gyroplane with a dark black Stilts Poly
Fiber covering attached to a chromium-molybdenum alloy
steel frame. It was a unique design, and the tooling for
producing kits had been constructed at the same time as
the prototype. The fully enclosed cockpit, a tandem
arrangement that allowed for both two passengers and an
extremely narrow, aerodynamic compound fuselage,
featured opaque tinted Lexan windshields and side
windows, which helped the all-black aircraft achieve “the
sophisticated looks of a high tech military gunship.”7 The
aircraft featured a pair of short rear wings sweeping back
from the fuselage in back of the landing gear, one on top of
the other but attached to common vertical fins on either
side, allowing the claim that the model had “the most
horizontal surface of any gyroplane.”8 Bentley claimed a top
speed in excess of 100 mph, a cruising speed of 80 mph,
and outstanding performance, and the model had received
a favorable reception at the 28th International PRA Fly-
In/Convention held at Hearne, Texas, July 20–23, 1990,
where Bentley had won the award for Outstanding New
Design.
The Mängoos subsequently appeared on the cover of the
April 1991 issue ofRotorcraft, but Bentley, making a belated
decision to take the prototype to Bensen Days in Florida,
arrived too late. Being in Florida, however, he took the
prototype to Sun 'n Fun, the EAA Fly-In at Lakeland, but he
left early after being informed that he would not be allowed
to fly.9 He then took the prototype to the 1991 PRA annual
convention during July 19–22 in Brookville, Ohio, where it
did not achieve the acclaim of a year earlier. Editor Paul
Bergen Abbott wrote that an “unfinished example of Rich
Bentley's Mängoos, better known as the ‘Stealth Gyro,’ is
said to hold two people, although nobody can see into that
enclosed black cockpit to count the occupants.”10
Bentley subsequently perished along with a passenger in
the summer of 1991 when the Mängoos crashed while he
was giving demonstration flights in Las Vegas. The accident
investigation found that the motor mounts had loosened
and the engine swung around, then the prop fatally injured
both occupants.11 Thus the Mängoos passed from view—no
one ever pursued its development, although it is rumored
that a second aircraft had been built and subsequently
placed in storage—but it did achieve a curious celebrity, as
it was featured in the 1992 Andy Sidaris movie Hard
Hunted. In the movie the Mängoos is flown by one of the
villains, and it is inspired by You Only Live Twice,complete
with machine guns and rockets. The Mängoos flying scenes
are quite well done, and, had this movie received wider
distribution, it would have impressed many. However, the
movie, starring Playboy Playmates, was never widely seen,
as a legal dispute apparently kept it from all but the video
rental market. The film is dedicated to Bentley's memory,
and the stunning flying scenes are all that remain of the
Mängoos.
The gyroplane performances in the 1988 New Adventures of
Pippi Longstocking and the Disney 1991 feature The
Rocketeer were less impressive. In the former, Steve
Pitcairn flew Miss Champion to rescue Pippi and her friends.
The PCA-2 also furnished the model in the Rocketeer, which
was partially filmed at the Ken Brock hangar at El Mirage,
California. In this film the hero and his girlfriend are
rescued from a burning Nazi blimp by an Autogiro flown by
the legendary aviator/industrialist/filmmaker Howard
Hughes. In the 1991 “Rocketeer” Official Movie Souvenir
magazine, which presents original storyboards, it is clear
that the Autogiro was modeled on Miss Champion. However,
in the 1989 “Rocketeer” Adventuremagazine, the Autogiro is
clearly labeled Missing Link, the PCA-2 (NC10781) flown by
Johnny Miller.
The 1980–90s also saw the introduction of new trends in
America. George D. Pate III's Pate Autogyro,12 Ron Herron's
outstanding series of Little Wing tractor-autogyros,13 and
John VanVoorhees's Pitbull continued a tradition of almost
seven decades and found devoted followings, but perhaps
the most dramatic “tractor” configuration was that created
by Afro-American artist-designer David Gittens, who would
design and build the Ikenga, a strikingly original, award-
winning gyroplane.14
Gittens, born in Brooklyn, earned a New York Institute of
Visual Art degree in communications, advertising, and
graphics.15 Relocating to Europe in the mid 1960s, after
years as staff photographer with Car & Driver magazine, he
began shooting forVogue and Harper's Bazaar. It was while
on a freelance assignment for Queenmagazine that he met
Ken Wallis while using Wallis's Gyrocopter as visual
background a fashion shoot. This meeting fired Gitten's
interest; he subsequently received a commission in 1966 to
develop the concept/styling of a four-place autogyro being
developed in Blackpool and began research on the historical
background of the Autogiro. Returning to America in 1979,
he received a grant to develop a unique gyroplane, but it
was six years later, while residing in Santa Fe, New Mexico,
that he began designing and formed a firm funded by
Canadian investors to build a flying prototype called Wind
Dancer. The completed vehicle was displayed at the 1986
EAA AirVenture Fly-In, to great interest. The “fuselage was
long and racy looking, with what looked like a composite
sailplane nose section that had been married to a pusher
gyroplane with triple vertical tails … a tinted sailplane
canopy gave it an artistic touché of real class.”16
The Wind Dancer looked stunning, and its Mazda engine
promised great thrust but was not cost effective for the
target kit-builder market; so it was back to the drawing
board in 1987. While Gittens found the PRA to be a
conservative, Bensen-oriented, mostly white organization,
he later stated that “it was also a gift that a few members
of the PRA stepped out of the norm, were my mentors and
supported the building of the very unique Ikenga.
Jim Eich, Jerrie Barnett, Bill Parsons and Martin Hollmann
gave heartfelt support to this project and Martin's Gyroplane
Design book was the foundation piece of technical
information that paved the way.”17 One of these members
was “Helicopter Ed” Alderfer, who had constructed a two-
place autogyro called the Gyrochopper III, “a tiny functional
medical tractor gyro for missionary work in the Far East.”18
Gittens, remembering his study of the early Autogiros,
turned to their design in 1987, intending to produce an
aircraft both for the local kit builder and for use by those in
less-developed countries, through his newly created
company Gyro 2000, which was funded by a group of Santa
Fe businessmen. He named his revolutionary design the
Ikenga, meaning “man's creative life force” in the Ibo
language of eastern Nigeria, a name first used on his GT
automobile designs of the mid-1960s in London. In an
interview printed in the Dallas Morning Newson February 26,
1989, Gittens stated, “The name [Ikenga] resonates with
what I'm trying to do, to use my creativity on the planet …
It also reflects the creative potential of the Black
community; there's been a great lacking there.”

