Today in Aviation History :: De la Cierva

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Would you mind helping us grow Historic Wings? Please forward this message to a friend today! Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. HISTORIC WINGS De la Cierva Today in Aviation :: June 09, 2013 We need to expand our readership! Please forward this story to a friend today! Juan de la Cierva was the son of a wealthy Spaniard who, by age 17 in 1912, was already designing aircraft in Spain.  He continued on in school and earned a degree in civil engineering, though his first love remained airplanes.  By 1919, he had given up on fixed wing aircraft designs because of their tendency to stall, often with disastrous results.  If the stall problem could be solved, he reasoned, many lives would be saved.  Thus, he began experimenting with a radical concept that involved the principles of autorotation, whereby a spinning rotor would allow the aircraft to descend to the ground without any risk of stalling.  If there was just a way to fly based on autorotation, he reasoned, the problem would be solved. On June 9, 1922 -- today in aviation history -- after four years of experimentation and numerous challenges that he overcame through many crashes and struggles with the problems of stability, control and roll, his first autorotation-based aircraft made its first successful flight.  De la Cierva had invented what he called the "Autogiro", which is more commonly known as the Autogyro in English. Continue Reading =>   Photo of the Day A team of USAF aircrew and pararescuemen with the 26th Expeditionary Rescue Squadron perform preflight inspections on medical equipment aboard a HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter at Camp Bastion in Helmand province, Afghanistan, on May 25, 2013.  The 129th Rescue Wing recorded its 1,000th save May 18, 2013, when members of the unit rescued an Afghan National Police officer who had suffered a gunshot wound in southern Afghanistan. Photo Credit:  Senior Airman Scott Saldukas, USAF Copyright © 2013 Historic Wings Magazine, All rights reserved. You have received this message because you opted in to our newsletter on our website -- historicwings.com. Our mailing address is: Historic Wings Magazine 118 N. Johnson Road Sterling, VA 20164 Add us to your address book Copyright © 2013 Historic Wings & Thomas Van Hare All Rights Reserved

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