University of Northern Iowa

From Glider to Autogiro

Author(s): Juan de la Cierva and Donald F. Rose
Source: The North American Review, Vol. 228, No. 5 (Nov., 1929), pp. 530-535
Published by: University of Northern Iowa
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25110872 .
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 From Glider to
Autogiro
By de la Cierva
Juan
(With Donald F. Rose)

The inventor of the famous "flying windmill", latest sensation

in aviation, tells for the first time the story of his
aeronautical achievements

ine is not a as what we could with and then

kites,
long story,
years go, but neither is the dared further. We to build
began
a very venerable our first success
M airplane gliders, achieving
affair. I myself have lived long with a
monoplane whose motive

enough
to remember the first suc power was provided by small boys of
cessful flights of theWright brothers. the neighborhood at the end of a
Only
a year or two later I was
busy rope. Fortunately for us young pilots
inMadrid with aviation there were no cliffs at hand for our
experiments
of my own. At the age of an Ameri take-offs. The best we could do was
can
high-school freshman, I had to slide off from a fifteen-foot bluff
studied as
thoroughly
as I could the below which lay a gently sloping
work of Langley, Maxim, Ader, hill. At the end of a few hundred feet
Chanute and others, and particularly of rope we coasted a few yards
along
the theories and of Otto from the ground. We built controls
designs
Lilienthal. The latter was a true pio into our craft, crude ailerons and
neer of the age of with such aeronautical wis
flight, and when he rudder,
was killed in 1896 after more than dom as was in us. And we flew, and
two thousand gliding flights he was somehow broke none of our necks.

definitely on his way to the triumph

which was won at last at craft worked so well that I
Kitty
Hawk. The came under severe
pressure from
With the confidence of brother, who saw no
supreme my younger
my fourteen years, I was not de reason why he should not also fly.
terred from aerial The three proprietors of the com
experiments by
my knowledge of Lilienthal's fate. pany yielded at last, and up he went.
There were three of us boys in a little But either an unusual gust of wind
aviation and one of my came at that moment or there
"company" along
associates had access to his father's was some serious error in our aero
to the
woodworking factory. This helped nautical calculations owing
very considerably to reduce the over lighter weight of the pilot. Suddenly
head of our experiments. We did the glider shot fifty feet in the air,

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 FROM GLIDER TO AUTOGIRO 531
brother and all, which was an to be our test the work
entirely pilot when
It was was done ? if it ever was done.
unprecedented performance.
so in fact, that the engine We three boys put the machine
startling,
stopped, which is to say that the together again with scraps of wood
on the end of the rope and canvas and tons of ingenuity.
boys forgot
their vital sha?re in the demonstration We could buy no parts, principally
and slowed down to look and ap to as to
owing parental skepticism
plaud. Thereupon the glider ceased the importance of our experiments,
to and came down in a as so we made them as best we could.
glide, spin
as it had gone up. We whittled out struts and spars,
suddenly
My brother went to bed for a few and tools from the wood
begged help
weeks to get over his first flight. We and stretched our
working factory,
to the secret of his canvas and tail surfaces as
managed keep wings
to head as could be no
accident, reporting family tight by hand. Having
that he had made a bad
quarters dope except ordinary glue, I confess
on a that in the latter days of that air
landing bicycle. Not until fifteen
later was the real story re it was a strangely
years plane sticky ship in
vealed, and even at that distance wet weather. A serious problem, in
my father's consternation was con deed, was the propeller, which had
siderable. been smashed beyond repair. The
our entire re
difficulty challenged
to an end sources of aeronautical
brought abrupt knowledge
This our More and ingenuity.
glider experiments.
over we were and
tiring of gliders
anxious to build a real
airplane.
knew that propellers should be
Planes were not unknown in Spain, I built of laminated wood, but we
though I believe that the one we had no proper wood and we couldn't
built when I was fifteen was the first have laminated it if we had. The
successful ever constructed solution was in the nature of an
airplane
in my country. accident. It seemed to me that
A French named Mauvais seasoned wood was a
pilot prerequisite
came to Madrid in an early model to a successful
propeller. We looked
Farman, in what would be called around for seasoned wood. At last we
in America a found a in the
barnstorming trip. heavy counter-top
Shortly afterwards he crashed, which bar-room of a hotel. It was a fine
was a not uncommon end to flying of wood and I reasoned that it
piece
demonstrations in those days. Not must be thoroughly seasoned with
much was left of his craft except the alcohol. We it and chopped
? purchased
Gnome rotary engine not and chiselled out of it our propeller.
enough
to make it worth his while to collect I thought I knew enough of theory
the pieces. We entered into negotia and design to it a respectable
give
tions with him. We would rebuild curve and balance, and it actually
on a new worked well it
his machine design and
enough. No doubt
make it fly, after which he could have vibrated a little, but a few vibrations
it back to do with as he would. He more or less made little difference in
thought it a good idea and promised Spain's first airplane.

