Juan de la Cierva: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia

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{{Infobox person

| name = Juan de la Cierva

| honorific-prefix = [[The Most Excellent|The Most Illustrious]]

| honorific-suffix =

| image = Juan de la Cierva, aeródromo de Lasarte, 1930.jpg

| alt =

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'''Juan de la Cierva y Codorníu, 1st Count of la Cierva''' ({{IPA-|es|ˈxwan de la ˈθjeɾβaj koðoɾˈni.u|}}; 21 September 1895 – 9 December 1936), was a Spanish [[civil engineer]], pilot and a self-taught aeronautical engineer. His most famous accomplishment was the invention in 1920 of a [[rotorcraft]]<ref>{{cite book|author=George Galdorisi|title=Leave No Man Behind: The Saga of Combat Search and Rescue|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T3HGfuFILuoC|publisher=Voyageur Press|isbn=978-0-7603-2392-2|year=2008}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Trevor Homer|title=The Book of Origins: The first of everything|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J-eTGAAACAAJ|publisher=Hachette Digital|isbn=978-1-405-51610-5|year=2007}}</ref> called ''Autogiro'',<ref name="aero_digest">''Aero Digest'', Feb 1939, pagep. 27</ref> a single-rotor type of aircraft that came to be called [[autogyro]] in the English language. In 1923, after four years of experimentation, De la Cierva developed the articulated rotor, which resulted in the world's first successful flight of a stable rotary-wing aircraft, with his [[CieraCierva C.4|C.4]] prototype.

==Early life==

Juan de la Cierva was born to a wealthy, aristocratic Spanish family, and for a time his father was the war minister.<ref name="Queensland Times">{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article117627268 |title=AUTOGIROAutogiro'Ss Inventor INVENTOR. |newspaper=[[Queensland Times]] |volume=LXXVII |issue=15,674 |location=Queensland, Australia |date=10 February 1937 |access-date=12 November 2021 |page=11 (DAILY.)}}</ref> At the age of eight he was spending his pocket money with his friends on experiments with gliders in one of his father's work sheds. In their teens they constructed an aeroplane from the wreckage they had bought from a French aviator who had crashed the plane. The final aeroplane used wood from a Spanish bar counter for the propeller.<ref name ="Queensland Times"/> He eventually earned a civil engineering degree and after building and testing the first successful autogyro, moved to the United Kingdom in 1925, where, with the support of Scottish industrialist [[James George Weir|James G. Weir]], he established the [[Cierva Autogiro Company]].

At the outbreak of the [[Spanish Civil War]], De la Cierva supported the Nationalist coalition forces, helping the rebels to obtain the [[de Havilland Dragon Rapide|De Havilland DH-89 'Dragon Rapide']] which flew General Franco from the [[Canary Islands]] to [[Spanish Morocco]]. His brother was summarily executed by the [[Second Spanish Republic|Republican]] army in [[Paracuellos del Jarama]].

==The gyroplane (autogyro)==

De la Cierva started building the aircraft in 1912. In 1914, he designed and built a tri-motor aeroplane which was accepted by the Spanish government.<ref name ="Queensland Times"/> In 1919 he started to consider the use of a [[Helicopter rotor|rotor]] to generate lift at low airspeed, and eliminate the risk of [[Stall (fluid dynamics)|stall]].

[[File:Pitcairn Autogiro NASA GPN-2000-001990.jpg|thumb|right|[[Pitcairn PCA-2]] autogyro, built in the US under Cierva license, 1961.]]

In order to achieve this, he used the ability of a lifting rotor to [[Autorotation (helicopter)|autorotate]], whereby at a suitable pitch setting, a rotor will continue to rotate without mechanical drive, sustained by the torque equilibrium of the lift and drag forces acting on the blades. This phenomenon was already known,<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://www.centennialofflight.net/essay/Rotary/early_20th_century/HE2.htm |title = Helicopter Development in the Early Twentieth Century}}</ref> and was available as a safety feature to allow controlled descent of a helicopter in the event of engine failure. With De la Cierva's autogyro, the rotor was drawn through the air by means of a conventional [[Propeller (aircraft)|propeller]], with the result that the rotor generated sufficient lift to sustain level flight, climb and descent.