The Ikenga 530Z received an FAA Airworthiness Certificate

at Santa Fe on March 29, 1988, and although Gittens had
taken flying lessons with Bill Parsons, the gyroplane was
first flown by experienced pilot Mark Hallett. Gittens's goal
had been to produce a rugged design from available
components and that would cost less than $10,000, be
readily expandable to a planned two-place configuration for
training, was easy to fly, and could provide cheap
transportation for people in poor countries. What he had
produced was different from any other design—the keel and
cross member to which the landing wheels were attached
appeared Bensen-like, but that is where the similarity
ended. The seat, which was also the fuel tank, was formed
of foam-filled molded polypropelene, and the pilot straddled
it like a motorcycle seat. The mast consisted of an inverted
U, an innovation of chromoly tubing that served as a roll
bar, stiffened and strengthened the autogyro frame, and
protected the pilot and on which it was topped by cheek
plates that secured the Parsons rotor head. For control, a
horizontal bar was attached to the rotor head, which had
push rods descending on both sides of the fuselage to a
lower horizontal control bar, on which the control stick was
mounted. The ninety-horsepower Suzuki 5300Z engine had
a ground-adjustable three-blade propeller and control was
enhanced by twin all-flying composite flying rudders. The
Ikenga had a top speed of 120 mph, could cruise at 90
mph, had a 350-mile range on fifteen gallons of gasoline,
and had a ceiling of 14,500 feet—it was an excellent
performer and wowed the gyroplane community in 1988.
It received the Grand Champion award at the Albuquerque
International Air Show, the Best New Rotorcraft Idea award
at the PRA Annual Convention/Fly-In, and was honored as
the Reserve Grand Champion at the EAA Convention/Fly-In
at Oshkosh, Wisconsin. This critical acclaim, however, was
not matched by economic success, and a lack of further
development capital dissolved the production hopes of
Gittens and the original investors. The Ikenga 530Z was
accepted into the National Air and Space Museum of the
Smithsonian Institution on June 8, 1994. It remains the
only aircraft designed by an Afro-American in that museum,
and as such, and also distinguished by its lyric lines
embodying an artistic vision of flight, it occupies a unique
and treasured place in American aviation history.
Gittens then turned to a design better adapted to cost-
effective manufacture, and the Ikenga Cygnus 21 series
was developed as a more conservative/user-friendly aircraft
for kit production in 1988. Utilizing the basic Ikenga/Bensen
keel-and-cross-member structure, Gittens now utilized off-
the-shelf components that reduced production costs. Unlike
the inverted U masts in the Ikenga, which went from side-
to-side, the Parsons masts were now attached to the keel in
front and back of the seat with the Parson's rotor directly
above the pilot's head, with a metal fuselage frame that
could be bolted together. The pilot sat on the 15.5 gallon
seat-tank just behind a semicircular, dark-tinted windshield.
In front of the windshield the aircraft had a downward-
sloping composite fairing, and it was powered by a tractor
engine with an eye-catching five-bladed prop19 mounted on
top of the fairing.
Gittens claimed the weight was only 246 pounds, obviously
intending it for the ultralight market, and it had an
anticipated kit price of $10,000. The Cygnus 21 was also
named Grand Champion Rotorcraft at the 1989 Albuquerque
International Air Show, but also like the Ikenga, it failed to
achieve commercial success as, the tractor configuration did
not achieve acceptance. After the 1989 air show the Ikenga
Cygnus 21 was redesigned with an all-new composite
rudder and stabilizer and designated the Cygnus 21T. The
Cygnus 21T offered as an option an SWS Intelligence
Gathering Platform, video downlink equipment for
attachment of a camera for law-enforcement use, and the
MicroAg crop-spraying system, but it too would fail to find a
market.
In late 1988 and 1989 Gittens and his investors were
negotiating with a number of Japanese companies
interested in producing a gyroplane for the Japanese
recreational market. Mitsui and Sumitomo were the most
competitive for an Ikenga to appear with their corporate
name at the Sky Sport Japan Air Show in November of
1989. Sumitomo offered a more favorable business
relationship and financial option, and a contract was made
between the parties. Sumitomo was interested in exploring
sports recreation, with a special interest in using Sumitomo
real estate as a basis for flying clubs. Baca Development, an
ulralight aircraft company in Albuquerque, was contracted
to fabricate the frame and control components for the two
Japanese gyroplane kits, designated Ikenga Cygnus 21P, a
“pusher” configuration readily adaptable to the
Bensen/Brock-style Gyrocopter/gyroplane.
In mid-September 1989 the Sumitomo representatives
arrived to finalize and accept the unassembled kits. The day
the Japanese signed off on the contract and returned to
Japan to await arrival of the kits, Gittens found himself in
intensive care, having suffered what doctors interpreted as
a heart attack. He remained in the hospital for four days,
suffering from extreme stress and exhaustion, and the
resulting convalescence made it impossible for the two kits
to be assembled, test-flown, and disassembled in time for
shipment to Japan. Colleagues then arranged for all Cygnus
21P components to be shipped to Richard Bentley in
Cottonwood, Arizona, during Gittens's recovery. Bentley,
with the help of Dennis Renner, prepared the models for
shipment to Japan. But complications in Arizona resulted in
the model that was exhibited in the Sky Sport Japan Air
Show being different from Gittens's original design, and the
project faltered.
The Ikenga Cygnus 21TX was the final gyroplane in this
series, incorporating many of the parts salvaged from the
destroyed Cygnus 21T. It looked similar but featured a
redesigned composite stabilizer and all-flying rudder. It was
built with First Arrival Trauma Pack for responding to
medical emergencies and, having received the Grand
Champion Rotorcraft award at the 1990 Albuquerque
International Air Show, was featured in the January 1991
issue of Popular Science.20 It was not to be, however, and
Gyro 2000 closed its doors on February 29, 1992. In a letter
to Paul Bergen Abbot, then Rotorcraft editor and publisher,
Gittens stated, “As an artist, it has been a great blessing to
have had the gyroplane as my canvas,”21 and the words of
Rabindranath Tagore that he selected to include on his
Smithsonian donation also applied to his gyro venture:
“While leaving no trace of wings in the air I am glad I have
had my flight.” Gittens had virtually no impact on the
commercial course of the American rotorcraft movement,
yet his models still stand out and may yet, seen by
museum-goers, inspire others to dream and design.
Although David Gittens was the most artistic of designers,
Air Command's Dennis Fetters22 stands out as perhaps the
most enigmatic. He had, through trial and error, finally
succeeded in mounting an Austrian Rotax 447 engine on a
Bensen frame—an accomplishment that had also been
achieved by Larry Ramal, who was equally credited by Paul
Bergen Abbott with adapting the Rotax engine to the
gyroplane23—and introduced an entirely new aircraft, the
Air Command 447, into the kit-built market in 1984. It was
not the first ultralight, nor was it the first kit, as Hollmann
was offering Bumble Bee kits in 1983; but the Air Command
447 was the first widely distributed ultralight kit. It was
innovative, with weight-saving use of composite plastic
components in the rudder, propeller, and rotor blades;
shock-mounted landing gear made necessary by the
lightness of the round-tubing frame; and a refined quality
finish for the kit parts.24
Demand was immediately forthcoming, as the kit was a
truly complete but unassembled aircraft, not merely a
Bensen-type collection of parts, nd Fetters established a
factory to meet the large number of resulting orders. An
early fatality of Air Command 447 pilot, Gary Gibler in
Liberty, Missouri, led Fetters to build a two-place trainer,
modifying the Air Command 447 by placing side-by-side
seats and installing a more powerful, sixty-five-horsepower
Rotax 532 water-cooled engine. Subsequent models
followed, and composite body pods and aerodynamic
fairings were introduced even as the heavier and more
powerful Air Command models became best-sellers in the
kit-built market. Fetters was also market-savvy in building
in an upgrade ability so that the owner of an older model
could retrofit newer engines, enclosures, and even a two-
place seat.25 The company and Fetters were riding high,26
but it was not to last.
By August ownership of Air Command had passed to a new
company, called Venture Industries, which had purchased it
from the government after seizure for failure to pay
employee withholding. Fetters had fallen on hard times after
defaulting a lawsuit, resulting in a settlement of
$500,000.27 But he had a great deal of his ego invested in
the ultralight Air Command 447, and to the amazement of
some, and surprise of a few, the president of the new
company was none other than—Dennis Fetters! The Air
Command was his baby, and he was not about to lose it if it
could be kept going, by whatever possible legal maneuvers.
But the troubles facing Air Command did not go away; by
early fall of 1990 it had been sold to Mark and Jeff Pearson
of Daytona Beach, Florida, but the brothers were not able to
make a go of the enterprise, given that there were
thousands of dollars' worth of unfilled orders with deposited
funds unaccounted for. In early May of 1992, as announced
in Rotorcraft,28 the Air Command operation was acquired by
R & D Aeronautical Engineering, Inc. of Plano, Texas.
R & D was headed by Harold F. “Red” Smith, an aeronautical
engineer, who stated that the company would honor all
outstanding orders, restoring confidence in the company.
Smith proceeded to make some improvements to the Air
Command design and then to do what marks him as one of
the most honorable and far-sighted gyroplane
manufacturers in the world—Air Command issued an
Emergency Bulletin that informed owners of the changes
necessary to insure safer operations. It was an
unprecedented move and, garnering rave reviews, has
continued to mark Air Command as an industry leader.
Smith's acquisition was a daring act, as the Air Command,
introduced into England in 1988 in one- and two-seat
configurations, had subsequently suffered a number of
accidents, leading the British Civil Aeronautics Authority
(CAA) in 1991 to suspend the Air Command models'
Permits-to-Fly and to ground the fleet. That suspension
would last over ten years and lead to a University of
Glasgow study of gyroplane safety headed by Dr. Stewart S.
Houston of the department of aerospace engineering.29
A solution was proposed, related to changing the
configuration to a more stable format, and an upgraded
machine entered flight-testing in December 2001. That
machine featured a raised seat, based on a kit introduced
by Air Command and originally developed by Larry Neal,
who gave the rights to the company in exchange for a new
engine, which transformed the aircraft into a center thrust
configuration originally developed by Chuck Beaty and Ernie
Boyette.
Dennis Fetters then turned his attention to the development
of the Revolution Helicopter Corporation, Inc. (RHCI) Mini-
500 Rotax-powered kit-built helicopter. Subsequently,
Dennis and his wife, Laura González Fetters, who had
served as RHCI's operations manager, disappeared in 2000,
owing a “substantial loan to the Small Business
Administration.”30 RHCI, after all, had been located in
Excelsior Springs, Missouri, on W. Jesse James Road!
Gyrocopter pioneer Chuck Vanek's company, Vancraft,
changed its name in 1991 to Sport Copters and established
a state-of-the art production and flight training facility at
Scappoose, Oregon, and marketed both ultralight and
experimental kits and gyroplanes. His son, Jim Vanek, who
assumed leadership of the company in 1988, dedicated
himself to the development of the “elite of single-place
gyroplanes.”31 Known for his commitment to perfection, Jim
established a reputation as one of the top pilots and
innovators in the industry. With his wife and business
partner Kelly (also a gyroplane pilot), Jim has established
an enviable international business reputation for producing
and supporting an outstanding aviation product. In 1997 he
achieved everlasting fame as the first pilot to loop a
gyrocopter, the Sport Copter Vortex.
As a result of his experiences and demonstrated
competencies, Vanek holds a membership in the ICAS
(International Council of Air Shows) and the FAA Statement
of Acrobatic Competency. It is a singular achievement that
places him with the late Ken Brock among the greatest of
gyroplane pilots.
At the same time RAF in Canada emerged as an
international source of larger, enclosed “experimental” two-
place all-year gyroplanes and quickly carved out a share of
that market. RAF of Canada also established an
international network of CFIs to insure quality flight
training, even requiring at least ten hours of flight
instruction as a condition of purchase.
Significant contributions were also made on an ongoing
basis by two men renowned in the American and,
increasingly, the worldwide rotorcraft movement, longtime
Florida collaborators Chuck Beaty and Ernie Boyette.
Boyette is most well-known for the creation of Dragon Wing
rotor blades and the Dominator gyrocopter, both produced
by his company Rotor Flight Dynamics, Inc. (RFDI). As
many, he began with a Bensen kit but soon went his own
way.32 After experiencing numerous engine shutdowns with
his Bensen McCulloch engine, Boyette mounted a heavier,
more reliable Continental engine but found that he needed
more efficient rotor blades than were then available.
Consulting with Beaty as to rotor blade construction, he
built his first composite rotor blades out of foam, wood,
steel, and fiberglass. The blades performed well, and his
move to Tampa, Florida, in the mid-1980s led to a serious
collaboration with Beaty, the result being the independent
creation of an effective airfoil, although it also started a
friendly competition with Beaty in blade design. Each set
about the task of besting the other, Boyette by pragmatic
experimentation with different blade shapes and Beaty by
“number crunching.” Boyette carved his blades out of
aluminum and took two of his blades to the 1990 Bensen
Days, where Carl Schneider and Jim Smith prepaid for
blades, and as word spread, Boyette received four
additional deposits. He now had to deliver.
After consulting with Beaty, Boyette constructed a building,
secured the necessary extrusion die to create the blades,
and acquired a suitable aerospace glue to bond the
composite to the extruded aluminum spar, the “spine” of
the blade. He called his product Dragon Wings, and they
have achieved great success; he also sells kits and
Dominator gyrocopters, for which he is equally known. The
Dominator began as an experimental autogyro called Big
Bird.33 It received that name when Boyette raised the seat
so that its top was almost level with the engine, with the
thrust line passing horizontally through the engine and the
pilot. Boyette and Beaty had sensed that when the pilot sat
below the engine thrust line, as in a Bensen/Brock design,
the center of gravity was always below the line of thrust,
which threatened to push the aircraft over while in flight.
But when the center of gravity was in line with the center of
thrust, greater stability was achieved.
Boyette now sought to incorporate this stability into the
Dominator, as it was common knowledge that a pilot's
reactions in controlling the gyroplane, delayed by the
control system that tilted the rotor head, could accentuate
aircraft oscillations in increasing ups and downs, a condition
known as PIO (pilot induced oscillation), or porpoising, and
when this caused the aircraft to flip or “bunt” over, a
condition known as the power pushover, the results were
always fatal. The Boyette Dominator reduced the possibility
of a power pushover by placing the center of gravity in line
or slightly above the center of thrust by raising the pilot—
the product was an ungainly aircraft that some considered
downright ugly, but it flew well and attracted a devoted
international following. Carl Schneider, with his High Seater,
also constructed a centerline-thrust machine and
experimented with various configurations, helping to refine
the design.34Subsequent analysis by the French
aeronautical engineer Jean Fourcade has borne out
Boyette's contention35 that the Dominator is a stable
aircraft, and it is surely no accident that Fourcade himself
flies a Dominator. By 2001 the Dominator kit was being
manufactured in conjunction with Boyette's RFDI by Modus
Verticraft Inc. (MVI) in Taiwan.36
Ernie Boyette married Connie Watterson on September 2,
1989, while flying at 300 feet above the airport at
Clewiston, Florida, in the prototype Big Bird gyrocopter—the
world's first such wedding. He was heard to declare: “To all
my friends on the ground and to the Great Spirit in the sky
who gave man the wisdom to fly, let it be known that on
this day, I, Ernie Boyette, and Connie Watterson were wed
forever more—to fly the skies as one until our life is
done.”37 That aircraft, which had first flown in March 1988,
led to the claim by Chuck Beaty of having invented the “tall
tail” and that claim provoked a firestorm of adverse
reaction. The tall tail was a vertical symmetrical airfoil
surface placed directly behind the engine, which spanned
the diameter of the prop and improved control by reducing
the torque roll and yaw.
In 1988 Paul Bergen Abbott stated, “Tall tails were originally
designed by Chuck Beaty, who also contributed to the final
development of Big Bird,”38 and Beaty himself then claimed
the invention in October of that year.39 But it was not so,
and although Beaty, the longtime technical editor of the PRA
publications and guru to several generations of gyro pilots,
had made an undeniable contribution to the rotorcraft
movement with his numerous technical analyses and
autogyro configurations, he did not invent the tall tail, and
famed designer Jerrie Barnett's wife Erlene let him know it
in the December issue of Rotorcraft! She wrote, “Tall tails a
‘new thing’? I think not. Since Jerrie Barnett first started
flying and designing his own gyroplanes in 1962 they all
had ‘tall tails’… Let's get the facts straight, gang, before we
start giving credit where credit is not due.”40 And, in reply,
Beaty backed down, giving credit to Barnett for the “full
span tail,” attempting to still somehow stake out the tall
tail, but he was taken to task a month later by no less than
Wing Commander Ken Wallis, who pointed out that he had
flown the WA-117 on March 24, 1965, with a “very tall all-
moving tail, supported at the top and bottom,”41 a claim to
which Beaty did not reply. And indeed, Sport Copter
advances the credible claim, complete with dated
photographs, that Chuck Vanek was flying with a tall tail as
early as 1959!42
There is little doubt, however, of the contributions of
Boyette and Beaty to the rotorcraft movement. As summed
up by Russ King in 1998, Dominator purchaser and pilot,
“Ernie possesses a rare combination of talent—the abilities
to design, to build, and to fly. The existence of his machine
and the fact that he's still alive after all of his research and
development says it all. He is also a man of integrity.”43
Although it is far more difficult to quantify Beaty's impact,
few would deny that he is perhaps the premier technical
writer in the American gyroplane community, and in his
capacity as technical editor of Rotorcraft, he has been able
to introduce complex aeronautical concepts and applications
to thousands of readers around the world with a sensibility
and clarity unavailable from virtually any other source.
Together, these two longtime friends have helped to shape
the future of Bensen's vision and helped it down roads that
the founder never anticipated.
The PRA, under the direction of Gary Goldsberry, who had
