Juan de la Cierva y Codorníu, 1st Count of la Cierva ([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 called Autogiro, 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 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. 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. 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 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 DH-89 'Dragon Rapide' which flew General Franco from the Canary Islands to Spanish Morocco. His brother was summarily executed by the Republican army in Paracuellos del Jarama.
The gyroplane (autogyro) De la Cierva started building aircraft in 1912. In 1914, he designed and built a tri-motor aeroplane which was accepted by the Spanish government. In 1919 he started to consider the use of a rotor to generate lift at low airspeed, and eliminate the risk of stall.
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