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 S32 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW
The visiting French flyer warmed lege work was to be
completed,
a
to the work as it to was announced for
began promise competition Span
success, and contributed his advice ish-built aircraft. The war was on,
and assistance. The day came at last and Spain was in large degree iso
when he took it into the air and pro lated from aeronautical develop
nounced it a practical flying
ma ments in the rest of the world. The
chine once more. It wasn't as Powers were their
exactly fighting keeping
good as new, but it would and did aviation secrets as well as
they
fly. Sometimes I would sit behind the could, and the competing designers
French flyer and reach around him were to work as much
compelled
to hold the wheel, but I made no with theory as with ex
practical
mistake of thinking myself a pilot. perience. I noted that all the entries
The machine did a lot of flying announced were for comparatively
thereafter, but died of old age and light craft, so I decided to build a
nervous exhaustion about a year else was
bombing plane. Nobody
later.
building a bombing plane, and it
seemed likely that whatever I built
triumvirate built one more would be the winner in its class, pro
before we com vided it would fly.
Our plane parted
pany. I was seventeen at the time,
and far better equipped with knowl believe that this was the second
edge than at first. Moreover the I ever built.
three-engine plane
science of aerodynamics and perfec The Italian Caproni preceded it, but
tion in plane design had ma4e great it was an unconventional type of
strides. I had followed every new whereas mine was a bi
plane, big
development and was anxious to try with three tractor
plane propellers.
some of my own. This time we had On purely theoretical I in
grounds
the benefit of encouragement and other ideas in the design
corporated
some from home. We built which were later approved in general
financing
a ? ?
monoplane, powered with a Rhone such for example as
practice,
motor. It was a
soundly designed the thick wing. It was built and in
ship, but it
was too fast for power
1919 it flew successfully at its first
plants in those days and it was trials. The test was
terrifically
pilot
tricky to get off the ground and nervous at first over so
handling
trickier to get down but in much at once, but in a few
again, airplane
the air it flew like a racing plane. days he had reached the other
It had a number of minor accidents, extreme of excess confidence. Bank
each of which cost money for altera too and too close to the
ing casually
tions and repairs. When our parents he side-slipped my creation
ground
would no more for a into a and that
pay rebuilding heap of wreckage,
or a new was the end of that.
wing-tip buying propeller,
the ship was sold and our the net outcome of so
triple Surveying
alliance broke up forever. Mean much work and study I discovered
while I went off to college for seven suddenly that I was tired of air
long years of technical education. planes. I was, in fact, disgusted with
In 1918, one year before my col airplanes. They would fly, yes, but

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 FROM GLIDER TO AUTOGIRO 533
they Would only fly safely with But the conclusion which proved
extraordinarily skilful handling. One at last the germ of the autogiro was
on the part of the that there are not
blunder pilot and three types of
were and expen machines but an in
they immediately possible flying
or destroyed al definite number. For sustentation in
sively damaged
together. They could fly fast but the air is the product of the move
they could not
fly slow. They could ment of an airfoil at sufficient speed
fly high in the heavens but they dare through the air, and all sorts of such
not to movements can be designed
fly close the ground. They and
could manoeuvre like a bird in the combined to effect
flight. To confine
open sky but they could not alight this sustaining motion to the move
like a bird on a chosen spot. And ment of a fixed plane in a single di
nothing about them promised that rection is to limit at once the possi
they could ever escape from limita bilities of the flying machine. It
tions like these? which put strict would be far more desirable to con
bounds to their usefulness, safety trive a wing motion which had no
and possible fixed relation to the
popularity. speed and direc
tion of flight in order to keep the
felt that I was committed to craft off the ground.
I aeronautics by all my training,
and a natural aptitude for trouble. In ornithopter is an attempt to
the shadow of my latest calamity I The such mo
provide independent
contemplated
anew the whole
theory tion by means of flapping wings, like
of flight. There were said to be three those of a bird. But no one has as yet
fundamental types of heavier-than even the extraordinary
approximated
air flying machines. There was the and sensitiveness of a
flexibility
fixed in all its variations. bird's wing a
in man-made machine,
plane,
There was the ornithopter, the flying and ornithopters consistently refuse
machine with some sort of to work. The sus
flapping helicopter attempts
wings. There was the tentation means of pro
helicopter, by spinning
based on the idea of vertical flight by pellers above it, which are essentially
means of an airscrew. I was reason and aerodynamically miniature air
ably familiar with all that had been foils like the wings of an
airplane.
done with each type and I knew that But the few helicopters that have
none but the to done more
plane had amounted than
jump off the ground
anything. All of them had a long and have all come to a bad end after brief
varied history. Daedalus and Icarus and erratic flights. One, the Pescara,
came to in a few hundred
grief ornithopter experi travelled yards, but to
ments in the days of mythology. do so it needed a skill and delicacy of
Jules Verne had designed a helicopter control which would make aviation
which worked beautifully in a book. a virtual impossibility for general
Gliders had been known for a cen use. And it never did it again.
tury. The scrapbooks of science were But the theory was sound, and it
scattered with of strange was sorts of theoretical
pictures capable of all
craft intended to fly by one of these variations. It is theoretically possi
three principles. ble, for example, to fly by adding to