become president in 1989, created a separate entity called
PRA Mentone that purchased a local airport in Mentone,
Indiana, in 1995 for $151,403.22, of which $51,100 was
donated by the PRA for the down payment. Although the
PRA board, which had made the decision to purchase the
airport largely without consulting the membership, had
been criticized,44 PRA members made, and continue to
make, individual contributions toward support of PRA
Mentone.
In September 1995 LeRoy Hardee advertised an auction of
donated used “aviation items, rotor blades, props, all types
of engines, airframes, instruments, parts, wheels, parts,
parts, parts!” Hardee advised purchasers to “[b]ring cash
because we do not take American Express, Master Card,
Visa or Discover.” The stated purpose was to “aid in the
purchase of the new Popular Rotorcraft Association home
airport. If you have ever wanted to give, now is the time.
We are accepting anything aviation related from helmets to
complete aircraft.”45
PRA Mentone pays for the airport from a variety of sources,
including monthly rent from the PRA for its office space,
hangar rents, sale of aviation gas, and shares of the profits
from grain or hay sales that a local farmer grows on the
unused part of the airport property. This has served as the
focus of PRA activity, its national offices, the nearby
Archimedes Rotorcraft Museum, and in 1996 it saw the first
national Fly-In/PRA Convention at Mentone. That
convention, now held at various other locations in addition
to Mentone, has emerged as the most important gathering
of the gyroplane community in America and is the focus of
this international industry, along with Wallis Days in England
(created in 1997 by noted English Rotor Gazette
International editor Rowland Parsons), Bensen Days in
Florida, and Magni's Day in Italy.
The gyroplane movement had truly gone international by
the end of the century with PRA-type national associations
in Australia, Britain, France, New Zealand, and South Africa
and the publication of the long-standing PRA's Rotorcraft
(formerly Popular Rotorcraft Flying) (1963–), Don Parham's
Homebuilt Rotorcraft (1989–), Rowland Parsons' Rotor
Gazette International (1992–2002), Ron Bartlett's Autogyro
1/4ly(1999–), and Mel Morris Jones's FlyGyro! (2000–
2002). Jones quickly gained an international readership as
he published a far-reaching mix of technical and historical
articles. He had also been successful in getting the British
aeronautical authorities to change the medical certification
requirements from a helicopter pilot–like full physical to a
self-certification for gyroplane pilots, allowing a large
number of pilots (including Ken Wallis, then in his eighties)
to fly. Although his publication ceased in 2002 due to
Jones's medical condition, it had gained a devoted
readership and was distinguished by its quality and
photographs.
The 1995 PRA Convention at Greencastle, Indiana, and
1998 Bensen Days at Wachula, Florida, saw significant
technological achievements that, while having virtually no
economic impact on the industry, fired the imaginations of
observers and served notice that innovation was thriving. In
1993 the PRA had announced a competition for an Autogyro
Performance Award, initially suggested by Jay Carter Sr., for
a homebuilt autogyro that could accomplish a jump takeoff
and win a race. No homebuilt aircraft had accomplished this
feat, and Carter offered $5,000 to fund the prize, later
increased to $20,000 by the PRA, the Hurst Foundation,
Dan Haseloh of RAF, Red Smith of Air Command
International, Duane Hunn, and longtime PRA member and
Rotorcraftcontributor Art Evans.46 No one successfully
accomplished the required jump takeoff in 1994, but two
pilots did the following year: Dick DeGraw and Johnny Hay.
DeGraw, an engineer and helicopter pilot from Michigan,
constructed a one-of-a-kind aircraft, and it stunned all who
saw it as perhaps the most unusual autogyro to ever fly. He
had encased a rebuilt EA-82 eighty-five-horsepower Subaru
engine within a metal tube framework topped by a rotor
hub with three Dragon Wing rotor blades, and a Warp Drive
propeller—all encased in a clear Lexan polycarbonate skin,
which allowed for all parts to be inspected and provided a
sleek aerodynamic shape. DeGraw's wife, Karol, had named
the autogyro after the picture of a rhinoceros on the paper
that initially covered the plastic skin—she called it the
GyRhino. DeGraw, in the transparent cockpit, prespun his
rotor to 470 rpm at zero pitch, snapped the blades into
positive angle by means of a collective pitch control, and
leaped into the air, easily clearing the ten-foot barrier. He
had, by means of a power splitter, diverted 10 percent of
the engine's power to the rotor, which allowed him to fly
with a flatter pitch, resulting in less drag, and he completed
the required course in 15 minutes, 50.32 seconds, and then
waited for Johnny Hay to make his run.
Hay had modified a Bensen-type gyrocopter with an
aerodynamic composite Air Command body powered by a
turbocharged Volkswagen engine. He employed a specially
designed rotor head that allowed him, by means of a
prerotator utilizing a cogbelt system, to prespin the Hughes
two-blade rotor prior to takeoff. When the rotor had
achieved 440 rpm at a zero pitch, Hay could snap the
blades into a positive seven-degree pitch, causing the little
craft to jump six to seven feet before commencing forward
flight. He cleared the ten-foot barrier placed fifty feet from
the takeoff point and raced to the nearby airport, returning
in 15 minutes, and 56.32 seconds, an excellent
performance for what was essentially an off-the-shelf
homebuilt aircraft, but it was not enough to win the
$20,000 Autogyro Performance Award—DeGraw had won,
but his GyRhino never entered production and remained a
unique attraction at national fly-ins.
The other achievement took place at the 1998 Bensen
Days, where Denver, Colorado, physician Bill Clem
established a new autogyro altitude record of an astounding
23,438 feet (4.43 miles) in a modified Boyette Dominator
(N36MR).47 Clem, board certified in emergency medicine
and hyperbaric medicine, had attempted the feat on
Thursday, April 16, 1998,48 with an ascent to 22,500 feet,
only to discover that the battery of the video camera made
available by the National Aeronautic Association (NAA) to
record the achievement had frozen at 15,000 feet. Clem
then made an eight-hour round trip to Gainesville, Florida,
to secure a recording barograph, a device approved by the
Fédération Aéronautique Internationale to certify the flight,
which was mounted in his Dominator Friday morning. He
suited up and, although tired from the drive, took off for a
new record. He rose steadily and seventy minutes after
taking off radioed the ground that he had reached 23,400
feet, at which point he began the eighty-minute descent. He
landed completely exhausted, with evidence of frostbite on
his exposed cheeks, but the computer display showing the
recording device data proved he had reached 24,438 feet—
a new world's altitude record.
Of equal organizational significance, in 1998 the PRA was a
strong, vibrant organization with over five thousand
registered members, triple what it had been ten years
before, and more than fourteen times the first year's
membership. New models were appearing yearly, and the
homebuilt market, often unorganized and seemingly
chaotic, was strong in its diversity and characterized by
opportunity ranging from retro tractor models to
handcrafted jump takeoff machines, and, with the
application of new materials technology, the introduction of
New Zealand's Mac Gillespie's futuristic U.F.O. Helithruster,
with its alloy frame, fiberglass body, and gray-tinted double
bubble wrap-around windscreen, looking like something out
of a science fiction movie.49 By the end of the twentieth
century it was obvious that the gyroplane industry had, far
from disappearing, grown into a multifaceted, truly
international enterprise. That which had begun in 1923 in
Cierva's Spain was about to enter into the new millennium
with the creations of Groen Brothers Aviation (particularly
the Hawk 4 series), with a revived opportunity for
international commercial success, and with perhaps the
most innovative new development since the flight of the
C.4, the CarterCopter (CC).
GBA, headed by brothers David and Jay Groen, a Salt Lake,
Utah–based company,50has developed a family of larger
Hawk 4 gyroplanes targeted to the agricultural market (e.g.,
crop spraying, field inspection), law enforcement, package
delivery, and passenger shuttle service. The Hawk 4 story
really begins, like so many others, when a fifteen-year-old
David Groen saw a Bensen Gyrocopter ad in a 1966 Popular
Mechanicsand was hooked,51 but failing to convince his high
school shop teacher to let him build a Bensen as a class
project (the teacher was afraid Groen would get killed in the
flying lawn chair), the dream of flight had to wait until he
graduated high school, joined the army, and became a
helicopter pilot, flying combat missions in Vietnam in 1969.
The helicopter experience, eventually thousands of hours,
featured a great deal of experience practicing autorotation,
what pilots do when they have an emergency, and led him
back to the gyroplane and a March 1986 partnership with
his brother Jay. H. Jay Groen, a successful businessman,
had extensive experience in the Far East, particularly the
People's Republic of China, as an economist for the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) and was a proficient Chinese
linguist. The brothers had coauthored Huey,a best-selling
novel dealing with the Vietnam War, and now were about to
collaborate to “build the world's greatest homebuilt
gyroplane.”52 The company produced and flew proof-of-
concept aircraft, technology demonstrators, and production
prototypes in its developmental program. It intended from
the beginning to produce an FAA-certified aircraft,53 but of
greater importance, it had designed a sophisticated and
effective business infrastructure to support the commercial
venture. Jay Groen stated in 2000 that “we spent a lot of
time just designing how to be successful at the business of
producing these aircraft long before we ever got the right
aircraft.”54
Making its first public appearance at the 2000 EAA Fun 'n
Sun Fly-In in April 2000, the Hawk 4 four-passenger
gyroplane produced great interest, but it had also flown for
potential customers privately, and the company had already
received cash deposits for 160 aircraft. Even though the
aircraft was priced at a significant $295,000, its
performance (useful load of 960 pounds, maximum speed
at 12,000 feet of 150 mph, cruising speed of 130 mph,
cruise range of 420 miles) and anticipated direct operating
expenses of $80 per hour (with an additional $20 for
insurance and $36 for aircraft amortization) were only a
fraction of those of a helicopter, with the added safety of a
less mechanical complexity on an aircraft that could not
stall.
The Hawk 4 was augmented by the Hawk 4T, a Rolls-Royce-
powered turbine version, which initially flew on July 12,
2000. It was the first turbine-powered gyroplane and,
selling at $749,000, the most expensive GBA gyroplane;
yet, when compared to helicopters of comparable capacity,
it was readily received by the marketplace. Market response
was enthusiastic and GBA decided to shift its focus from the
piston-engine-powered Hawk 4 to the 4T. Anticipating
certification in the last quarter of 2001 and commencement
of deliveries in 2002, GBA announced in August 2001 that a
production facility would be built in Phoenix, Arizona,
representing an optimism in America unknown since the
days of Harold Pitcairn's PCA-2.55 By 2001, China had
ordered 200 Hawk 4 series gyroplanes and taken options on
another 300, stating that it planned to use them for 100- to
200-mile air taxi operations, and Time magazine, in its
November 19, 2001, issue, named the Hawk 4 as one of the
best Inventions of the Year.
The September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on America, in
which civilian airliners were hijacked and crashed by
religious fanatics into New York City's World Trade Center
and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., killing thousands of
innocent people, led directly to severe restrictions in civilian
aviation as the result of a heightened concern for national
security. This made it difficult for the company to obtain
additional developmental funding in the OTC (Over-the-
Counter) Bulletin Board stock market, and GBA announced
in early 2002 that it was slowing the laborious and costly
FAA certification process, consolidating its production
facilities in Buckeye, Arizona, and temporarily laying off
personnel whose efforts were directed toward the civilian
market in an attempt to conserve resources until the capital
markets were more favorable to aviation companies. GBA
had decided to concentrate on the military and law-
enforcement markets, areas that do not require certification
and for which the company maintained the Hawk 4 was
well-suited. The Utah Olympic Public Safety Command
(UOPSC) made use of a Hawk 4 during the 2002 Olympics
for observation and to provide security surrounding the Salt
Lake International Airport. Cierva, Pitcairn, Kellett, the
French, the English, the Germans, the Russians, the
Japanese, and even Ken Wallis had attempted to convince
the military as to the suitability of gyroplane technology for
aerial reconnaissance—now GBA succeeded in equipping its
aircraft with a Flir Systems, Inc. day/night observation
system, a Spectrolab Inc. SX-5 search light, an Avalex
Technologies flat panel display, a Broadcast Microwave
Services realtime video downlink system, and a law-
enforcement communications radio stack. James Bond
would've been proud!
Additionally, in a return to the earliest tractor Autogiros,
GBA exhibited a converted Cessna C337 Skymaster as the
Hawk 6 at the 2001 EAA Air-Venture.56 The fixed wings had
been replaced by short stub wings, a twin-boom tail was
added, a front-mounted Rolls-Royce 250-B17F2 engine was
utilized, and outward-opening clamshell doors had been
fitted to the rear of the aircraft to allow for cargo loading.
The aircraft made use of the Hawk 4 rotor system added to
the top of the cabin. The prototype was destined for a
Russian company that intended to use it for oil pipeline
maintenance, where it could operate more economically
than a comparable helicopter, carry personnel and
equipment, and land on dirt roads along a pipeline. GBA
had also received a letter of interest from an overnight
package-delivery company. The model was dubbed the
Hawk 6G (the G for “government use”), as GBA intended to
aggressively market it for official use.57 Given the
enthusiastic reception of the Hawk series of gyroplanes and
the business acumen of the Groen brothers and their
associates, it is likely that they will be successful and that
the Autogiro, in its newest gyroplane configurations, will
achieve an acceptance that has been elusive since the PCA-
2 and C.30A flew over American and European skies. But
the greatest success may yet be achieved by a technological
breakthrough now flying in experimental form—the
CarterCopter.
CarterCopters L.L.C., subsequently Carter Aviation
Technologies (CAT), the creation of talented designer Jay
Carter Jr., has created both the CarterCopter (a proof-of-
concept testing platform),58 and the Heliplane (a VTOL
design system).59 The prototype CarterCopter, which began
flying n September 1998, is a five-passenger composite
gyroplane with both a two-blade rotor and wings. It is
capable of jump takeoffs and flying as a fixed-wing aircraft,
in effect a convertiplane. The jump takeoff capacity is the
product of an ultra-high-inertia rotor in which each blade tip
is weighted with sixty-two pounds of depleted uranium. The
rotor is pre-rotated between 365 rpm and 425 rpm at a
zero pitch, and when snapped into a positive angle, the
kinetic energy stored in the blades enables it to jump into
the air. Jay Carter and his associates hope that the unique
weighted rotor blades will enable the sleek aircraft to
accomplish something never done before, to enter a realm
only imagined—which they have trademarked as Extreme-
Mu Flight.
One of the ironies of rotary flight is that the faster the rotor
spins, the greater drag it produces and because of this
drag, the modern rotary aircraft speed record is only 249
mph.60 The weights in the tips of the CC's rotor blades allow
them to be slowed during flight and yet still remain rigid,
which should, paradoxically, allow the CC to fly faster and
farther than any other rotorcraft in history. The CC's ultra-
high-inertia weighted rotor blades are designed to allow
them to be slowed and yet retain their rigid shape, even as
lift is shifted to the wings. This slowing of the rotor blade
resulting in a decrease of drag had first been disclosed in
U.S. patent No. 3,155,341, issued to the Ryan Aeronautical
Company on November 3, 1964, but it had never been
achieved, in part because as the rotor slowed, it would in
fact droop and increase drag. But the CC's patented rotor
blade system and tip weights will allow a reduction in drag
to occur where slowing of the rotor blades will allow the CC
to enter the realm of Extreme-Mu flight as lift shifts to the
CC's wings.
Mu is the ratio between (1) the forward speed of the aircraft
and (2) the speed of the rotor blade tip in relation to the
aircraft. Thus if the rotor blade tip is moving at 300 mph
and the aircraft is flying at 300 mph, Mu = 1. But if aircraft
in this example could slow its rotor tip speed to 100 mph
while flying at 300 mph, Mu = 3. Because rotational drag is
the product of rotor tip speed, when the rotor is slowed,
drag will be reduced, and the CC will not only be able to fly
faster, it will also become much more efficient! In fact, “a
rotor turning at 300 rpm produces 27 times more rotational
drag than a rotor slowed to 100 rpm.”61 Carter anticipates
that the CC, with its ability to slow the rotor and reduce
drag while shifting lift to its wings, will be able to establish a
new rotary speed record and fly with an efficiency that is as
good or better than fixed-wing aircraft. Carter has
speculated that when Mu ratios of 4 or 5 are reached, the
reduced drag will allow speeds approaching a truly
revolutionary 500 mph. Although the CC is a proof-of-
concept vehicle, the company plans to license the
technology, in a manner similar to Cierva and Pitcairn. But it
is also proceeding with applying the technology to the next
generation, the Heliplane.
Utilizing the latest in technological advancements, including
engine design, control mechanisms, proprietary rotor
development, and extensive use of composite materials, the
Heliplane will have the capacity to take off, hover, and land
as a helicopter but will cruise with maximum efficiency as a
gyroplane, with a rotor that is both unloaded and slowed,
along with efficient high-aspect ratio wings. Of particular
potential interest to the military, seeking such a craft for
battlefield insertion, the Heliplane's designer anticipates
using autorotation for high-speed descents, thus avoiding
“settling under power” in a vortex ring state. This latter
characteristic should prove of great interest to the United
States Marine Corps, which has invested heavily in the Bell-
Boeing V-22 Osprey, a competing “tiltrotor” technology that
suffered from such vortex ring states. The $44 million
transport, under development for eighteen years, crashed
twice, killing all onboard. In the wake of the crash of April 8,
2000, one of the criticisms voiced about the Osprey was
that it could not autorotate, precisely the projected strength
of the Heliplane.
Carter estimates that the largest configuration Heliplane
would be the biggest gyroplane ever built, with an empty
weight of 90,000 pounds, a length of 106 feet, and height
of 43 feet. Its VTOL-design takeoff weight is projected at
160,000 pounds at 7,000 feet density altitude. The
Heliplane, a combination of helicopter, gyroplane, and fixed-
wing aircraft, may yet emerge in the twenty-first century to
soar in the skies about our cities, just as its Autogiro
ancestor did eight decades ago. It is not surprising, then,
that the Heliplane has already been called the “21st Century
Rotodyne.”62
NOTES