Before this could be satisfactorily achieved, De la Cierva experienced several failures primarily associated with the unbalanced rolling movement generated when attempting take-off, due to [[dissymmetry of lift]] between the advancing and retreating blades. This major difficulty was resolved by the introduction of the flapping hinge. In 1923, De la Cierva's first successful autogyro was flown at Getafe aerodrome in Spain by Lt. Gomez Spencer.<ref name ="Queensland Times"/>

This pioneering work was carried out in De la Cierva's native Spain. In 1925, he brought his [[Cierva C.6|C.6]] to Britain and demonstrated it to the [[Air Ministry]] at [[Farnborough, Hampshire]]. This machine had a four blade rotor with flapping hinges but relied upon conventional airplane controls for [[Pitching moment|pitch]], roll and [[Yaw (rotation)|yaw]]. It was based upon an [[Avro 504K]] fuselage, initial rotation of the rotor was achieved by the rapid uncoiling of a rope passed around stops on the undersides of the blades.

The Farnborough demonstration was a great success, and resulted in an invitation to continue the work in the UK. As a direct result, and with the assistance of the Scottish industrialist [[James George Weir]], the Cierva Autogiro Company, Ltd., was formed the following year. From the outset De la Cierva concentrated upon the design and the manufacture of rotor systems, relying on other established aircraft manufacturers to produce the airframes, predominantly the [[Avro|A.V. Roe Company]].

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Another approach was to tilt the tail stabiliser to deflect engine slipstream up through the rotor. The most acceptable solution was finally achieved with the [[Cierva C.19|C.19 Mk.4]], which was produced in some quantities; a direct drive from the engine to the rotor was fitted, through which the rotor could be accelerated up to speed. The system was then declutched prior to executing the take-off run.

As De la Cierva's autogyros achieved success and acceptance, others began to follow and with them came further innovation. Most important was the development of direct rotor control through cyclic pitch variation, achieved initially by tilting the rotor hub and subsequently by [[Raoul Hafner]] by the application of a spider mechanism that acted directly on each rotor blade. The first production direct control autogyro was the [[Cierva C.30|C.30]], produced in quantity by Avro, [[Liore et Olivier]], and [[Focke-Wulf]]. This machine allowed for change of motion in any direction -– upwards, downwards or sideways -– by the tilting of the horizontal rotors and also effected a minimising of some of controls used in more conventional aircraft of the period.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article61735640 |title=NEWNew Autogiro AUTOGIRO. |newspaper=[[Townsville Daily Bulletin]] |volume=LV |issue=190 |location=Queensland, Australia |date=10 August 1933 |access-date=12 November 2021 |page=7}}</ref> Development of cyclic pitch variation was also influenced by the Dutch helicopter pioneer [[Albert Gillis von Baumhauer]], who adopted [[swashplate]] principle in his designs and probably influenced Cierva in their meeting in 1928.<ref name="Voogt">{{citation|doi=10.1179/1758120612Z.00000000022|url=https://www.academia.edu/2543089|title=The Transmission of Helicopter Technology, 1920–1939: Exchanges with von Baumhauer|journal=The International Journal for the History of Engineering & Technology|volume=83|pages=119–140|year=2013|last1=Voogt|first1=Alex de|s2cid=109718326}}</ref>

The introduction of jump take-off was another major improvement in capability. The rotor was accelerated in no-lift pitch until the rotor speed required for flight was achieved, and then declutched. The loss of torque caused the blades to swing forward on angled drag hinges with a resultant increase in collective pitch, causing the aircraft to leap into the air. With all the engine power now applied to the forward thrusting propeller, it was now possible to continue in forward flight with the rotor in autorotation.

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Autogyros were built in many countries under De la Cierva licences, including France, Germany, Japan, Russia and the United States.

De la Cierva's motivation was to produce an aircraft that would not stall but near the end of his life he accepted the advantages offered by the helicopter and began the initial work towards that end. In 1936, the Cierva Autogiro Company, Ltd. responded to a British Air Ministry specification for a Royal Navy helicopter with the [[gyrodyne]].

