| General
History
Affixing
a rotor on a pylon, mounted on a fuselage of a World War
I Avro 504 aircraft, Don Juan de la Cierva produced the
first autogiro in Spain in 1924. After several crashes
and redesigns he figured out how to make them fly and
began to produce and display them. With fixed rotor-heads,
the earlier machines had used movable control surfaces
like an airplane for control. With the production of the
C.30, the autogiro began to come into its own and now
used a control column extending down to the cockpit where
the pilot could now control the autogiro by tilting the
rotor head. By moving the stick sideways the autogiro
assumed the corresponding angle of bank. By pushing the
column forward, the rotor tilts back, increasing the angle
of attack, and the autogiro climbs. Yaw was still controlled
like an airplane with the feet controlling a rudder in
the rear. This new control system gave the pilot far more
control than the earlier versions.
To
learn about the personal history of our very own Cierva
C. 30-A Autogiro as well as comments from Kermit Weeks,
please visit our beautiful art deco facility and old-fashioned
hangars.
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Current
Value: $150,000
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