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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, p. 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 [[Cierva C.4|C.4]] prototype.
==Early life==
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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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