Evening star., 1934-11-18
BY C. b. ALLEN.

NEW YORK, November 17-That
whirling dervish of aviation, the
autogyro, appears to be on the verge
of a renaissance which promises not
only to retrieve its somewhat tar
nished reputation with flying men but
to make it a strong contender for
first honors as the long predicted
backyard" flying machine that will
turn the average man in the street
into wayfarer of the sky. For the
windmill plane" is staging a come
back, after ridding itself of inherent
faults which no amount of ballyhoo
concerning the admitted virtues it
possessed in its original form could
keep from cropping up when they
were sure to prove the most en-
barassing and disastrous.
The gyro's new outlook on life has
been gained through abandonment
of its producers early attempts to
effect blissful union between the
rotor, or revolving wing which is the
crafts basic feature, and the fixed
control surfaces of the conventional
airplane. 1t was one of those matches
which soon proved to have definite
and devastating limitations; conse-
quently the autogyro's inventor, Senior
Juan de la Cierva, and his associates
realized the hopelessness of their at
tempts at hybridization and set about
developing a machine whose entire
control depends upon fitting the rotor
itself in fight.
Demonstrated Here.
Such machine made an impress
sive demonstration for the benefit of
Government officials interested in
aviation 10 days ago at Washington
and displayed the possibilities of an
aerial ferry service from Floyd Ben
nett Field to any part of New York
City last week by series of landings
and take-offs from Pier at Old Slip
and the East River. 1t is the So
called "wingless" gyro, since it has
no need of the vestigial wing which
carried the ailerons and lent lateral
stability to the old-style autogyro.
and it completely eliminates posi-
bility of the 'autogyro spin" and other
dangerous chara cteristics of the orig
lnal windmill plane" that resulted
from stalling and rendering useless
its airplane control surfaces during
vertical descent
Why this happened is apparent when
it is remembered that airplane con-
trolls function only by DETECTING the
air rushing past them in flight, where
as the supporting blades of the auto
gyro motor continue to cleave the air
whether the machine itself is coming
straight down or going straight ahead
and sustain the craft effectively when
its airplane-type controls have long
since lost their grip on the air.
Early Accidents.
Ignorance or abuse of this prin-
ciple by amateur airmen enthusiastic
cally trying to emulate the amazing
flying feats performed by such master
pilots as Jim Ray, dean of the Ameri-
can autogyro school, has strewn the
flying fields of this country with shat
tered rotor blades and other gyro de-
bris and brough the windmill plane"
into worse repute among flyers gener-
ally than it deserves-even in its old
fashioned form. Another feature of
the original gyro that has contributed
to its unpopularity among airmen is
its exasperatingly slow cruising speed.
This shortcoming is said to have been
remedied to surprising degree in the
new direct control gyro, elimination
of the formerly required fixed-wins
structure having worked wonders in
reducing the machines "parasite" re-
sistance to the air and thereby in
creasing its speed.
The "ace-in-the- hole" Of the new
autogyro's sponsors. however, and the
feature about which almost nothing
has been said in this country. although
successful experiments have been made
with it abroad, is a means of causing
the machine to take off vertically
without any preliminary run-a much
more difficult matter than the gyro's
long mastered trick of vertical descent.
This is achieved in simple but in
genious fashion by rotor with con-
trollable- pitch blades which can be
flattened out to a nonlifting angle
until the rotor Is revolving far in
excess Of its normal speed, then sud
denly let into full lifting pitch. The
rotor, of course, is set in motion origi-
nally Gas in present autogyros) by q
clutch drive from the engine, but this
is disengaged prior to the actual take