Autogiro. The Story of the "Windmill Plane"

The AUTOGIRO literally flashed across the sky in the early twenties with Sr. Juan de la Cierva's craft making a successful flight in Spain on January 9, 1923. The rotor was turned by a phenomenon called "autorotation." In about a twenty year flurry of activity, it seemed as though the autogiro was sent to make the helicopter, with which many inventors had labored for years and, years, a success. The helicopter interests had been trying since the latter part of the nineteenth century. The problems had been many, but two outstanding ones were power for flight and control in flight. With the arrival of the gasoline engine, the problem of power dissolved. Adequate control for such a machine that was intended to lift straight up and come straight down and fly with a great range of speed was not so easily solved.