From Autogiro to Gyroplane: The Amazing Survival of an Aviation Technology

454 Pages·2003·4.3 MB·English

by  Bruce H. Charnov

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