==Death==

{{Main|1936 KLM Croydon accident}}

On the morning of 9 December 1936, he boarded a Dutch [[DC-2]] of [[KLM]] at [[Croydon Airport|Croydon Airfield]], bound for [[Amsterdam]]. After delay caused by heavy [[fog]], the airliner took off at about 10:30 am but drifted slightly off course after takeoff and exploded after flying into a house on gently rising terrain to the south of the airport, killing 15 people, among them de la Cierva.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article77939947 |title=INVENTEDInvented Autogiro AUTOGIRO. |newspaper=[[The Border Watch]] |volume=76 |issue=8100 |location=South Australia |date=24 December 1936 |access-date=12 November 2021 |page=8 }}</ref>

==Legacy ==

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De la Cierva's death in an aeroplane crash in December 1936 prevented him from fulfilling his recent decision to build a useful and reliable aircraft capable of true vertical flight for the Royal Navy, but it was his work on the autogyro that was used to achieve this goal. Technology developed for the autogyro was used in the development of the experimental [[Focke-Wulf Fw 61|Fw 61]] helicopter, which was flown in 1936 by Cierva Autogiro Company licensee [[Focke-Achgelis]]. His pioneering work also led to the development of a third type of [[rotorcraft]], the [[gyrodyne]], a concept of his former technical assistant and successor as chief technical officer of the Cierva Autogyro Company, Dr. [[James Allan Jamieson Bennett]].

In 1966, Juan de la Cierva was inducted into the [[International Aerospace Hall of Fame]] for his innovation in rotor blade technology, using them to generate lift and to control the aircraft's altitudeattitude with precision.<ref>Sprekelmeyer, Linda, editor. ''These We Honor: The International Aerospace Hall of Fame''. Donning Co. Publishers, 2006. {{ISBN|978-1-57864-397-4}}.</ref> The [[Juan de la Cierva Scholarship|Juan de la Cierva scholarship]] from the Spanish [[Ministry of Science (Spain)|Ministry of Science]] in named after him.<ref>{{Cite web |title=BOE-A-2004-2964 Orden CTE/351/2004, de 10 de febrero, por la que se establecen las bases y se hace pública la convocatoria de concesión de ayudas de los Programas Ramón y Cajal y Juan de la Cierva, en el marco del Programa Nacional de Potenciación de Recursos Humanos del Plan Nacional de Investigación Científica, Desarrollo e Innovación Tecnológica 2004-2007. |url=https://www.boe.es/diario_boe/txt.php?id=BOE-A-2004-2964 |access-date=2023-06-30 |website=www.boe.es}}</ref>

==See also==

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==Further reading==

* Brooks, Peter W. Brooks: ''Cierva Autogiros''. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington 1988 {{ISBN?}}

* Ord-Hume, Arthur W. J. G. (2011) ''Juan de la Cierva and his Autogiros''. Catrine, Ayrshire:Stenlake Publishing {{ISBN|9781840335590}}

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*[http://www.hofstra.edu/pdf/about/administration/provost/hofhrz/hofhrz_f02_charnov.pdf Cierva, Pitcairn and the Legacy of Rotary-Wing Flight]

*[http://www.centennialofflight.net/essay/Dictionary/cierva/DI17.htm U.S. Centennial of Flight – Juan de la Cierva]

*[https://books.google.com/books?id=ueQDAAAAMBAJ&dq=Popular+Science+1935+plane+%22Popular+Mechanics%22&pg=RA10-PA34 "It is Easy to Fly Autogiro Declares Inventor"] ''Popular Mechanics'', January 1930 pgp. 45 and see drawings by scrolling up to pgp. 44

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[[Category:Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 1936]]

[[Category:Counts of Spain]]

[[Category:People from Francoist Spain]]

[[Category:Spanish aviators]]▼

[[Category:20th-century Spanish engineers]]

[[Category:Spanish aviation pioneers]]

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[[Category:Burials at Cementerio de la Almudena]]

[[Category:People educated at Instituto San Isidro]]

▲[[Category:Spanish aviatorsscientists]]