Neither the invention in 1923 bySpain’s Juan de la Cierva nor the

stunning aircraft produced in America byCierva-licensee Harold F. Pitcairn aremuch remembered, an ironic fate for twoaeronautical pioneers and the Autogiro. Itwas the first successful rotary-wing air-craft, described in the March 1936Fortune magazine as “the only basic con-tribution to the art of flight since theWright brothers rode a biplane into theair in 1903” and when a Pitcairn Autogirolanded on the back lawn of the WhiteHouse on April 22, 1931, it was the onlyaircraft in the world that could do so!

Juan de la Cierva was born inMurcia, Spain on September 21, 1895,the first son of a privileged family, and by1908-9, had decided to make aviation hiscareer, later observing that he doubtedthat “Juan de la Cierva Senior approved ofhis son’s curious interest in kites and glid-ers, or encouraged his ambitions to build

and fly them. But boys find ways andmeans to satisfy their extraordinaryimpulses, and we spent much of ourspare time and most of our spare cash inthese primitive experiments in practicalaeronautics.”1

In 1911 Cierva enrolled at the CivilEngineering College of Madrid (Caminos,Canales y Puertos (Roads, Canals andPorts)) and in 1912 with his friends “Pepe”Barcala and Pablo Diaz constructed thefirst Spanish airplane with parts from aFrench aircraft that had crashed. The boys,with their severely limited budget andfearing the disapproval of concerned par-ents, had to fabricate most of the parts thatwent into the rebuilding effort – includinga propeller derived from a most unlikelysource. Cierva reasoned that the counter ofthe bar had been bathed in spilled drinksfor years, and that the constant action ofalcohol would surely have seasoned thecountertop. Of perhaps equal importance,

the countertop’s price was within theremaining funds, so they purchased it andfrom that countertop carved a propeller.Using the first initials from each of theirlast names, the young builders dubbedtheir biplane the BCD-1, but it quicklybecame known as “El Cangrejo” – “the RedCrab” – because they had colored thewings and fuselage with aniline dye to adeep scarlet color.2 And although it flewwell, the dope on the wings softened in therain and the first Spanish airplane eventu-ally fell apart, but Cierva is justly remem-bered as the “Father of Spanish Aviation.”

Cierva entered an aircraft designcompetition in 1919, producing a largethree-engine bomber that, piloted byCaptain Julio Ríos Argüeso, crashed in itsinitial flight when the aircraft stalled.Pondering the crash, Cierva’s brilliantinsight was to see the wing differently –aircraft stalled when the air passing overthe wing failed to generate enough lift atslow speed – Cierva reasoned that stallcould be effectively eliminated if the wingitself moved. The rotor, placed on top ofa fuselage, became a moving, stall-proofwing. He patented the name “Autogiro,”3

and it flew by autorotation, defined as“the process of producing lift with freely-rotating aerofoils by means of the aerody-namic forces resulting from an upwardflow of air.”4 As long as the Autogiro waspropelled forward, air coming up throughthe rotor would generate lift, and shouldthe Autogiro’s motor fail, it would gentlydescend while air flowed upward throughthe rotor blades. Between 1920 and 1923Cierva progressively developed autorota-tion in a series of models, the C.1, C.2and C.3, but it would be his fourth modelthat would conquer the air.

Cierva stated5 that the first flight ofhis C.4 Autogiro was on January 9, 1923at Getafe airfield outside Madrid when(Calvary) Lieutenant Alejandro GómezSpencer, “a Spanish gentleman whosesurname and appearance both indicate anEnglish ancestry … one of the best

Rediscovering the Autogiro: Cierva, Pitcairn and the Legacy of Rotary-Wing FlightBruce H. CharnovChairperson and Associate ProfessorDepartment of Management, Entrepreneurship and General Business

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CarterCopter CCTD in flight. Developed by Jay Carter, Jr. and his associates, the state-of-the-art Carter Copter TechnologyDemonstrator is the most innovative rotary aircraft flying and is advancing autogyro technology to the next level. (Photo courtesyof CarterCopters, LLC)

known Spanish fliers” guided the craft intaxi tests during which the craft becameairborne. But most modern historians6

maintain that the first observed (andfilmed) flight of C.4 took place onJanuary 17, 1923 when Gómez Spencerflew 600 feet at a steady height of 13 feetacross the field. Transferring operationsto England in 1925 and forming CiervaAutogiro Ltd., he would continue toimprove the Autogiro, developing a

means to tilt the rotor head and alteringthe pitch (angle) of each individual rotorblade, called collective and cyclic control,eventually achieve a direct control thateliminated the need for wings, effectivelyperfecting the control systems necessaryfor the coming helicopter. But this endedon the fog-shrouded morning ofDecember 9, 1936.