1. See Howard Levy, “Italian Import: The Magni Gyroplane

Makes Its U.S. Debut,”Kitplanes 18, no. 2 (February
2001): 41–44; Don Parham, “Magni Gyros: Quality
Gyroplanes from Europe,” Homebuilt Rotorcraft 14, no.
6 (June 2001): 6–7.
2. See Paul Bergen Abbott, “The Outstanding New
Rotorcraft Equipment of the 1980's,” Rotorcraft 27, no.
8 (December 1989–January 1990): 17–19.
3. Jim McCutchen, “An Open Letter to All PRA Members,”
Rotorcraft 30, no. 3 (May 1992): 19.
4. Rotorcraft 27, no. 1 (February–March 1989):
30;Rotorcraft 27, no. 8 (December 1989–January
1990): cover and 17–18; Rotorcraft 28, no. 1
(February–March 1990): 34; Rotorcraft 31, no. 6
(September 1993): 21, 25; Popular Mechanics 165, no.
11 (November 1988): cover.
 5. Don Parham, “Sport Pilot/Light Sport Plane,” Homebuilt
Rotorcraft 14, no. 9 (September 2001): 14–16, 16.
6. Art Evans, “Tragedy in Arkansas,“ Rotorcraft 30, no. 3
(May 1992): 25.
7. Richard Bentley, “Mängoos ‘Stealth’ Gyroplane,”
Rotorcraft 29, no. 2 (April 1991): cover 42–43.
8. Ibid., p. 42.
9. Jim Eich, “‘Sun 'n Fun’ at Lakeland Florida,” Rotorcraft
29, no. 44 (June–July 1991): 39.
10. Paul Bergen Abbott, “An Amazing National Convention,”
Rotorcraft 29, no. 6 (September 1991): 20, 30–31, 20.
11. Conversation between author and Gary Goldsberry, PRA
president, who was one of the first to reach the
Mängoos wreckage, May 25, 2002.
12. Kerry Cartier, “Dallas A&P Designs Nostalgic Tractor
Autogyro,” Rotorcraft 37, no. 4 (June–July 1999): 22–
25.
13. Ron Herron, “First Flight of a New Tractor Autogyro,”
Rotorcraft 34, no. 8 (November 1996): 6–7; also see
Ron Herron, “Flying Backwards in a Tractor Autogyro,”
Rotorcraft 33, no. 5 (August 1995): 32–34; Ron Herron,
“History of Little Wing Autogyros,” Fly Gyro! no. 4
(March–April 2001): 12–14; Ron Herron, “Little Wing
‘Roto-Pup,’” Homebuilt Rotorcraft 8, no. 11 (November
1995): 12–13; Ron Herron, “Bringing Back the
Autogiro,” 33, no. 1 (February–March 1995): 12–13
(citing inspiration by the [David] Kay Gyroplane of the
1930s).
14. David Gittens and Kia Woods, “Ikenga, An Artist's
Approach to Gyroplane Design,”Rotorcraft 27, no. 1
(February–March 1989): 44, back cover (article and
photographs of Ikenga).
15. Dick Cavin, “Ikenga … Reserve Grand Champion,” Sport
Aviation 38, no. 3 (March 1989): 46–49.
16. Ibid., p. 47.
17. Email to the author from David Gittens dated May 2,
2001; subsequent email comment of February 16,
2002.
18. Gittens, email to author, May 2, 2001; Rotorcraft 26,
no. 5 (October–November 1988): 20 (photograph of
Alderfer tractor autogyro); Ed Alderfer, “A Study of the
Tractor Gyroplane,” Rotorcraft 26, no. 6 (December
1988–January 1989): 17–18.
19. Paul Bergen Abbott, “New Shape from Santa Fe,”
Rotorcraft 27, no. 7 (October–November 1989): 33.
20. “What's New: Cygnus 21TX,” Popular Science, January
1991.
21. “Gyro 2000 Closes Doors,” Rotorcraft 30, no. 2 (May
1992): 7.
22. Charlie Yaw, “The Air Command Story,” Rotorcraft 26,
no. 4 (August–September 1988): 32–33.
23. Abbott, “Outstanding New Rotorcraft Equipment,” p. 18.
24. Paul Bergen Abbott, “The Best of the 1980's,” Rotorcraft
27, no. 8 (December 1989–January 1990): 14–17, 16;
Ed Alderfer, “The Designers: 30 Years of Rotorcraft
Designers,“ Rotorcraft 27, no. 3 (May Extra 1989): 26–
29, 28.
25. Paul Bergen Abbott, “Rotorcraft Choices 1989,”
Rotorcraft 27, no. 1 (February–March 1989): 22–30, 24.
26. Paul Bergen Abbott, “Air Command Fly-In,” Rotorcraft
26, no. 4 (August–September 1988): 16–17; Betty Jo
Charlet, “Air Command Does It Again,”Rotorcraft 27, no.
7 (October–November 1989): 38–39.
27. Paul Bergen Abbott, “A New Name at Air Command,”
Rotorcraft 28, no. 5 (August 1990): 19.
28. “A New Owner for Air Command,” Rotorcraft 30, no. 4
(June–July 1992): 6.
29. Dr. Stewart S. Houston, “Eight Years of Gyroplane
Research in the UK: A VeryPersonal Reflection,” Fly
Gyro! no. 3 (January–February 2001): 12–16.
30. “Rotorcraft in the News,” Homebuilt Rotorcraft 14, no. 9
(September 2001): 4.
31. Email to author from Kelly Vanek of February 28, 2002;
see also Dave Martin, “Evolving While Revolving: Jim
Vanek's New Sport Copters Continues a Family
Tradition,” Kitplanes 12, no. 4 (June 1995): 36–41.
32. “PRA Interview: Ernie Boyette,” Rotorcraft 37, no. 3
(May 1999): 4–6; Ernie Boyette, “Ernie Finds the Lost
Chord,” Rotorcraft 29, no. 2 (April 1991): 15–21.
33. Paul Bergen Abbott, “Big Bird Takes Off,” Rotorcraft 26,
no. 4 (August–September 1988): 12–13.
34. “Meet the Board: Carl Schneider,” Rotorcraft 36, no. 9
(December 1998–January 1999): 10; Rotorcraft 36, no.
4 (June–July 1998): 25 (Schneider photograph).
35. Jean Fourcade, “Longitudinal Stability of Gyroplanes,”
Rotorcraft 37, no. 4 (June–July 1999): 14–19.
36. Rotorcraft 40, no. 1 (February 2002): 7.
37. Paul Bergen Abbott, “Marriage Made in Heaven,”
Rotorcraft 27, no. 8 (December 1989–January 1990):
12–13.
38. Abbott, “Big Bird,” p. 13.
39. Chuck Beaty, “Tails: Tall and Otherwise,” Rotorcraft 26,
no. 5 (October–November 1988): 15.
40. Erlene Barnett, “A Twice Told Tall Tail,” Rotorcraft 26, no.
6 (December 1988–January 1989): 6.
41. Wallis letter to the editor, Rotorcraft 27, no. 1
(February–March 1989): 4–5.
42. Jim Vanek, Sport Copter (Scappose, Oregon: Sport
Copter, Inc., 2000), p. 7.
43. Russ King, “From Lessons to Solo,” Rotorcraft 36, no. 4
(June–July 1998): 7.
44. Don Parham, “From the Editor's Desk,” Homebuilt
Rotorcraft 8, no. 11 (November 1995) and Buck
Buchanan and Jim DiGateano, “Letters to the Editor”
Homebuilt Rotorcraft 8, no. 11 (November 1995) CFI
pp. 18–20.
45. “Auction! Auction! Auction!” Homebuilt Rotorcraft 8, no.
9 (September 1995): 13.
46. Paul Bergen Abbott, “The $20,000 Takeoff!” Rotorcraft
33, no. 6 (September 1995): 44–47; Paul Bergen
Abbott, “How Did Dick Do It?” Rotorcraft 33, no. 6
(September 1995): 31–32.
47. Sandy Love, “The Sky's No Limit,” Rotorcraft 36, no. 4
(June–July 1998): 34–35; Stephanie Gremminger,
“Over Four Miles High in a Gyrocopter!” Rotorcraft 36,
no. 3 (May 1998): 18–19.
48. Love, p. 35, where the author places the first flight with
the video camera on Thursday; but see Mike Stinnett,
“Bensen Days 1998,” Rotorcraft 36, no. 4 (June–July
1998): 21–23, at p. 23, where the author claims that
the camera flight was on Wednesday, April 15.
Gremminger would agree with the Thursday dating, as
she places the record flight on Friday, April 24.
Gremminger, pp. 18–19.
49. Ron Bartlett, “The UFO-Helithruster: An Update,”
Autogyro Quarterly, not 11 (January 2002): 26–27; Mel
Morris Jones, “Talkshop: The UFO Helithruster,” Fly
Gyro! no. 2 (November–December 2000): 8–11
(photograph on the front cover).
50. Don Parham, “High Tech Rotorcraft,” Homebuilt
Rotorcraft 12, no. 10 (October 1999): 6–11.
51. Stephanie Gremminger, “The Hawk 4 Gyroplane Aims to
Bring ‘Gyroplanes to Their Logical Progression,’”
Rotorcraft 38, no. 5 (August 2000): 8–9, 35, 8.
52. Ibid., p. 9.
53. “Hawk Gyro Goes to China,” Rotorcraft 33, no. 1
(February–March 1995): 9.
54. Gremminger, “Hawk 4,” p. 9.
55. William B. Scott, “Hawk 4T Breathes New Life into
Gyroplanes,” Aviation Week & Space Technology 153,
no. 19 (November 6, 2000): 54–56.
56. Bruce H. Charnov, “Groen Brothers at Oshkosh,” Fly
Gyro! no. 7 (September 2001): 16.
57. Ron Bartlett, “Groen Brothers Hawk 6G Gyroplane,”
Autogyro 1/4ly, no. 8, 8 (text and photograph).
58. Parham, “High Tech Rotorcraft,” pp. 6–11; Rod
Anderson, “CarterCopter (CC) R&D: Something for
Everyone,” Rotorcraft 38, no. 7 (October 2000): 32–35;
Jay Carter Jr., “CarterCopter: A High Technology
Gyroplane” (paper presented at the American Helicopter
Society Vertical Lift Aircraft Design Conference, San
Francisco, California, 2000).
59. Jay Carter Jr., “The CarterCopter (CC) Heliplane” (paper
presented at the Precision Strike Technology
Symposium 2000, Johns Hopkins University, Laurel,
Maryland, October 2000).
60. Paul Bergen Abbott, “Will This New Autogyro Go 400
Miles per Hour?” Rotorcraft34, no. 6 (September 1996):
31–32.
61. “Update: The CarterCopter (CC) Heliplane.” Handed out
at EAA Air Venture Fly-In, 2002. (CarterCopters
Information Sheet 2001); Abbott, “Will This New
Autogyro Go 400?” p. 10.
62. “21st Century Rotodyne,” Wingspan International, no. 8
(September–October 2001): 65.
 THE ESSENTIAL
AUTOGIRO/AUTOGYRO/GYROCOPTER
/GYROPLANE HISTORY LIBRARY: AN
ANNOTATED LIST
The following constitutes an essential library of books and
articles dealing with the history of the Autogiro (Cierva and
Cierva-licensed autorotation aircraft), autogyro (non-Cierva
machines), Gyrocopters/gyrocopters (capitalized when
applied to Bensen machines prior to the end of the Bensen
Company in 1988), and gyroplanes (generic term and
applied to post-1970 Ken Brock gyrocopters). Many are little
known to readers but frequently cited by writers who have
obviously not read the originals. I have indicated sources
for each book, but it should be noted that copies may often
be found at www.abebooks.com, which is a superb
worldwide rare-book network touted by the New York Times
as an Internet business that works. Additionally, your local
college or university library may be able to locate a copy
and request an interlibrary loan. Finally, do not neglect
Internet auction sites—these books often come on at
reasonable rates.
Cierva, Juan de la, and Don Rose. Wings of Tomorrow: The
Story of the Autogiro. New York: Brewer, Warren & Putnam,
1931. The start of it all—Autogiro history begins with this
book. Fairly rare but copies available.
Sanders, C. J., and A. H. Rawson. The Book of the C.19
Autogiro. London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, 1931. Charles J.
Saunders headed the design team for Avro in the
manufacture of the C.19 Autogiro. Arthur H.C.A. “Dizzy”
Rawson was a Cierva test pilotwho accompanied the C.8W
to America and who made the first flight—prior to Harold
Pitcairn. Book generally unavailable, but occasionally
through www.abebooks.com a copy becomes available.
The Autogiro. Philadelphia: Pitcairn-Cierva Autogiro
Company of America, 1930; The Autogiro. Philadelphia:
Pitcairn-Cierva Autogiro Company of America, 1933;Some
Facts of Interest about Rotating-Wing Aircraft and the
Autogiro Company of America.Philadelphia: The Autogiro
Company of America, 1944; Pitcairn, Harold F. “Juan de la
Cierva: In Memoriam.” Philadelphia: Autogiro Company of
America, January 9, 1939. These four publications by the
Autogiro Company of America constitute an essential record
of Autogiro development in America, with an invaluable
photographic record. The text is sometimes contradictory
but always informative. The final slim publication is Harold
F. Pitcairn's tribute to his friend Juan de la Cierva on the
third anniversary of his death. These books are quite rare
and only occasionally come up at auction.
Brie, R.A.C. The Autogiro and How to Fly It. London: Sir
Isaac Pitman & Sons, 1933. 2nd ed., 1934. “Reggie” Brie
was chief test pilot for Cierva Autogyro Company Ltd., and
the foreword is by Juan de la Cierva. Book generally
unavailable, but occasionally through www.abebooks.com a
copy becomes available.
Cierva, Juan de la. “The Autogiro.” Journal of Royal
Aeronautical Society 34, no. 239 (November 1930): 902–
21; Cierva, Juan de la. “New Developments of the
Autogiro.”Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society
(December 1935): 1125–43. Cierva greatly valued his
membership in The Royal Aeronautical Society (TRAS), and
his invited lectures are clear, concise statements of Autogiro
history. These lectures are generally not quoted and will
only be found in aviation libraries that maintain TRAS
journals. Obviously, more available in England.
Hafner, Raoul. The Hafner Gyroplane. Reprinted from the
Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society (February 1938).
An Austrian active in helicopter development, created a
series of autogyros in England in 1930s and later, as British
citizen during World War II, developed the Hafner
“Rotachute” and Malcolm “Rotabuggy.” The Rotachute was
one of the major influences on Igor Bensen's Gyro-Glider.
Read this book along with Clouston, Air Commodore A. E.
The Dangerous Skies. London, England: Cassell & Company
Limited, 1954. Clouston was Hafner's test pilot and has
personal observations on the Hafner aircraft. Book generally
unavailable, but occasionally through www.abebooks.com a
copy becomes available.
Haugen, Lieutenant Victor. “Principles of Rotating Wing
Aircraft.” Aeronautics 2, no. 7 (October 16, 1940): 420–38;
Lunde, Professor Otto H. “Development and Operation of
the Autogiro.” Aeronautics 2, no. 9 (October 30, 1940):
548–62; Miller, John M. “Civil Uses of the
Autogiro.”Aeronautics 2, no. 10 (November 6, 1940): 611–
624. Three installments in the 1939–40 series of lectures on
aeronautics. Each presents Autogiro history and
photographs. At the time of their publication they were the
most comprehensive early Autogiro history compilation.
John M. “Johnny” Miller was the Autogiro pilot who beat
Amelia Earhart cross-country in May 1931, and he had just
completed flying the Eastern Air Lines Experimental
Autogiro Air Mail flights between the roof of the Philadelphia
30th Street Post Office and nearby Camden, New Jersey,
airport between July 6, 1939, and July 5, 1940. This lecture
series is still available in aviation libraries and occasionally
comes up for sale at auction.
Gregory, Hollingsworth Franklin. Anything a Horse Can Do:
The Story of the Helicopter.Introduction by Igor Sikorsky.
New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1944. Revised editions were
published as The Helicopter; or, Anything a Horse Can Do.
New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1948 and London: George
Allen & Unwin 1948; and as The Helicopter. South
Brunswick, New Jersey: A. S. Barnes, 1976. H. Franklin
Gregory became the United States Army Air Force expert on
rotary-wing aircraft, gained great experience with the
Kellett Autogiro, was commanding officer of the U.S. Army
Autogiro School at Dayton, Ohio, and was instrumental,
through his administration of the Dorsey-Logan Bill funds, in
channeling government money away from Autogiro
development to the Sikorsky and Platt-LePage helicopters.
His insider account of the military attitude toward the
Autogiro helps greatly in understanding why authorities
turned away from the Pitcairn and Kellett models. Fairly rare
but can be found in some libraries and thus secured through
interlibrary loan.
Gablehouse, Charles. Helicopters and Autogiros: A History
of Rotating-Wing and V/STOL Aviation. Rev. ed.
Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1969. Previous edition published
asHelicopters and Autogiros: A Chronicle of Rotating-Wing
Aircraft. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1967. Has a good
generalized account of the development of the Autogiro in
relationship to the helicopter. Still generally available in
libraries.
Courtney, Frank T. Flight Path. London: William Kimber,
1972. Also published as The Eighth Sea. New York:
Doubleday & Co., 1972. Frank Courtney was Cierva's first
test pilot after Cierva relocated from Spain to England in
1925. Courtney has sharp, self-serving observations of
Cierva. (See also Hannon, Bill. “Those Infuriating ‘Palm
Trees.’ ”Popular Rotorcraft Flying 7, no. 6 (November–
December 1969): 30, which is an account of an address
Courtney gave before a local PRA chapter, describing the
flight of a Cierva C.6 at Farnborough in 1925. Courtney
describes the chance meeting and dinner with Cierva on the
evening of December 8, 1936, the night before Cierva died
in a plane crash at Croydon). Book still found in some
libraries and available in used book stores and on the
internet.
Smith, Frank Kingston. Legacy of Wings: The Story of
Harold F. Pitcairn. New York: Jason Aronson, 1981. Smith
was a lawyer and admirer of Harold F. Pitcairn. This is a
devotional biography covering Pitcairn's aviation
achievements from the Mailwing, Eastern Air Transport
(eventually Eastern Airlines, after being acquired in the fall
of 1929 by a group headed by Chandler Keys and Glen
Curtiss), and the Autogiro. In his admiration, Smith often
fails to make accurate judgments regarding his subject,
always choosing the flattering interpretation; but this book
is essential to understanding the man and his Autogiros,
with many photographs and diagrams. (Helpful to read with
George Townson's book and especially with Peter Brooks's
Cierva's Autogiros, which presents the same events from a
different perspective.) Privately printed in an edition
underwritten by the Pitcairn family, it can regularly be found
at auction and atwww.abebooks.com. Sometimes available
for sale at Historic Aviation. The book also served as the
basis for the EAA film Legacy of Wings, which is available
from EAA and at its museum at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and
available at the Museum of the American Helicopter
Museum & Education Center, Brandywine Airport, West
Chester, Pennsylvania. It should be noted that the book is
extremely handicapped by having an exceptionally limited
index. (See also Smith, Frank Kingston. “Mr. Pitcairn's
Autogiros.”Airpower 12, no. 2 (March 1983): 28–49; Aellen,
Richard. “The Autogiro and Its Legacy.” Air & Space
Smithsonian, December 1989/January 1990, 52–59;
Anders, Frank. “The Forgotten Rotorcraft Pioneer: Harold F.
Pitcairn.” Rotor & Wing International, May 1990, 34–37.
Reprinted as “The Forgotten Rotor.” Rotorcraft 28, no. 7
(October–November 1990): 30–34.
LePage, Wynn Laurence. Growing Up with Aviation.
Ardmore, Pennsylvania: Dorrance, 1981. W. Laurence
LePage worked with Pitcairn and the Kellett brothers and
has a brief but insightful insider account of the historical
period. He later joined with Haviland H. Platt to create the
Platt-LePage helicopter, which was allocated funds from the
Dorsey-Logan Bill; the allocation that gave rise to the
unfounded rumors of a conspiracy to deny financial support
for Autogiro development. This book is frequently
overlooked in Autogiro research because of its title, the
association of its author with the helicopter, and the 1981
publication, almost forty years after the last Pitcairn
Autogiros. It is sometimes available from aviation book
dealers and found in libraries.
Townson, George. Autogiro: The Story of “the Windmill
Plane.” Fallbrook, California: Aero Publishers, 1985.
Townson wrote an idiosyncratic account of the Autogiro,
with many photographs and diagrams. Generally available
for sale at Historic Aviation and at the Museum of the
American Helicopter Museum & Education Center,
Brandywine Airport, West Chester, Pennsylvania. See also
Townson, George, and Howard Levy. “The History of the
Autogiro: Part 1.” Air Classics Quarterly Review 4, no. 2
(Summer 1977): 4–18; Townson, George, and Howard
Levy. “The History of the Autogiro: Part 2.” Air Classics
Quarterly Review 4, no. 3 (Fall 1977): 4–19, 110–14.
Brooks, Peter W. Cierva's Autogiros: The Development of
Rotary-Wing Flight.Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian
Institution Press, 1988. This is the most comprehensive
account of the Autogiro and indispensable reading—if you
could read only one book from this list, this is it. It has an
exceptionally detailed index and comprehensive listing by
registration number of all the Autogiros produced, with
good accounts of England, America, Germany, France,
Japan, and Russia and with abbreviated references to the
Fairey Rotodyne and the autogyros of Wing Commander Ken
Wallis. Generally available at www.abebooks.com,
occasionally online, and in a fair number of libraries. See
alsoCapon, P. T. “Cierva's First Autogiros: Part 1.” Aeroplane
Monthly 7, no. 4 (April 1979): 200–205; Capon, P. T.
“Cierva's First Autogiros: Part 2.” Aeroplane Monthly 7, no.
4 (May 1979): 234–40; Brooks, Peter W. “Rotary Wing
Pioneer.” Aeroplane, December 9 and 16, 1955.
Bensen, Igor B. A Dream of Flight. Indianapolis, Indiana:
The Abbott Company, 1992. Nominally authored by Dr. Igor
Bensen, it was prepared by Paul Bergen Abbott, who had
purchased the rights (see Abbott, Paul Bergen. “The Story
of Dr. Bensen's Fabulous Book.” Rotorcraft 37, no. 5 [August
1999]: 8–9). Went out of print in early 1999 when the
supply ran out and it proved too expensive to reprint. This
was apparently put together from Bensen articles and does
not name Bensen's parents or even mention his wife, Mary,
who made a significant but here unacknowledged
contribution to the American rotorcraft movement. There
are four copies listed nationally in libraries, and it can be
secured on an interlibrary loan—if your local facility cannot
do this, consult a university reference librarian. See also
Gilley, Rick. “Dr. Igor Bensen The Man and His Machine.” Fly
Gyro! September/October 2001, 20–22, which contains
details, such as Bensen's parents' names, not found in A
Dream of Flight;“Design Classroom.” Collected Works of
Design Classroom. California: Popular Rotorcraft
Association, 1974. Introduced by Kas Thomas, this was a
forty-five-page compilation of the mostly Bensen-written
Popular Rotorcraft Flying columns on rotorcraft design and
history.
Hollmann, Martin. Helicopters. Monterey, California: Aircraft
Designs, Inc., 2000; Flying the Gyroplane. Monterey,
California: Aircraft Designs, Inc., 1986. Martin Hollmann,
creator of the HA-2A Sportster and later the ultralight
Bumble Bee, has a great deal of historical information
contained in these two books available directly from the
author. With numerous diagrams and photographs, valuable
for scope (but not depth) of its coverage of the Autogiro,
with references to the Focke-Achgelis FA-330 rotary-wing
kite (see also Aircraft of the National Air and Space
Museum. 4th ed. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution
Press, 1991), the Bensen Gyrocopter, the Air & Space
(Umbaugh) 18A, the McCulloch J-2, and the autorotational
work of Anton Flettner and Frederich von Doblhoff. Reprints
the Fifth Cierva Memorial Lecture from the Journal of the
Royal Aeronautical Society by Heinrich K. J. Focke—see
especially the report of comments made at the lecture by
Rauol Hafner and O.L.L. Fitzwilliams, designers of the
Hafner Rotachute that inspired Igor Bensen, by August
Stepan, associate of Von Doblhof in World War II and later
jet-tip rotor expert on the Fairey Rotodyne, and by the
great J.A.J. Bennett, successor at Cierva Autogiro Company
Ltd. after Cierva's December 1936 death and codesigner
(with Captain A. Graham Forsyth) of the Fairey Rotodyne.
Thomas, Kas. Guide to Homebuilt Rotorcraft. New York:
Crown Publishers, 1976;Abbott, Paul Bergen. The Gyroplane
Flight Manual. Indianapolis, Indiana: The Abbott Company,
1988, 1992, 1996; The Gyrocopter Flight Manual.
Indianapolis, Indiana: The Abbott Company, 1977;
Indianapolis, Indiana: Cranberry Corners, 1983;
Indianapolis, Indiana: The Abbott Company 1986; Want to
Fly a Gyrocopter. Indianapolis, Indiana: Cranberry Corners,
1977; Understanding the Gyroplane. Indianapolis, Indiana:
The Abbott Company, 1994. These books are generally
oriented toward the Bensen Gyrocopter and, as such, are
obsolete but of continuing interest for
Autogiro/Gyrocopter/autogyro/gyroplane history. The later
books remain available from Paul Bergen Abbott.
Wood, Derek. Project Cancelled: British Aircraft That Never
Flew. Indianapolis/New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company
Inc., 1975. The most comprehensive description of
development of the Fairey Rotodyne, arguably the most
impressive autogyro ever to fly, and almost completely
unknown due to its cancellation and destruction by the
British government in 1962. See also Anders, Frank. “The
Problem Solver.” Air Classics30, no. 10 (October 1994): 50–
58; “The Flat Risers: The Ups and Downs of VTOL (Part 2).”
TakeOff 1, part 5 (1989): 138–43; Harrison, Jean-Pierre.
“Fairey Rotodyne.” Air Classics 22, no. 44 (April 1996): 44–
47, 60–62, 64–66, 79–80; “The Fairey Rotodyne: Nearly the
Answer.” West Coast Aviator, September/October 1995, 35–
37; Hislop, George S. “The Fairey Rotodyne.” Paper
presented before the Helicopter Association of Great Britain
and The Royal Aeronautical Society, London, England,
November 7, 1958; and for a film of the Rotodyne flying,
see “A Fairey Rotodyne Storey,” Traplet Video Productions,
Worcestershire, England). Wood's book found in many
libraries and readily available via interlibrary loan. Journal
articles fairly unavailable—film available from Traplet. For
more recent summary, seeCharnov, Bruce. “The Fairey
Rotodyne: An Idea Whose Time Has Come—Again: Part
3.”Fly Gyro! March/April 2002, 4–8; “Part 2.” Fly Gyro!
November/December 2001, 4–7; “Part 1” Fly Gyro!
September/October 2001, 4–7.
Spenser, Jay P. Whirlybirds: A History of the U.S. Helicopter
Pioneers. Seattle and London: University of Washington
Press, 1998. Brief but informative description of American
Autogiro development and involvement of the military. Also
deals with American developers Buhl Aircraft and E. Burke
Wilford. Main strength is availability. In a similar vein, see
Beard, Barrett Thomas. Wonderful Flying Machines.
Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1996 (describes
American Autogiro pilots) and Young, Warren R. The
Helicopters. Alexandria, Virginia: Time-Life Books, 1982
(description of Autogiro development and copies of the
1930s Pitcairn Autogiro advertisements).
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ARTICLES
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no. 6 (September 1995): 44–47.
———. “Actions of the PRA Board of Directors.” Rotorcraft
30, no. 4 (June–July 1992): 32.
———. “Air Command Fly-In.” Rotorcraft 26, no. 4 (August–
September 1988): 16–17.
———. “An Amazing National Convention.” Rotorcraft 29,
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———. “The Best of the 1980's.” Rotorcraft (December
1989–January 1990): 14–17.
———. “Big Bird Takes Off.” Rotorcraft 26, no. 4 (August–
September 1988): 12–13.
———. “An Evening With Ken Wallis.” Rotorcraft 34, no. 6
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———. “FAA APPROVED!” Rotorcraft 29, no. 6 (September
1991): 8–9.
———. “From the First PRA Convention to the Latest: A
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1996): 8–10.
———. “Gyroplane Forum at Bensen Days.” Rotorcraft 29,
no. 4 (June–July 1991): 17–26.
———. “How Did Dick Do It?” Rotorcraft 33, no. 6
(September 1995): 31–32.
———. “Ken Brock—A Full and Wonderful Life.” Rotorcraft
39, no. 9 (December 2001–January 2002): 5.
———. “Making History at Mentone: The 34th PRA
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10–21.
———. “Marriage Made in Heaven.“ Rotorcraft 27, no. 8
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———. “Meet Ken Brock.” Rotorcraft 31, no. 6 (September
1993): 12–17.
———. “A New Name at Air Command.” Rotorcraft 28, no. 5
(August 1990): 19.
———. “New Shape from Santa Fe.” Rotorcraft 27, no. 7
(October–November 1989): 33.
———. “The Outstanding New Rotorcraft Equipment of the
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1990): 17–19.
———. “Rotorcraft Choices 1989.” Rotorcraft 27, no. 1
(February–March 1989): 22–30.
———. “A Standard Biennial Flight Review for Gyroplane
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21.
———. “The Story of Dr. Bensen's Fabulous Book.”
Rotorcraft 37, no. 5 (August 1999): 8–9.
———. “The Subaru Story.” Rotorcraft 29, no. 7 (October–
November 1991): 26–28.
———. “Two-Place Gyroplane Training Is Now Legal.”
Rotorcraft 28, no. 6 (September Extra 1990): 11–13.
———. “What Went Wrong at RotorWay?” Rotorcraft 28, no.
5 (August 1990): 18–19.
———. “Will this New Autogyro Go 400 Miles per Hour?”
Rotorcraft 34, no. 6 (September 1996): 31–32.
Aellen, Richard. “The Autogiro and Its Legacy.” Air & Space
Smithsonian 4, no. 5 (December 1989–January 1990):
52–59.
Alderfer, Ed. “30 Years of Rotorcraft Designers.” Official
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1988): 2.
———. “The Designers: 30 Years of Rotorcraft Designers.”
Rotorcraft 27, no. 3 (May Extra 1989): 26–29.
———. “Federal Aviation Regulations Part 103—Ultralight
Vehicles.” Rotorcraft 27, no. 5 (August 1989): 28.
———. “Flying the Windmill Plane with Johnny Miller.”
Popular Rotorcraft Flying 24, no. 6 (December 1986): 14–
16.
———. “A Home for PRA?” Popular Rotorcraft Flying 26, no.
5 (October–November 1988): 6.
———. “A Study of the Tractor Gyroplane.” Rotorcraft 26,
no. 6 (December 1988–January 1989): 17–18.
Alvares, Antonio Angulo. “Juan de la Cierva.” Rotorcraft 37,
no. 9 (December 1999–January 2000): 20–23.
Anders, Frank. “The Forgotten Rotorcraft Pioneer: Harold F.
Pitcairn.” Rotor & Wing International (May 1990): 34–37;
reprinted as “The Forgotten Rotor.” Rotorcraft28, no. 7
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VIDEO/MOVIES/AUDIO
Army-Air Force Newsreels 1941. Traditions Military Videos,
www.militaryvideo.com. Accessed November 16, 2002.
A Fairey Rotodyne Storey. Traplet Video Productions, Fairey
Aviation Film Unit, Worcestershire, England.
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“Superman on Radio.” 1940 radio broadcast. Smithsonian
Historical Performances, 1997.
INDEX

