The Autogiro.

(AVIATION) DE LA CIERVA, Juan [inventor]

Published by Pitcairn-Cierva Autogiro Company of America (1930), Philadelphia, 1930

About this Item

First edition (a second edition was published 3 years later. Quarto (8 7/8 x 11 3/4 inches). 31, [1] pp. with photographic illustrations on every page. Publisher's pictorial wrappers. Small stamp at head of from wrapper, else a very good copy."Instead of a wing, the autogiro had a large propeller on top. A second, regular propeller drove it forward. But the big overhead propeller free-wheeled as the autogiro flew; it provided only lift. An autogiro could take off and land in a very short distance; but it couldn't rise vertically, like a helicopter. If one lost power, it spun safely back down to earth like a maple seed. It was developed by Spanish aerial pioneer Juan de la Cierva. Cierva and his brother began trying to build airplanes before WW-I while he was a civil-engineering student in Madrid. Juan de la Cierva built conventional airplanes for several years before he began thinking about the autogiro. Finally one night at the opera Aida he realized how to balance lift on advancing and retreating blades of that overhead propeller" (J. Leihard). For some while there was a fantasy that everyone would own an autogiro and park it in their driveways. A year after this publication Amelia Earhart tried to be the first person to fly an autogiro coast to coast; she finally made it only to be told she had been beaten to the punch. In the late 1930s real helicopters came on the scene and that was, in effect, the end of the autogiro. Seller Inventory # 74956

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Autogiro.

Publisher: Pitcairn-Cierva Autogiro Company of America (1930), Philadelphia

Publication Date: 1930