KLM DC-2 (PH-AKL) flight, boundfor Amsterdam from the airport atCroydon Aerodrome, London, delayedbeyond its 10 a.m. scheduled takeoff,under the command of a CaptainHautmeyer, finally made an instrumenttake off, made necessary by visibility thatrarely exceeded 25 yards. The pilot,though experienced, inadvertently swungsubtly to the left from the white 2,100 foottakeoff guideline which proved to be a fatal

mistake to all but two of the 16 people onboard when the plane crashed – at thetime, the worst air disaster in British histo-ry. Thus did Juan de la Cierva die – anironic end to a man so passionately com-mitted to developing a safe means of airtravel. Stripped of his passion, the compa-ny he founded in England would shift thefocus of its efforts towards developing a

helicopter, and even though Cierva-licensed Autogiros would be used by theBritish, French, American and Japaneseforces, the Autogiro would all but disap-pear by the end of WWII. Few wouldknow or remember that it was the EnglishCierva Rota Autogiros that would daily cal-ibrate the coastal radars7 that enabled theRAF to defeat the German Luftwaffe andwin the Battle of Britain. The obscurity ofCierva’s Autogiro would be mirrored by

that of Harold Frederick Pitcairn and hisaircraft in America.

The youngest son of John Pitcairn,co-founder of Pittsburgh Plate GlassCompany, Harold was born in 1897 andtook an early, if not entirely approved of,interest in aviation. Inspired by the firstflight of the Wright brothers in 1903, hebegan flight training as an air cadet in the

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Pitcairn PCA-2 (foreground) and PCA-1B (background) Autogiros flying past the Statue of Liberty in a certification flight in October 1930. (Photo courtesy of Stephen Pitcairn, Pitcairn Aircraft Company)

last days of WWI, and would eventuallyearn a pilot’s license signed by OrvilleWright. During his flight training he hadmet a talented engineer, Agnew Larsen.They had combined talents to producethe Mailwing series, a mainstay of theemerging government-subsidized mailroute system, one of which is included inthe Smithsonian’s National Air and SpaceMuseum and for which Pitcairn is justlyfamous. But it was the Autogiro that firedhis passion, and to which he woulddevote his efforts. He had followed Citra’sachievements and visited England andSpain to meet with the inventor, and in1928 ordered a Cierva C.8W (the W wasbecause Pitcairn requested it with anAmerican Wright Whirlwind engine).That aircraft arrived at Pitcairn Field,Willow Grove, PA and on December 18,1928, made the first rotary-wing flight in America.

After negotiations in early 1929,Cierva and Pitcairn agreed that thePitcairn-Cierva Autogiro Company (PCA)would be formed in America with therights to license Cierva’s patents, and thatPitcairn would join the English company’sboard. The price was $300,000, paid forby the sale of Pitcairn’s airmail companyEastern Air Transport to a group headedby Chandler Keys and Glenn Curtiss. Thepurchase of Eastern Air Transport for $2.5million was completed just weeks beforethe stock market crash, and Pitcairn’s

airline would eventually become EasternAirlines.

Pitcairn threw himself into the devel-opment and promotion of the Autogiro –and the results of the next 16 monthswould earn him and his associates theCollier Trophy8, the most prestigiousaward for the greatest aviation achieve-ment for 1930. Pitcairn had refinedAutogiro development, first learning fromthe C.8W (which was presented to theSmithsonian on July 22, 1931), but thenwith a series of developmental aircraft, thePCA-1, 1A and 1B. (The PCA-1A survivesas the oldest American-built rotary-wing craft andis currently exhibited atthe American HelicopterMuseum & EducationCenter at the BrandywineAirport, West Chester, PAon loan from theSmithsonian). But it wasthe next aircraft, the PCA-2, that captivated America.An original design (manyof the Cierva and earlierPitcairn models had beenbased on existing aircraft),the PCA-2 was seen overmajor American cities inlate 1930 through early1931 in its certificationflights to much publicityand acclaim.

April 1931 was the best of times forPitcairn and the Autogiro – on April 2, thePCA-2 became the first certified Autogiroin America receiving ATC 410; just sixdays later, Amelia Earhart set a newAutogiro altitude record at Pitcairn Field,Willow Grove of 18,415 feet; and bymonth’s end, Pitcairn was presented theRobert J. Collier Trophy by PresidentHoover at the White House where JamesG. “Jim” Ray landed the PCA-2 in a muchchronicled spectacular demonstration ofits abilities. Shortly thereafter, in JuneEarhart completed a transcontinentalAutogiro flight, landing in Glendale, CAonly to discover that Poughkeepsie nativeJohn M. “Johnny” Miller had arrived a fewweeks earlier! But despite such success,later technological developments andpublicity, the Depression and lack of mili-tary interest on the part of senior officersmesmerized by helicopter developmentby Focke-Achgelis GmbH in Germanyeffectively doomed the Autogiro andPitcairn would be out of the business byearly 1942. A similar fate soon befell theKellett Autogiro Company ofPhiladelphia.