Abbot, Charles G.

Abbott, Paul Bergen

Achgelis, Gerd

Acland, P. D.

Adam, Ken

Adams, Eustace L.

Adaro Terradillos, Julio

Ader, Clément

Aellen, Richard

Aero Resources

Aeroflot

Aéronautique Navale (l'Aéronavale)

A.F.E.E. Rotabuggy or Rotaplane or Rotajeep (also Malcolm

Rotabuggy)

A.F.E.E. Rotachute. See also Rotachute

A.G.A. Aviation Corporation

Agar, Carl
Aïda

Aikkoku 81 and 82 (Japanese Kellett K-3s)

Air & Space 18A. See also Umbaugh 18-A

Air & Space Manufacturing, Inc. (A & S)

Air Command

Air Command

Air Commerce Act of 1926

Air Registration Board (ARB)

Airborne Forces Experimental Establishment (AFEE)

Akitsu Maru

Alderfer, “Helicopter Ed”

Alderfer, tractor gyroplane

Alfaro, Heraclio

Allen, Gracie

Allen, Willis M. Jr.

Almond, Peter

Alpervich, V. B.

American Helicopter Museum & Education Center

Anders, Frank Jr.

Anderson, Rod

Andersson, Lennart

Antarctica

Anything a Horse Can Do

Anzani, Alessandro

Apostolo, Giorgio

Approved Type Certificate (ATC); K-2 and K-3; K4; KD-1B;

PA-18; PA-19; PAA-1; PCA-2; PCA-3

Archimedes-Hardee Rotorcraft Museum

Argentina

Argüeso, Captain Julio Ríos

Arias, José María Espinosa

Armstrong Siddeley; Mamba engine

Arnold, Henry H. “Hap”

Asahi Shimbun

Ashby, Richard

Asplundh, Edwin
Astor, John Jacob

ATE-3 (Autogyro-Tervamäki-Eerola)

Atlantic Seaboard Airways

Auchincloss, Hugh D.

Australia

Autogiro Company of America (ACA)

Autogiro Company of America vs. The United States of

America

Autogiro school

Autogiro Specialties Company

Autogiro Training School (USAAC)

Autogyro 1/4ly

Autogyro Performance Award

Autorotation

A. V. Roe & Co. Ltd. (“Avro”)

Aviacion

Avian Aircraft Industries Ltd

Avian 2/180 Gyroplane

Aviation Militaire (Armée de l'Air)
Avions Weymann-Lepère

Avro

Avro 504K

Bakelite

Baker, Arlene

Bakus, Jean L.

Barcala Moreno, José (Pépé)

Barnett, Erlene

Barnett, Jerrie

Bartha, Max

Bartlett, Ron

Bass, A. C.

Battle of Britain

Battle of the Bulge

Bayne, Bertie

BCD-1. See also El Cangrejo “The Red Crab”

BCD-2

Beauchamp, Gerry
Beagle Aircraft Company

Beagle-Wallis WA-116

Beaty, Chuck; tall tail controversy

Bebb, Cecil W. H.

Beech-Nut PCA-2 Autogiro

Belgium

Bell Aircraft

Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey

Bell-47 helicopter

Bendix, Vincent

Bengston, Galen

Bennett, Dr. J[ames] A[llison] J[ami-son]

Bensen Aircraft Company

Bensen, Alexandra P. (mother)

Bensen B-1

Bensen B-2

Bensen B-5

Bensen B-6
Bensen B-7

Bensen B-7M

Bensen B-8M

Bensen B-8MR Merlin

Bensen, Basil Mitrophan (father)

Bensen, David I.

Bensen Days

Bensen Gyrocopter

Bensen Gyroglider

Bensen, Igor B[asil]; death

Bensen International Gyrocopter Transport Company (BIG-T

Company)

Bensen, Mark V.

Bensen, Mary T.; death

Bensen, Ricky I.

Bensen, V. B.

Bentley, Richard

Between Time and Timbuktu

Bidwell, Louis Antonio Bolin

Big Bird gyrocopter

Biggin Hill

Bingham, Hiram

Blériot, Louis

Blue Angel

Bohannon, Tex

Bolek Brunak, P. E.

Bond, James. See also You Only Live Twice

Born Free

Bouché, Henri

Bower, R. F.

Bowes, Ross

Box tail

Boyette, Ernie

Boyne, Walter,

Brancker, Sir Sefton; death

Bratukhin, Ivan Pavel

Brazil

Bréguet Company

Bréguet, Louis

Briand, Guy

Brie, Reginald “Reggie” A. C.; post office flights

Bristol Aircraft Ltd.

Bristol Helicopter Division of Westland Aircraft Ltd.

British Air Purchasing Commission

British Board of Trade

British European Airways (BEA)

British Rotorcraft Association (BRA)

British Rotorcraft Museum

British Royal Aeronautical Society

Brock, Ken; death

Brock, Marie

Brock, Terry

Brocolli, Albert R. “Cubby”

Brooks, Peter W.
Brown, James

Brownridge, David

Bruce, Mrs. Victor

Bryn Athyn, PA

Buchanan, Buck

Budd Company

Budwig, Gilbert

Buhl, A. H.

Buhl Aircraft Company

Buhl Autogiro (Pusher)

Buhl, Lawrence D.

Bumble Bee

Bundy, Glenn

Bureau of Air Commerc

Burns, George

Butler, Susan

Butler, Tom

Byrd, Rear Admiral Richard E.

C-3 bomber

C.7

C.10

C.11

C.12

C.21

C.30

C.30A

C.30MkIII

C.30P

C.30PMkII

Cairncrest

Calloway, Cab

Calvert, Reg

Campbell, Harris

Canada

Capon, P. T.

Captive Flight Devices

Carnegie, Andrew

Carnegie Foundation

Carney, Don (Howard Rice)

Carney, Ray

Carroll, Thomas

Carter Aviation Technologies (CAT)

Carter, Jay Jr.

Carter, Jay Sr.

CarterCopter

CarterCopters L.L.C.

Cartier, Kerry

Casuso, Vitorica, Conde de los Moriles

Cavin, Dick

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

Certificate of Airworthiness (C.19MI)

Certificats de Navigabilté

Cessna Model C337 Skymaster

Chalais Meudon wind tunnel

Chamberlin, S. J.

Champion Spark Plug Company

Chanute, Octave

Chaplin, Charlie

Charles H. Babb Company

Charlet, Betty Jo

Charlet, George J. Sr.

Charnov, Bruce H.

Chauviére, Lucian

Cheremukhin, Aleksei M.

Chernavsky, A. P.

Chicago Helicopter Airways

Chichén-Itzá

Childs, Geoffrey O.

China

Churchill, Winston

Cierva Autogiro Company Ltd.