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 534 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW
the motion of forward flight the ef itself from the earth in anything that
fect of a wing thrust forward like an looked like flight.
oar against the air current. But one It is unnecessary to recount the
cannot away in of each new which
keep throwing wings history autogiro
order to maintain so somehow was built to some modi
flight, incorporate
the wing must be able to get back fication in theory and design. There
where it started without were a number of them, but their
breaking
the continuity of flight. Which points behavior was
fairly consistent. Some
at last to a as the lifted one wheel from the ground,
revolving wing
only practicable method of adding some the other; but none of them
the independent motion of an airfoil could lift both wheels at once. Some
to the forward flight induced by the damaged themselves more and some
motor and its propeller. less, and some were built so
sturdily
that they could survive several dis
sounds complicated, but it appointing demonstrations without
This was in more com vital harm. Some of them, on the
reality vastly
plicated than that. I worked at the other hand, were completely smashed
idea in theory and practice, by cal and some were deliberately tested to
culations in aerodynamics which had the crash to discover their
point
no and weaknesses.
practically precedent, by
means of scale models. And at last,
in 1920, I built my first autogiro. is inaccurate to say that
really
This was not only the first auto crashed. Since never
It they they
giro ever but it was also the flew never crashed, and it was
designed, ? they ?
first attempt in history to the as I discovered later
apply impos
principle of freely
revolving wing to sible for them to fly. When the solu
flight. It has been said that the auto tion turned up which made flight
added an essential refinement to con
giro by autogyration possible, they
a known and theo tinued not to crash. It is
principle already exactly
retically practical. But this is not the true to say that since the first auto
case. The first was none has ever
autogiro designed giro left the ground
de novo, and as a of failed for reasons. I
product pure aerodynamic
theory. And it wouldn't work. have had during the purely experi
It wouldn't work because of too mental period breaks due to struc
many These were soon tural weakness or
imperfections. faulty engineering,
remedied in a second model, which and bad landings due to unfamiliar
worked very well indeed that with the machine. I have run
except ity
it wouldn't fly. It scuttled along the into stumps, broken many under
ground, pulled
an
ordinary pro carriages, and made all sorts of un
by
peller attached to an But in good work
ordinary motor, graceful landings.
and the rotor wings turned in the order the has never
ing autogiro
breeze of the accord in a crash in the aviation
ship's progress figured
ing to expectations. But also it rolled sense of the term.
unsteadily and at last turned over on It may be added that no one has
its side, itself here and yet been seriously hurt in an auto
breaking
there in the process. It never lifted which offers a marked contrast
giro,

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 FROM GLIDER TO AUTOGIRO 535
with the history of early develop gotiations which brought the auto
ments in the airplane. There have to America and later on resulted
giro
been no necks broken, and since I in my own visit. The several ma
was chief
pilot in most of my early chines that are now flying here are
own health not
experiments, my good perfected craft. But they have
and condition are evidence of safe outlived already the charge of freak
progress. The first successful autogiro ishness or doubtful experiment.
was built in 1922, and the first suc Let me add a story with a moral.
cessful flight made in January, 1923. A army officer, whose name
Spanish
it is unnecessary to reveal, was
ITHOUT into technical an airfield at which I was
going inspecting
w details, whose complications He was
conducting experiments.
may be suspected from the fact that aware of his value to his country and
I spent five years in perfecting my the of obedience to his
importance
machine to its present the orders. He the desire to
point, expressed
critical corner was turned and the take a ride and was duly loaded into
autogiro became the airplane's first an "I command
airplane. you,"
serious competitor when I developed he told the pilot, "to fly slowly and
the idea of hinging the rotor vanes to to stay near the
ground."
the central mast so that would The general was right and the gen
they
freely articulate. This did away with eral was all wrong. Safe flight is slow
the effect consequent on the and the nearer are to the
rolling flight you
fact that on one side the vanes were ground the less likely you
are to col
moving forward and on the other in lide fatally with it. But not in an
the opposite direction. In the success The is safe only
airplane. airplane
ful machine themselves at
they adjust high speeds and safe only when
freely to the conditions of flight, in well away from the ground. If the
accordance with aerodynamic laws
pilot had taken the general literally
of extraordinary complexity. and seriously, there might be one less
The first public demonstrations of alive to
general today give orders.
the autogiro on a were
large scale its
demonstration flight around England in the autogiro it appears
and the trip across the English Chan But that we have at last a machine
nel in September, 1928, when I that can fly both fast and slowly with
took with me Henri Bouche, director equal safety, and that is as safe at
of an aeronautical newspaper. feet above the earth as at five
fifty
I made part of the flight in com thousand. It lands slowly and safely
pany with the Goliath, one of the because the sustaining motion of
regular London-to-Paris planes, and the continues even
revolving wing
though there had been plenty of un though the forward flight is stopped.
founded criticism to the effect that And with all this the autogiro flies
the autogiro could not fly at a useful and manoeuvres more eas
smoothly
speed, I was compelled
to throttle than the
ily ordinary plane. Any
down in order not to lose my escort. man who can drive a car
through
Shortly thereafter began the ne traffic should be able to a
pilot giro.

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