Pitcairn would successfully sue theUnited States government to enforce hispersonal company and Cierva-licensedrotary-wing patents in 1951 as every heli-copter which the military purchased wasbased on Autogiro control technology. The

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Pitcairn chief pilot James G. Ray with Thomas A. Edison standing in front of the Pitcairn PCA-2 Autogiro in 1930. Edison, whohad unsuccessfully attempted to develop a rotary-wing aircraft, is reported to have proclaimed, upon seeing the Autogiro fly,“That’s the answer, that’s the answer.” (Photo courtesy of Stephen Pitcairn, Pitcairn Aircraft Company)

John M. “Johnny” Miller, age 97, with Hofstra University’s Dr. Bruce Charnov, at theExperimental Aircraft Association (EAA) AirVenture Fly-In at Oshkosh, WI in July2002. Johnny Miller made the first Autogiro transcontinental flight in May 1931, arriv-ing in California 10 days before Amelia Earhart. (Photo courtesy of Dr. Bruce Charnov)

government would be found liable by theTrial Examiner on March 5, 1966 in a232-page decision where it was conclud-ed that “Harold Pitcairn had been the keyperson in the development of the rotary-wing industry in the United States, a truepioneer.”9 Damages in the amount of$31.4 million dollars were awarded onJuly 12, 1977, affirmed by the SupremeCourt on July 23, 1977 with an addition-al award of $600,000 for delay – a total of$32,048,738, but it came too late forHarold Pitcairn.

On Friday, July 22, 1960, HaroldPitcairn was preparing for a gala occasion,the celebration of his brother Raymond’s75th birthday, undoubtedly thinking of thefestive evening for more than 450 guests,the remarks he would make as master-of-ceremonies and the honors and celebrato-ry telegrams that had arrived from digni-taries including former president

Eisenhower, industry and civic leaders. Butit is not unlikely that Pitcairn also thoughtof that day 29 years earlier when he stoodnext to another president and received theCollier Trophy on the White House lawn.By all accounts Raymond’s birthday was aglittering occasion on Saturday eveningand Harold appeared in particularly jovialmood. After returning home Pitcairn wentinto his study which was located on theground floor. Ever since the Lindberghkidnapping on February, 1932, it had beenPitcairn’s nightly practice to check all theaccessible windows and doors with aloaded Savage .32-caliber semi-automaticpistol to ensure security for his family. Hiswife Clara assumed he would come to bedafter making those rounds, but soon wasdrawn back to the study by the sound of agunshot. Rushing down the stairs shefound her husband dead at his desk from agunshot wound to the head.

The circumstances of HaroldPitcairn’s death remain unclear even afterfour decades. The death was immediatelyreported as a suicide by the media, but asasserted by Pitcairn admirers FrankKingston Smith10 and Frank Anders, Jr.11

“police investigation disclosed that twoshots had been fired; one had penetratedthe ceiling directly over the desk in theground floor study, another had struckPitcairn in the eye.”12 Pitcairn’s widowClara requested that the inquiry beended, and she claimed that she neverwished to speak of it again. HaroldPitcairn became, in the words of FrankAnders, the “Forgotten RotorcraftPioneer” – the only remaining part of hislegacy being the check from the UnitedStates Treasury, and that was for contribu-tions made to helicopter development.

Hofstra University will hold the first-ever international conference dealing with

Fairey Rotodyne “Y” convertiplane, which could take off and land as a helicopter and fly as an autogyro, in a test flight during 1957-1962. It could carry 40 passengers and a crew of two andcruise at 200 miles per hour. (Photo courtesy of Westland Helicopters, Ltd.)

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the autogiro, entitled From Autogiro toGyroplane: The Past, Present and Future of anAviation Industry on April 25 and 26, 2003.The conference will commence with theconferring of an honorary degree for life-time achievement on England’s WingCommander Kenneth H. Wallis renownedautogyro engineer, pilot (he flew the “LittleNellie” autogyro in the 1967 James Bondfilm You Only Live Twice), designer andholder of every autogyro record between1968 and 1990) with the Friday afternoonsession devoted to the Pitcairn/Cierva era.The invited keynote address will be deliv-ered by Pitcairn Aircraft Companyarchivist/historian Carl Günter. Entitled“Rediscovering Harold F. Pitcairn,” Juan dela Cierva, nephew of the Spanish inventor,will speak on a comparison of the lives ofthese two forgotten aviation pioneers.

End Notes1.Cierva, Juan de la, and Don Rose.

Wings of Tomorrow: The Story of theAutogiro. New York: Brewer, Warren &Putnam, 1931, p. 26.

