At the World Fly-In Expo, an air show held in the central Chinese city of Wuhan last month, jets, hot air balloons, autogiros and ultralight planes were upstaged by Chinese-made drones.
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In 1930, he was employed as an instructor at the Hampshire Aero Club, and then briefly as instructor at the Scarborough Aero Club. He had flown a Cierva C.19 autogiro, and in 1932 Reggie Brie invited him to join the Cierva Autogiro Company as an instructor and demonstration pilot. He became Chief Instructor at the Cierva Autogiro Flying School at London Air Park (Hanworth Aerodrome), and instructed over 80 trainee autogiro pilots in Cierva C.19 and Cierva C.30 types. He took part in the development of direct control autogiros, and later, autogiros with "jump start" features.
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Single flight times approach forty minutes. Although most other indoor model aircraft are also rubber-powered, gliders and aircraft powered by compressed gas or electric batteries are also flown indoors. Some classes concentrate on scale or semi-scale replicas of man-carrying aircraft. Others feature unusual flight configurations, such as ornithopters, helicopters or autogiros.
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The Pitcairn-Cierva Autogiro Company, established by Harold Frederick Pitcairn, designed the PCA-2 based on the autogiros of Juan de la Cierva. The resulting design had a standard aircraft fuselage and powerplant, with a standard tail. However, it sported short, stubby wings, angled up at the wingtips. Above the cockpit was the rotor, consisting of three blades.
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In 1936, after Juan de la Cierva was killed in an airline accident, Marsh took over as Chief Test Pilot for the Cierva company. He also carried out test flying for G and J Weir Ltd., that was providing financial backing for Cierva, and developing its own autogiros. Weir's designer, C. G. Pullin, became chief designer and managing director of Cierva.
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In 1922, he was employed in the sales department of Shell Oil Company. He continued to maintain his flying skills as a member of RAFVR, often via the de Havilland School of Flying at Stag Lane Aerodrome. He achieved a pilot's B licence, and became interested in autogiros. He arranged to have a flight with Valentine Baker, who was demonstrating a Cierva C.19 at Heston Aerodrome.
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The unit carried out research and development of methods such as landing troops and equipment by parachute or by glider, and notable projects were the Hafner Rotachute and Hafner Rotabuggy. While there, he collaborated with Dr J.A.J. Bennett, designer of the Cierva C.40.Jenkins 2013, p. 115 In late 1941, he was sent to the United States to promote the use of autogiros on ships for convoy protection.
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Ian Malcolm David Little, (18 December 1918 – 13 July 2012) was the son of Malcolm Orme Little and his wife Iris Hermione née Brassey. He was a British economist. Little was educated at Eton and New College, Oxford, where he read PPE, graduating with a First in 1947. During World War II, he served as a test pilot in the Airborne Forces Experimental Establishment and flew autogiros, and was awarded the Air Force Cross.
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The Kellett Autogiro Corporation was formed in 1929 after it acquired a licence from Pitcairn-Cierva to build autogiros. The first three designed were all typical Cierva designs and the more advanced KD-1 was similar to the contemporary Cierva C.30. The KD-1/G-1 was the first practical rotary-wing aircraft used by the United States Army. The company stopped building autogyros in the late 1940s and switched to the design of helicopters.
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When the Avro factory at Hamble was closed, the development activities of the company were also moved to Hanworth. He invited Alan Marsh to be the company Chief Flying Instructor. Throughout the 1930s, he flew Cierva autogiros in private and public demonstrations in UK and overseas, delivery flights, record attempts, informal competitions against fixed wing aircraft, and in pleasure flights with passengers. In 1933, he was convicted of "low and dangerous flying" in an autogiro over the Kingston Bypass road, adjacent to Hook Aerodrome, Surrey.
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In July 1940, he formed No. 1448 Flight RAF and was appointed its commanding officer. Its purpose was to operate Cierva C.30 and Cierva C.40 autogiros on flights from Duxford, to assist calibration of coastal radar installations. In April 1941, he handed over command of the unit to his former civilian colleague Alan Marsh. On 9 April 1941, he was appointed to command the Technical Development Unit at the Central Landing Establishment, based at RAF Ringway, and then assumed the rank of acting Wing Commander.
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A glider on the north end of the runway at Rufforth in 1982 RAF Rufforth was home to 642 Gliding School for several years whilst being part of No. 60 Maintenance Unit RAF, the RAF left in 1974 and the Ministry of Defence (MOD) sold the site in 1981. Currently (2014) the site is split into two parts. Rufforth East is an arable farm owned by the Becketts, a local farming family. Microlights and autogiros operate off the east end of runway 05/23 and a north-south link taxiway.
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In November 1930, he was employed by Cierva Autogiro Company as a test pilot to temporarily replace Arthur Rawson, who had been injured in a forced landing. In summer 1931, to promote sales and publicity for Cierva autogiros, he flew a Cierva C.19 Mark III with the flying circus led by C. D. Barnard, and gathered an additional 400 flying hours. In late 1931, he became Chief Pilot and Flying Manager of the Cierva company. In 1932, he helped establish the sales department and the Cierva Autogiro Flying School at London Air Park, Hanworth.
