Evening star., 1937-02-28

For almost four and half Gen.
turies. of record, man has tried to
solve the problem Of successful
1Uhich means sate-fight.
The tollowing story tells why
most heauier-than-air flying ma
chimes are shaped and polDered as
they are today, and of one inuen-
tors successful challenge to con-
Uentionul design.
BY the Associated Press.
NEW YORK. February 27-Young
Juan de la Cie-va thought he had
something.
1t was a crude sketch on a piece OF
paper. studded with figures in Hioher
mathematics interpretable only to
the inventor himself; but. he rumi-
mated, it would fly. II it wouldn't,
something was wrong with his design,
not with the principle.
1t. did, eventually. 1t took Cierva
two years to build a gyroplane good
enough to fly the English Channel
but it was the most successful machine
of its type in the brief history OF
practical aviation
Cierva answered his own question
to his own satisfaction: Had man
discovered the best principle of heav-
ier-than-air flight? Son of a wealthy
father who argued fruitlessly that he
enter politics in his native Spain
Cierva previously had built con-
ventional airplane.
1t flew. but he had to pick himself
out of the wreckage. Aviation. he
concluded, needed something besides
the fixed-wing flying machine born
soon after the turn of the century.
His Gyroplane experiments, in which
he utilized a revolving supporting
plane. or rotor, produced in 1921 what
he called the autogiro.
Killed in Conventional Plane.
Cierva was killed last December
near Croydon Airdrome, England, in
the crash of a great fixed-wing air.
plane of the same conventional design
and utilizing the same basic principle
of flight which he challenged.
1t was in 1912 that the principle
of a moving plane, sustained by air.
was evolved by Henson. the English
inventor; most heavier-than-air ma
chimes use it today. Whether Cierva S
principle ever will be adapted to
transport work remains a problem of
the aeronautical laboratory.
He did prove that vertical and safe
descent was possible.
Makers of the Cierva gyroplane-
known popularity as the flying wind
mill"-concede that it is neither as
fast nor as efficient in lifting a given
weight as the machine evolved by
Langley, the Wright brothers and
other pioneers.
In the lghter-than-air field, the
dirigible, or rigid balloon, is reputed
to be more economical per ton-mile,
but it lacks the speed Of the conven-
tional airplane and is costly to build.
Speed, Economy, Safety Is Goal.
Speed plus economy plus safety is
the goal of the aeronautical engineer.
Many millions of dollars in private
and government funds have been
spent throughout the world to make
safe today's flxed-wing airplane, whose
antecedents of record go back to the
year 1900. 1t was then that the
handsome and fabulously talented
Leonard da Vinci, perhaps intrigued
by the myth of Icarus and his waxen
wings, contrived a design for a flying
machine which looked like a dragon
fly. In the next 400 years men tried
by divers means to get of the ground,
largely by initiating the flight of birds.
Flight is mentioned in the works OF
Francis Bacon, and in 1917 Fleyder
of Tubingen lectured on flying. In
1880 G. A. Borelli concluded gravely
after a pretty exhaustive survey that
muscular flight by man with wings
was impossible, BY 1796 George Cay
ley, sometimes called the father Of
British aeronautics, developed q hell
copter, with "windmills" made Of
gulls' wings.
The helicopter, perennial subject
of inventors studies, employees air
screws, or propellers, to lift it bodily
of the ground None ever has been
built for successful flight as that term
is construed today. but periodically
such machines are filed for patent.
Sought Vertical Flight.
Almost all the early, earthbound
flying enthusiasts were concerned
with the problem of vertical flight, as
against that of today's horizontal
speed which builds up sufficient pres
sure in an airfoil to achieve lifting
power.
In 1872 Penaud, too, contrived a
helicopter, but much earlier. in the
1840's, the principle Of the moving
,plane-from which the term "aif-