Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-11-23

For those to whom an airplane ride
IS no longer q novelty ride in the
autogyro is recommended. When this
peculiar contraption, with Its merry
| go-round effect upstairs, gets to Ca
vorting, 1t does things no airplane
pilot thought possible few years ago.
AT times. when conventional air.
plane would feel duty bound to stall
and spin into the ground. the autogyro
Just looks around blithely and refuses
to get excited It's a staid creature, the
autogyro, and, while 1t can't do num-
Der of things the regular airplane can
do, it can do several things that an air
plane can't-several important things.
An autogyro. it is said, Is suspended
from its rotating wings by centrifugal
force, the tendency of the weight OF
the fuselage, engine and load being to
] pull the wings inside out like an UNI
brella in gale. It Is only the centri-
/ fugal force created by rotating the
blades which keeps them in the nearly
horizontal position maintained In flight:
There Is one quite peculiar feature OF
the rotating wing business which al
/ ways amaZes those to whom the suto-
gyro Is new. It is the fact that though
the spread of the wings Is only 48 feet.
they are as effective in their action as
a parachute IA feet in diameter. With
the motor shut of and the controls in
neutral, the autogyro will parachute
down on its rotating wings as easily as
q man beneath an ordinary parachute.
More easily, in fact, because the descent
| is slower
This unusual effect, according to
Jim" Ray, autogyro chief test pilot. Is
due to the fact that the rotating wings
'trample down the air" much as a
swimmer threads water"
Ray brought an autogyro down here
| from Philadelphia one very foEgy and
| cloudy afternoon during the past week
to demonstrate the affair to the De-
partment of Commerce field inspectors,
assembled here for the regular confer
ence. Several of the inspectors, In
Guiding one or two who never had seen
an autogyro before, took it up for solo
flights.
Then Ray made several hops with
| passengers, the writer among them.
Dusk was coming on, with "soupy"
weather when our hop was made. The
cloud ceiling" was down to about 400
feet and visibility below that layer was
limited to about half mile. The auto
gyro TAXED out into the field few
hundred feet as would any other plane,
the stationary upper wings dropping
Imply from their central upright over
head.
| "Up She Goes"
Out in the field Ray faced the ship
into the wind and threw in a clutch,
which permitted the engine to turn the
wings or rotor" When the rotor
reached a speed little above 100 revo-
lutions a minute he disengaged the
clutch, the rotor continuing to spin
under its own momentum. Then he
opened the throttle and the orthodox
metal propeller on the nose of the ship
began to turn up. The ship TAXED
normally and took of In steep climb
The air speed dropped to 40 miles per
hour, speed at which virtually any
normal plane would have stalled and
returned to the ground in lamentable
fashion. The autogyro just kept on
going, paying not the least bit Of atten-
ton to tradition. Over the north end
OF the field couple Of hundred feet
! up, Ray put the ship through one or
two tight figure 8s," out of which q
normal airplane probably would have
| skidded unless banked vertically The
| autogyro was banked no more than for
normal turn, but refused to skid The
air speed dropped to some IS miles per
| hour.
The landing, however. was the most
startling portion of the flight. Climbing
| up nearly to the 400-foot ceiling, Ray
shut of his engine, holding up the
nose Of the plane The air speed
dropped to 20, to Is and finally to 10
miles per hour And most of the 10
miles was due to downward. not to for
ward speed. Looking oversize. the auto
| gyro seemed absolutely motionless, ex-
cept that the ground came up very
I slowly. There was no evidence Of mo-
ton forward and no sensation Of any
motion at all.
Just before the ground was reached
Ray dropped the nose trif1e, picked
| up bit of forward speed and then
pulled up the nose, killing all the speed.
The tail skid struck the ground for a
"one-point" landing. Then the wheels
struck and the autogryo stayed put. It
did not roll forward q foot The jar
was no more noticeable than in many
an ordinary airplane landing, not near
ly so hard as in what is known as q
hard landing" Yet 1t was the equiva
lent Of tull pancake" landing, the
hardest a normal airplane can make
short of a full crash. A pancake
landing will usually wipe out the land
ing gear. OF a plane and often break up
the fuselage Ray opened up the throt-
| tie and TAXED back to the line, ready
for the next hop. This was just nor
NAL business for the autogyro.
| We'll have to rewrite the regulations
| to cover this thing" laughingly re-
marked Fred Nicely. former Star avi-
alton writer, who now is one of the
chiefs of the Department of Commerce
Bureau of Aeronautics.
YES" said Jesse Landlord depart
ment aeronautical inspector mo air
| craft shall stand still over an airport"
| He cooked his eye up at the autogryo,
which was hanging over the field as
though glued to the sky. A couple of
moments later, as a bugler was sounding
Retreat" and the United States flag
came down the staff, the autogyro stood
at attention In midair over the center of
the field while the ceremony was COM
pleted.
On the second day of flying the auto
gyro was damaged while taxing, due
to too sudden application of the wheel
brakes, which pitched the tail up. The
i revolving rotor struck the ground and
all four wings were broken before the
tail fell back to normal position. The
pilot, a newcomer to autogyro business,
was heartily chagrined, but otherwise
was unscathed.