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By World War II the W.5 had logged eighty hours' flying time and was followed by a scaled-up version, the W.6, which was the first two-seater helicopter in the world, powered by a much more powerful DH Gipsy aero engine. Further progress on this model was prevented by World War II. Pullin designed the 1500 cc "Flat Twin" and the "4-Cylinder"(later called Pixie when licensed to Aero Engines Ltd of Bristol) engines which followed it. These were used in the Weir W2, W3 and W4 autogiros.
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In 1932, the Cierva Autogiro Company moved most of its UK final assembly, testing and sales of its autogiros from the Avro facility at Hamble to Hanworth. It also operated the Cierva autogiro flying school, and it conducted flight testing of Weir W-2 and W-3 experimental autogiros on behalf of the Weir Group, who helped finance Cierva. Production and rebuilds included 66 Avro-built Cierva C.30s, until 1948. In 1933, the British Klemm Aeroplane Co Ltd was formed, and produced 28 BK Swallows and six BK.1 Eagles, in rented premises in the northeast section of the former Whitehead factory. In 1935, it was renamed British Aircraft Manufacturing Co Ltd, and went on to produce 107 Swallow 2s, plus 36 Eagle 2s, one British Aircraft Cupid, three British Aircraft Double Eagles, and two Cierva C.40s, until 1937. In 1934, the British Aircraft Company was taken over by Robert Kronfeld, and in 1935 he moved its operations from Maidstone to Hanworth. It was renamed British Aircraft Company (1935) Ltd, later Kronfeld Ltd, and it produced 33 B.A.C. Drones and one Kronfeld Monoplane before receivership in September 1937. In 1935, Light Aircraft Ltd assembled 16 American-built Aeronca C-3s at Hanworth.
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In 1946, he joined the Cierva Autogiro Company as General Manager and Chief Test Pilot. He carried out first flights and initial development of various autogiros and helicopter types including Weir WE.3, Westland CL.20, Cierva C.40, Cierva W.9, Cierva W.11 Air Horse, Cierva W.14 Skeeter, Bristol 171 Sycamore.Jackson 1973 Vol 2, pp. 23, 290Jackson 1973 Vol 1, p. 260 By June 1950, he had logged 6,500 flying hours, of which 3,000 were on 70 types of fixed-wing aircraft, and 3,500 on rotorcraft that included 22 types of autogiro and five helicopters.
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Location of flight controls in a helicopter A helicopter pilot manipulates the helicopter flight controls to achieve and maintain controlled aerodynamic flight.Gablehouse, Charles (1969) Helicopters and Autogiros: a History of Rotating-Wing and V/STOL Aviation. Lippincott. p.206 Changes to the aircraft flight control system transmit mechanically to the rotor, producing aerodynamic effects on the rotor blades that make the helicopter move in a deliberate way. To tilt forward and back (pitch) or sideways (roll) requires that the controls alter the angle of attack of the main rotor blades cyclically during rotation, creating differing amounts of lift (force) at different points in the cycle.
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This generates a net force pointing obliquely forwards along a certain 'line-of-action'. This force can be projected inwards past the turbine axis at a certain distance, giving a positive torque to the shaft, thus helping it to rotate in the direction it is already travelling in. The aerodynamic principles which rotate the rotor are equivalent to that in autogiros, and normal helicopters in autorotation. As the aerofoil moves around the back of the apparatus, the angle of attack changes to the opposite sign, but the generated force is still obliquely in the direction of rotation, because the wings are symmetrical and the rigging angle is zero.
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In January 1942, trials of the Rotachute Mark I were conducted to assess the aerodynamic characteristics while mounted on the truck-mounted rig, with pilot control of the aircraft in forward motion. On 11 February 1942, the prototype Rotachute was first manually flown from a wheeled trolley while under tow behind a Humber car at Ringway, after starting the rotor by hand. The pilot was Flt Lt I.M. Little, who had experience flying Avro/Cierva C.30 Rota autogiros on radar calibration duties; he was later awarded the Air Force Cross (UK). On that and on a subsequent trial, the machine rolled over after landing, sustaining damage to the blades but not to the pilot.
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In 1932 Pullin joined G & J Weir Ltd's aircraft department, in Glasgow, Scotland, as chief designer to develop single-place autogyros. Pullin and his team designed a series of Autogiros before moving on to a small helicopter using two rotors mounted atop outriggers each side of the fuselage. The Weir W.5 was a single-seat helicopter powered by an air- cooled engine, and established a maximum airspeed of 70 mph. Its two two- blade, fixed-pitch rotors had swashplate-actuated cyclic control. The W.5 made its first flight at Dalrymple, Ayrshire, on 7 June 1938, when it was piloted by Raymond Pullin and it became the first British helicopter to fly successfully.
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