Cierva BCD-1
Cierva BCD-2

Cierva C.1

Cierva C.2

Cierva C.3

Cierva C.4

Cierva C.5

Cierva C.6

Cierva C.6A

Cierva C.6bis

Cierva C.6C

Cierva C.6D

Cierva C.8L-I

Cierva C.8L-II

Cierva C.8R

Cierva C.8V

Cierva C.8W

Cierva C.19MkII

Cierva C.19MkIII
Cierva C.19MkIV

Cierva C.19MkV

Cierva, Don Juan de la Peñiel

Cierva y Codorníu, Juan de la; birth of; death of; direct

control; education; Elliott Cresson Medal; marriage of;
parliament service; pilot's license; prizes; Scott Award

Cierva y Codorníu, Ricardo de la

Cierva-Lepère C.L.10

Cierva-Lepère C.L.10A

Cierva-Lepère C.L.10B

Cierva-Lepère C.L.20

CIOS (Combined Intelligence Objectives Sub-Committee)

Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938

C.L.10 Autogiro

Clem, Bill

Clerget

Clouston, Air Commodore A. E.

Coca-Cola

Colbert, Claudette
Cole, James

Coleman, Prewitt

Collective control

Collier Trophy

Collins, Helen

Collins, Paul

Connery, Sean

Convertiplane

Coolidge, Calvin

Cooley, Harold

Cordon, Harry

Courtney, Captain Frank T.

Cousteau, Phillipe

Cove, Hutchinson

Cox, Jack

Crazies Hill, nr Henley-on-Thames

Croft, Juan K. “Jay”

Cropmaster
Crown Tool Corporation

Croydon Aerodrome

Cuatro Vientos

Curtiss, Glenn Hammond

Curtiss-Wright

Cyclic pitch control

Czechoslovakia,

Daniel Guggenheim Gold Medal

Darvassy, Helen

Davis, Ed

Dean, Donald

Dean, Godfrey W.

Dédalo

de Ferranti, Nigel

DeGraw, Dick

DeGraw, Karol

de Havilland Aircraft Company

de Irujo, Luis M.
Delaney, R. W.

Denmark

Dennis, John N.

Denniston, Edward E.

Department of Commerc

Deperdussin

De Saar, Bart “Woody,”

Des Moines Register and Tribune

D'Estout, Henri

Detroit News

Deutschland-Halle

Devon, Francis Ear

Devore, Gilbert

De Vries, Alida “Lisa”

Dick Smart Agent 2.007

DiGateano, Jim

Direct control

Doblhoff, Friedrich von

Dolenz, Micky

Dominator

Don Quixote

Donald, David

Doolitle, James “Jimmy” H[arold]

Doorn, R. V.

Dormoy, Etienne

Dorsey Bill (HR 8143)

Dorsey, Frank J. G.

Dorsey-Logan Act

Dougall, Alastair

Dragon Wing rotor blades

Driscoll, Dave

Duke, Jim

Dwiggins, Don

Dyer, Henry

Earhart, Amelia

Easter Island
Eastern Air Lines (EAL)

Edison, Charles

Edison, Thomas

Eerola, Aulis

Eich, Jim

Eisenhower, President Dwight D.

El Cangrejo (“The Red Crab”). See also BCD-1

El Mirage

Elliott Cresson Medal

Elrod, Charles “Charlie”

Emelianov, Yu. I.

Empire Mersey

England

Espinosa Arias, José María

Evans, Art

Evdokimov, V. M.

Everett-Heath, John

Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA)

“Experimental” category

Extreme-Mu Flight

Eyermann, Karl-Heinz,

F. Hills and Sons

FAA Statement of Acrobatic Competency

Fairchild Engine and Aircraft Corporation

Fairey Gyrodyne

Fairey Rotodyne. See also Rotodyne

Farnborough

Farrington Heliplane

Farrington, Ira Donald “Don”

Faulkner, Jim

Fay, John

Federal Aviation Act of 1958

Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs)

Fédération Aéronautique International (FAI)

Fernández, Amalio Diaz

Fernández, Pablo Diaz

Ferry, Don Ricardo Ruiz

Fetters, Dennis

Fetters, Laura González

Fields, Kathryn

Fields, Stu

Fields, W. C. (William Claude Dukenfield)

Filatov, E. I.

Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

Firestone XR-9 helicopter

Firestone XR-14 helicopter

Fischer, Albert G.

Fischer, Christian

Fitzwilliams, O. L. L.

Fleetwings Co.

Flettner, Anton

Flettner Fl

Flettner Fl

Flettner Fl 201 Heligyro

Floyd Bennett Field

FlyGyro!

Flying,

Flying jeep (Fleep)

Flying lawn chair

FNCASE C.301

Focke, Heinrich K[arl] J[ohan]

Focke-Achgelis Fa-61

Focke-Achgelis Fa-330

Focke-Achgelis Fa-336

Focke-Achgelis G.mbH

Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau A. G. (Gmbh)

Focke-Wulf Fw

Focke-Wulf

Fonda, Henry

Ford, Brian

Ford, Edsel

Ford 4-AT Tri-motor

Ford, Henry

Ford, John B.

Ford Motor Company

Ford, Roger

Forrest, Helen

Forsyth, A. Graham

Fourcade, Jean

France

Franco, General Francisco

Franklin Institute

Frick, Henry Clay

G & A Aircraft

G-E Gyro-glider

Gable, Clark

Gablehouse, Charles

Gallager, Sheldon M.

Garber, Paul E.

Garrison, Peter
Gellatly, W. Ron

General Electric Company

General Motors Company

Germany

Getafe airfield

Gibler, Gary

Gillespie, Mac

Gittens, David

Gizmo

Glanville, Kemp

Glanville Skymaster

Glasgow, University of

Gluhareff, Michael

Gluhareff, Serge

Goldsberry, Gary

Goldsberry, Shelly

Gómez Spencer, Alejandro

Gore, Thomas
Gorski, Eddie

Gottingen

Grace, C. W.

Great Skycopter Rescue, The

Green, Carl F.

Gregg, E. Stuart

Gregory, H[ollingsworth] Franklin

Gremminger, Greg

Gremminger, Stephanie

Groen Bros. Aviation (GBA)

Groen, David

Groen, H. Jay

Ground resonance

Guggenheim, Harry

Guggenheim Safe Airplane competition

Guinness, A. E.

Guinness, Loel

Gunston, Bill
Gunther, Carl

GyRhino

Gyro 2000

Gyrobee

Gyrocopter(diagram)

Gyroglider

Gyroplane World

GyroTECH, Inc.

Hafner A.R.III

Hafner, Raoul

Haigh, Rolla A. de Haga

Halaby, Najeeb

Halford, Frank Bernard

Hallett, Mark

Halliburton, Richard

Hamersley, H. A.

Hancock, Ian

Hanging control stick

Hannon, Bill

Hanriot

Hard Hunted

Hardee, LeRoy

Harrison, Jean-Pierre

Haseloh, Bernard

Haseloh, Dan

Haseloh, Peter

Haugen, Victor

Hautmeyer, Captain

Hawk

Hawk 4T

Hawk 6G

Hawks, Frank M.

Haworth, Lionel

Haworth-Booth, R. H.

Hay, Johnny

Haymes, Dick
Heath, Lady Mary

Heath, Lord James

Helicopter Engineering and Research Corporation

Helicraft Equipment Company

Heli-glider

Heliplane

Helsinki University of Technology

Henderson, Cliff,

Hengel, Paul

Henry Ford Museum

Hermosa, Mermos

Herrick, Gerald P.

Herrick HV-1 (Vertaplane)

Herrick HV-2A (Convertaplane)

Herron, Ron. See also Little Wing Autogyros

High Seater

Hill, Alexander “Sandy”

Hill, Norman
Hiller Helicopters

Hines, Bill

Hinkler, H. J. L. (Bert)

Hislop, George S.

Hispano Suiza

Hitler, Adolf

Hives, Lord Ernest

HMS Avenger

Hoare, Sir Samuel

Hodgess, Fred L.

Holland

Hollmann, Martin

Homebuilt Rotorcraft

Hong Kong

Hoover, Herbert

Hoover, Mike

Horizon Company

Houston, Dr. Stewart

Hughes, Howard

Humble, Fl. Lt. W.

Hunn, Duane

Hunt, William E.

Hurst Foundation Ice 90 gyroplane

Ikenga Cygnus 21

Ikenga Cygnus 21P

Ikenga Cygnus 21T

Ikenga Cygnus 21TX

Ikenga 530Z

“I'll Buy That Dream”

India

Ingalls, David S.

International Council of Air Shows (ICAS)

International Gyroplane Organization

International House

Isakson, A. M.

Isotani, Rensuke
It Happened One Night

Italy

Iturbi, José

Ivanoskii, A. A.

Jablonski, Edward

Jackson, A. J.

James, Derek N.

Jansen, Russell W. “Russ”

Japan

Japan Airways

Jarrett, Philip

Jet Gyrodyne

JE-2

JIOA (Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency)

John Scott Award

Johnson & Johnson

Johnson, Beverly

Johnson, Brian
Johnson, James (“Jimmy”)

Johnson, Tim

Johnson, Wayne

Johnston, S. Paul

Jones, Aubrey

Jones, Mel Morris

Josselyn, John

Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society, The

Jovanovich, Drago K.

JOV-3

Joyce, Pat

Judge, John W. C. “Pee Wee”

Jump takeoff; German

Junta Superior de Estudios y Pensiones para Extrajero

Kaman Aircraft Corporation

Kaman, Charles H.

Kamov Ka-22 (“Screw Wing”). See also Vintokryl

Kamov, Nikolai I.
KaSkr-I

KaSkr-II

Kawasaki

Kay, Antony L.

Kay, David

Kay 32/1 gyroplane

Kay 33/1 gyroplane

Kayaba Ka-1

Kayaba Ka-1A

Kayaba Ka-1KAI

Kayaba Ka-2

Kayaba, K. K. Seisakusho (industrial company)

KB-2

KB-3

KD-1A (repaired by Kayaba)

Kellett Aircraft Company

Kellett Autogiro Company

Kellett brothers
Kellett K-1X

Kellett K-2 (also KA-1)

Kellett K-2A

Kellet K-3

Kellett K-4

Kellett KD-1

Kellett KD-1A (YG-1)

Kellett KD-1B (YG-1B)

Kellett KH-17

Kellett KH-17A

Kellett, Roderick “Rodney”

Kellett, W. Wallace

Kellett XG-1B

Kellett XO-60/YO-60

Kellett XR-2

Kellett XR-3

Kellett XR-8

Kellett XR-10
Kennedy, Jacqueline Bouvier

Kenworthy, Bob

Keys, Clement Melville

Kilchriste, Niel

Kindersley, Hugh K. M.

Kindersley, Sir Robert M. (Lord)

King, H. F.

King, Russ

Kirk, Joe

Klemin, Alexander

Kohn, Leo J.

Kokkonen, Ere

Korzinshchikov, Sergei A.

Koshits, D. A.

Kostelanetz, André

Kreiser, Walter

Krotz, Harvey

Kuznetsov, Vyaceslav A.
Kyushu

Labensky, Boris P.

Ladies Crave Excitement

L'Aéronautique

LaFleur, Dan

LaFleur, Linda (Haseloh)

Lane, Andy

Langley Field

Langley, Samuel Pierpont

Larsen, Agnew E.

“Larsen's Goon,

Laufer, Theodor

Laurent-Eynac, Victor,

Law, E. E.

Law, Ruth

Lawton, Peter

Lazard Brothers

Le Bourget
Le Rhône

Lead-lag drag hinges

Leading Edge Aircraft. See also Tiffany, Kate and Jack

Leavitt, Lou (Levy)

Lecea, Lieutenant Jose Rodríguez Diaz de

Leduk, Rene,

Leikkikalugangsteri (Toy Gangster)

LeO C.30

Leonides engine

LePage, W[ynn] Laurence

Lepère, Georges

Lepreux, Roger

Leslie, Dan

Levy, Howard

Lewis, George

Liberatore, E. K.

Lift, dissymmetry of

Lilienthal, Otto
Linares, Colonel Emilio Herrera

Lindbergh, Charles

Linder, Mort

Lioré, Fernand

Lioré-et-Olivier (LeO )

Lithuania

Little, Ian

Little Nellie. See also Wallis WA-116

Little Wing Autogyros. See also Herron, Ron

Little Wing ‘Roto-Pup’

Loch Ness monster

Loening, Grover

London Metropolitan Police Department

Lopez, Donald S.

Loriga, Taboada, Capt. Joaquín

Love, Sandy

Lovell, Mary S.

Lowe, Edmund
Ludington, C[harles] Townsend

Ludington, Nicholas

Lukens, J[ohn] Paul (“Skipper”)

Luscombe Airplane Company

L. W. Steere Company

Lysanders

MacGregor Arctic Expedition

MacKay, Hal

Macmillan, Harold,

Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior

Madzsar, Josef

Maginot Line

Magni, Lisa

Magni, Luca

Magni, Pietro

Magni Tervamäki MT-5 Eligyro

Magni Tervamäki MT-7 (Griffon)

Magni, Vittorio
Magni's Day

Magni-USA L.L.C.

Mahaddie, Hamish

Maier, Roland “Blackie”

Mängoos Stealth Gyroplane

Manning, Spud

March, Daniel J.

Marchetti Avenger

Marchetti, Frank

Marsh, Alan H.

Marshall, Rick

Martian Chronicles

Martin, Dave

Martin, Pierre

Martin-Barbadillo, Tomás de

Martinez, Jorge Loring

Mauvais, Jean

Maxim Gorkii Propaganda Squadron

Maxim, Sir Hiram Stevens

McAvoy, Bill

McClarren, Ralph H.

McCormick, W. S.

McCracken, William P.

McCulloch Aircraft Corporation

McCulloch engine

McCulloch J-2

McCulloch Super J-2 Gyroplane

McCutchen, Jim

McCutchen Skywheels Corporation

McDonnell XV-1

McDougall, Harry

McMullen, J. A.

Mellen, Joan

Mellon, Richard

Menforth, Sir Eric

Mentone. See also PRA Mentone

Menzie, Ron

Merkel, Howard

Merkel, O. J.

