From 2023 (YouTube edition): The Resurgent Gyroplane Existing at the confluence of the airplane, the helicopter, and the pinwheel, the machine known alternately as the autogiro and the gyrocopter is among powered flight’s stranger birds. Invented by Juan de la Cierva, a Spanish engineer seeking to create an aircraft capable of flying safely at low speeds, the gyrocopter is characterized by a free-spinning rotor impelled to rotation by the passage of air across its blades from below. The downward component of the rotor’s total aerodynamic reaction imparts lift to the vehicle while a separate, longitudinally-oriented, powered-propeller provides forward thrust.