2.For a rare photograph of the BCD-1,see Capon, P.T. “Cierva’s FirstAutogiros – Part 1” Aeroplane Monthly.Vol. 7, No. 4, April 1979, pp. 200 –205:201.

3.Cierva and Cierva-licensed machinesare thus Autogiros. The machines ofothers are autogyro, Gyrocopter(patented by American Igor Bensenwhich ceased as a trademarked term in1988), or the generic gyroplane.

4. Fay, John. The Helicopter. New York:Hippocrene Books, 4th ed., 1987, p. 80.

5.Cierva, Juan de la, and Don Rose. Wingsof Tomorrow: The Story of the Autogiro. p.104; see also Capon, P. T. “Cierva’s FirstAutogiros – Part 1,” Aeroplane Monthly;Capon. P. T. “Cierva’s First Autogiros –Part 2,” Aeroplane Monthly, Vol. 7 No. 4,May 1979, pp. 234 – 240.

6. See e.g., Brooks, Peter W. CiervaAutogiros: The Development ofRotary-Wing Flight. Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988, p. 43; Gablehouse, Charles. Helicoptersand Autogiros: A History of Rotating-Wing and V/STOL Aviation. Rev. ed. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1969.

Previous edition published asHelicopters and Autogiros: A Chronicle ofRotating-Wing Aircraft. Philadelphia:Lippincott, 1967, p. 38.

7. Hill, Norman (Flying Officer)“Wingless Combat” Royal Air ForceFlying Review. Vol. XVIII, No. 4,January 1963, pp. 24 – 25, 57.

8. For photographs of Harold F. Pitcairnposing with the Collier Trophy infront of the PCA-2 at the WhiteHouse, see Smith, Frank Kingston“Mr. Pitcairn’s Autogiros,” March,1983, Airpower, Vol. 12 No. 2, March1982, pp. 28 – 49 p. 36.

9. Smith, Frank Kingston. Legacy ofWings: The Story of Harold F. Pitcairn.New York: Jason Aronson, 1981, pp.334 – 335.

10. Smith, Frank Kingston. Legacy ofWings: The Story of Harold F. Pitcairn,1981, p. 334.

11. Anders, Frank “The ForgottenRotorcraft Pioneer: Harold F. Pitcairn.”Rotor & Wing International, May 1990,pp. 34 – 37: 37.

12.Frank Kingston Smith adds, neatlyaccounting for all the circumstances:“The next morning it was discoveredthat the semi-automatic pistol wasdefective; when cocked, it had asupersensitive “hair trigger, and it hada faulty disconnector so that it wouldfire more than one shot at a time, acondition known as “doubling.”None of this information ever cameout.” Smith, Frank Kingston. Legacyof Wings: The Story of Harold F.Pitcairn, p. 334; but see Smith, FrankKingston “Mr. Pitcairn’s Autogiros”Airpower, Vol. 12 No. 2, March, 1983,p. 49, where the author asserts that“At age 75 Harold Pitcairn died . . .”obviously confusing Harold with hisolder brother Raymond.

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Bruce Charnov’s genuine interest in rotorcrafttechnology began in 1999 when he decidedhe wanted to learn how to fly. The question asto “what to fly” prompted him to search theInternet since he somehow remembered gyro-copter advertisements in Popular Science dur-ing his teenage years. To his surprise, heencountered more than 2,200 references relat-ing to the gyrocopter and he was inspired tobegin his research.

Since then Professor Charnov has publishedmore than 20 articles on the history of the auto-giro/gyroplane and he is widely consulted bymuseums and aviation historians on this tech-nology. His book, From Autogiro to Gyroplane:The Amazing Survival of An AviationTechnology, will be published by PraegerPublishers in 2003.

Professor Charnov earned a B.A. from theUniversity of Michigan, an M.A. and rabbani-cal ordination from the Graduate School of theJewish Theological Seminary, an M.B.A. fromFairleigh Dickinson University, and a Ph.D.from the United States International University.He is a graduate of the Hofstra UniversitySchool of Law, having received a J.D. with dis-tinction and an award for excellence in laborlaw, and was associate editor of the HofstraLaw Review. He has authored and co-authored articles in the areas of labor law andtrends in arbitration.

Professor Charnov has co-authored severalbooks, including three editions of Management(Barrons Educational Press, 1987, 1993,2000; Greek and Portuguese translations,1995 and 1997), Managing People in Today’sLaw Firm, (Quorum Press, 1995), GlobalCorporate Intelligence (Quorum Press, 1990),and Ethical Dilemmas of the AcademicProfession (Charles C. Thomas Press, 1987).He teaches courses in human resources man-agement, collective bargaining and alternativedispute resolution, strategic policy and plan-ning, non-profit management, and businessethics/social responsibility.

In 1998 Professor Charnov retired as Captainin the Naval Reserve and received theMeritorious Service Medal from the Presidentof the United States. -SK