Micarta

Mid America Air Museum

Mikheev, Ivan

Mikheyev, I. V.

Mil, Mikhail L.

Miles, Frederick

Miles, George

Miller, John M. (“Johnny”)

Milton, Tom

Misleading Lady, The

“Miss Champion” (NC11609)

Missing Link

Mitchell, William (“Billy”)

Modus Verticraft Inc. (MVI)

Moffett, William A.
Moisant, Matilde

Mondey, David

Montedison

Montgomerie, Jim

Montgomery, R. L.

Morley, Sylvanus G.

Morton, John G. P.

Mourelo, Colonel Don Julio Rodríguez

Munson, Kenneth

Murcia, Antonio Hernandez-Ros Codorníu

Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace

Nagler, Bruno

Nagler Heli-Giro Aeronca

Nagler VG-1-Vertigyro

Nagler VG-2-Vertigyro

Napier Eland N.E.1.3 turboprop engines

Napier Eland N.E.1.7

National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA)

National Aeronautic Association (NAA)

National Geographic

National Safety Transportation Board

Naval Air Station (NAS) Willow Grove

Naval War College

Navy Bureau of Aeronautics

Neal, Larry

Nelson, William

New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking

New England Giro

New Guinea

New Television Workshop

New York Airways (NYA)

New Zealand

Nicaragua (USMC tests)

Nichols, Lt. Erickson S.

Nichols, Ruth

Nicol, Jean
Nieuport

Nishibori, Zenji

Noorduyn, Robert B. C.

Noyes, Blanche

O'Brien, Kathryn E.

O'Connor, Doug

Ogden, Bob

Okanagan Helicopters Ltd.

Okura & Company

O'Leary, Michael

Oliver, Flying Officer L. W.

Osaka University

Otdel Oskbykh Konstruktsii (OOK)

Otis, Arthur S.

Otto, Charlie, death of

Over-spinning

PA-1 Fleetwing

Papanin expedition
Parham, Don,

Paris Salon de l'Aeronautique

Parker, David

Parnell, George

Parsons, Bill

Parsons, Rowland

Pasanen, Spede

Pate, George III

Payne, Peter Rowland

Pearl Equipment Company

Pearson, Jeff

Pearson, Mark

Pecker, Joseph S.

Pegasus Mk III

Pegasus Rotorcraft Ltd.

Penn, A. J.

Pep Boys Snowman

Pescara, Marquis Raul de Pateras

Phaneuf, Steve

Philpott, Bryan

Piasecki, Frank Nicholas

Pierson, Rex

Pima Air and Space Museum

Piper, William

Piper-Marriott Autogyro

Pisano, Dr. Dominick

Pitbull

Pitcairn AC-35 (also PA-35) (“Roadable”)

Pitcairn Autogiro Company

Pitcairn Autogiro Company, Inc.

Pitcairn Aviation (Aircraft) Company

Pitcairn, Clara

Pitcairn (Firestone) PA-44 (XO-61/YO-61)

Pitcairn, Harold Fredrick; death; sells airline

Pitcairn, John

Pitcairn, Nathan
Pitcairn PA-5 Mailwing

Pitcairn PA-6 Mailwing,

Pitcairn PA-7 Mailwing

Pitcairn PA-18

Pitcairn PA-19 (“Cabin Autogiro”)

Pitcairn PA-22

Pitcairn PA-35 (also AC-35)

Pitcairn PA-36 (“Whirlwing”)

Pitcairn PA-38

Pitcairn PA-39

Pitcairn PAA-1

Pitcairn PCA-1

Pitcairn PCA-1A

Pitcairn PCA-1B (“Black Ship”) (“Black Maria”)

Pitcairn PCA-2

Pitcairn PA-33 (YG-2)

Pitcairn PA-34 (XOP-2)

Pitcairn, Raymond
Pitcairn, Stephen “Steve”

Pitcairn, Theodore

Pitcairn XOP-1

Pitcairn XOP-2 (PA-34)

Pitcairn-Alfaro PCA-2-30 (alsoPC-2-30)

Pitcairn-Larsen Autogiro Company

Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company

Platt, Havilland D.

Platt-LePage Helicopter Company

Platt-LePage XR-1 helicopter

Playboy

Poland

Pollard, Hugh

Pope, Francis

Popular Mechanics

Popular Rotorcraft Association. See alsoPRA

Popular Rotorcraft Flying (later Rotorcraft)

Posey, Mike
Potter, John T.

Puget Sound Airways

Punta India Military Airport

PRA. See also Popular Rotorcraft Association

PRA Mentone. See also Mentone

Prandtl, Ludwig

Prerotator

Prewitt, Richard H.

Pride, Alfred M.

Prince, David C.

Princeton University

Project Skywards (Australia)

Putnam, George Palmer

Pyle, Ernie

Pynchon, George Jr.

R & D Aeronautical Engineering, Inc.

R 101, crash

RAF School of Army Cooperation

Radar calibration

Ramal, Larry

Rawson, Arthur H. C. A. (“Dizzy”)

Ray, James G. “Jim”

“Reefer Man”

Reitsch, Hanna

Renard, Charles

Renner, Dennis

Revista de locomocion aerea

Revolution Helicopter Corporation (RHCI)

Riabouchinskii, D. P.

Rickenbacker, Edward “Eddie”

Ricker R.W.T.

Rieseler, Walter

Riggs, Arliss

Ríos Argüeso, Capt. Julio

Riviere, Pierre

Roberts, Morton
Rockefeller, John D.

Rocketeer, The

Rockne, Knute

Rohlfs, Ewald

Rolls-Royce; Dart engine; Tyne

Rommel, Joseph

Roosevelt, Eleanor

Roosevelt, Franklin

Rose, Cy

Rose, Don

Roseberry, C. R.

ROTA I

ROTA II

Rotachute

Rotary Air Force (RAF)

Rotax

Rotodyne; “21st Century” . See also Fairey Rotodyne

Rotodyne Y
Rotodyne Z

Rotor Flight Dynamics, Inc. (RFDI)

Rotor Gazette International

Royal Aeronautical Society, The (TRAS)

Royal Air Force (RAF)

Royal Aircraft Establishment

Royal Canadian Navy (RCN)

Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of America and

Canada

Russian Revolution

Rutan, Burt

Ryan Aeronautical Company

Sakurajima

Saltzman, Harry

Sanders, Bill

Sandino, Augusto Cesaer

Sandys, Duncan

Santa Ana Metal Stamping

Santos-Dumont, Alberto

Santoyo, General Francisco Echague

Saunders, Charles

Saunders-Roe Ltd.

SBAC Show at Farnborough

Schlossbach, I. LCDR USN

Schneider, Carl

Schneider, John J.

Scorpion tail

Scotland

Scott, John

Scott, William B.

Screen Actors Guild

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)

Seiler, Fred

Self, J. Blake

Sensensich propeller

Shaw, Kurt
Shepard, William B.

Sidaris, Andy

Sierra de Mijas

Sigfried Line

Sikorsky, Igor

Sikorsky VS-300 helicopter

Sikorsky XR-5

Singapore

Skrshinsky, Nikolai K. (Skrzhinskii)

Sky Sport Japan Air Show

Skyway Engineering Company, Inc.

Smith, Frank Kingston

Smith, Harold R. “Red”

Smith, J. R.

Smith, Jim

Smithhart, Les

Smithsonian Institution (National Air and Space Museum);

Silver Hill
Snobird

Société Française de la Navigation Aérienne (SFNA)

Sociéte Française de Locomotion Aerienne

Société Nationale de Constructions Aéronautique du Sud-Est

(SNCASE),

Soldiers Field

Solnitsev, G. I.

Sottile, Jim

Soule, Frederick (“Fred”) (“Slim”)

South Africa

Soviet Union

Soviet-Finn War of 1939–40

Spain; first military use

Spanish Aeronautica Industrial SA (AISA)

Spanish Civil War

Spenser, Jay P.

Springer, Al “Doc”

Springer, Marion
Sport Copter

Sport Copter Vortex

Sportster

Stalin, Joseph

Standard Oil Company of New York (SOCONY) and Ohio

Stanley, Paul

Stepan, August

Stevens Institute of Technology

Stinnett, Mike

Stoker, M. B. J.

Strawbridge and Clothier

Strawbridge, Ann

Stringer, Alf

Subaru

Sullivan, Frank D.

Suzuki

Sweden

Swedenborg, Emanuel
Swenson, Robert

“Synchropter”

Synnestvedt & Lechner

Synnestvedt, Raymond

Taggart, Ralph

Tagore, Rabindranath

Tall tail gyroplane, 234; Beaty controversy

Tank, Kurt

Tasker, Pete

Tatarian, Allen

Taylor, H. A.

Taylor, John W. R.

Taylor, Michael

Taylor, Michael J. H.

Templehof

Terradillos, Julio Adaro

Tervamäki JT-1

Tervamäki JT-5
Tervamäki, Jukka

Thomas, Bob

Thomas, Kas

Thomas, Patricia

Thompson, Darrow

Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines

Tien-Shan (Tyan-Shan)

Tiffany, Kate and Jack .See also Leading Edge Aircraft

Tiltrotor technology

Time

Tinker, C. L.

Tobin, James

Tobin, Verne

Todd, Jon

Tordesillas, Rafael Silvela

Torre, Captain Felipe Gómez-Acebo

Townson, George

Trenchard, Sir Hugh

Trent, Ed[gar] B.

Tri-State Airways (Gilbert Flying Service)

Trovimov, P.

Truelove, Reginald

Truman, Harry

TsAGI A-6

TsAGI A-7 (EA-7)

TsAGI A-7bis

TsAGI A-7-3a

TsAGI A-8

TsAGI A-12

TsAGI A-13

TsAGI A-14

TsAGI A-15

TsAGI 2-EA

TsAGI 4-EA (A-4)

TsAGI 11-EA

TsAGI 11-EA-PV
Tsentralnyi Aero-gidrodinamicheskii Institut (Central Aero-
Hydrodynamics Institute) (TsAGI)

Turner, C. C.

Twinstar (later Twinstarr)

Tyler Shadow

Tyler, Walter “Skip”

Ubootsauge (U-boat's eyes)

U.F.O. Helithruster

Ultralight

Umbaugh Aircraft Corporation

Umbaugh 18A. See also Air & Space 18A

Umbaugh, Raymond E. “Ray”

“Uncle Don's Radio Club”

Union pour la SÉcuritÉ en AÉroplane

United Aircraft and Transport Corporation

United States Air Force Museum

United States Marine Corps (USMC)

United States Naval Institute Proceedings

Upson, Ralph H.

Ureta Zabala, Capt. JosÉ Luis

USS Langley

Utah Olympic Public Safety Command (UOPSC)

Vancraft

Vanek, Chuck

Vanek, Jim

Vanek, Kelly

Van Hoten, Mary

VanVorhees, John

Varona, Maria Luisa Gómez-Acebo

Venture Industries

Vereingte Flugtechnische Werke (VFW) H-3

Vickers Aviation,

Vidal, Eugene D. (“Gene”)

Vidal, Gore

Vidal, Katherine “Kit”

Vidal, Nina Gore

Villacoublay

Villard, Henry Serrano

Vintokryl (“Screw Wing”). See alsoKamov Ka22

Vivian, Michael

Vonnegut, Kurt Jr.

Vortex ring state

Vought-Sikorsky Division, United Aircraft Corporation

VPM (Vittorio P. Magni)

Wade, Leigh

Wagner, Bob

Wakefield Medal

Walker, Bud

Walker, John

Wallis Days

Wallis, Emily May (Barker)

Wallis, Horace

Wallis WA-117/R

Wallis, Wing Commander RAF (Ret'd.) Kenneth H.

Wartime Royalty Adjustment Board

Washington Daily News

Watkins, John L.

Watson, Ken

Watterson, Connie

Weir, Mrs. J. G.

Weir, James G. (“Jimmy”)

Weir of Eastwood, Viscount (Lord) William

Weir W.1

Weir W.2

Weir W.3

Weir W.4

Weldon Stump Company

Weser Flugzeubau Gesellschaft (Hoykenkamp)

West Kentucky Airpark

Western Aerospace Museum

Westland Aircraft Ltd.

Westland Aviation Works

Westley, King

Weymann CTW.200 (WEL.200)

Weymann CTW.201

Weymann, Éstablissements Aéronautique

Weymann-Lepère C.18

Wheatley, John,

Wheeldon, E. C.

White House

Whiteman, Phillip

Wiener Neustadter Flugzeugwerke (WNF)

Wilford XOZ-1

Wilford, E. Burke

Willow Grove

Wilson, Al

Wimperis, H. E.

Winchell, Walter

Wind Dancer

Wind Ryder
Wind Ryder Engineering

Wind Ryder Hurricane

WNF 342 V1

WNF 342 V2

WNF 342 V3

WNF 342 V4

Wood, Derek

Wood, Tony

Woods, Harris

Woods, Kia

Wright, Orville

Wright, Wilbur

WRK Gyroplane

XNJ 790

X-25A

X-25B

Yancey, Lewis A. “Lew”

Yaw, Charlie
Year-Round Club

Yermak

You Only Live Twice

Young, Arthur D.

Young, Clarence A.

Young, Warren

Yugoslavia

Yulke, Ed

Yuriev, Boris N.

Zarr, Marco

Zazas, James B.

Zeus III

Zimmerman, Robert
 About the Author
BRUCE H. CHARNOV is Associate Professor and Chairperson
of the Management, Entrepreneurship and General Business
Department of the Frank G. Zarb School of Business at
Hofstra University in Hempstead, Long Island, New York.