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The Cierva Autogiro Company was a British firm established in 1926 to develop the autogyro. The company was set up to further the designs of Juan de la Cierva, a Spanish engineer and pilot, with the financial backing of James George Weir, a Scottish industrialist and aviator.

Cierva Autogiro Company, Ltd

Type	Limited company
Industry	Aviation
Founded	24 March 1926 (1926-03-24)
Founder	James George Weir
Defunct	1975 (1975)[citation needed]
Headquarters	Hamble, Southampton (from 1946)
Key people	Juan de la Cierva

History

Juan de la Cierva's first British-built autogyro was the C.8 design. It and some other designs were built in conjunction with Avro. The pre-war Cierva C.30 proved popular. Nearly 150 were built under licence in the United Kingdom by Avro, in Germany by Focke-Wulf, and in France by Lioré-et-Olivier.

On 9 December 1936, Cierva was killed in the Croydon KLM airliner accident when the aircraft in which he was a passenger crashed after taking off in fog. Dr. James Allan Jamieson Bennett was promoted to Chief Technical Officer of the company and remained in the position until leaving in 1939. In addition to making important contributions to autogyro controls while at Cierva Autogyro, Bennett carried through with Cierva's decision to offer the Royal Navy an aircraft capable of true vertical flight. Bennett's innovative design, a new type of rotorcraft that combined key features of the autogyro and helicopter, was tendered to the Air Ministry (Specification S.22/38) as the Cierva C.41 Gyrodyne, but preliminary work was abandoned with the outbreak of World War II. Bennett joined Fairey Aviation in 1945, where he continued the development of the C.41 design to create the first gyrodyne, the Fairey FB-1, that first flew in 1947.^{[citation needed]}

In 1943, the Aircraft Department of G & J Weir Ltd. was reconstituted as the Cierva Autogiro Company to develop helicopter designs for the Air Ministry. The post-war Cierva Air Horse was at the time (1948) the world's largest helicopter.^{[citation needed]} The first prototype of the Air Horse crashed killing Alan Marsh, Cierva's manager and chief test pilot[note 1] John "Jeep" Cable,[note 2] Ministry of Supply Chief Helicopter Test Pilot, and J. K. Unsworth the Flight Engineer.[1] This led Weir to cease further investment in the company and its development contracts were transferred to Saunders-Roe.^{[citation needed]}

Aircraft

• Cierva C.1
• Cierva C.2
• Cierva C.3
• Cierva C.4
• Cierva C.5
• Cierva C.6

British-built aircraft

• Cierva C.8
• Cierva C.9
• Cierva C.10
• Cierva C.12 (first flight 1929) - first autogyro with floats
• Cierva C.13 - flying boat autogiro (project only)[2]
• Cierva C.14
• Cierva C.17
• Cierva C.19
• Cierva C.20 Focke-Wulf licence-built version of C.19
• Cierva C.21 Lioré et Olivier licence-built version of C.19 (not built)
• Cierva C.24
• Cierva C.25
• Cierva C.26 - twin-engine autogiro (project only); designation re-used for modified C.24[2]
• Cierva C.29
• Cierva C.30
• Cierva C.32 - two-seat coupe autogiro (project only)[2]
• Cierva C.33 - four seat autogiro based on the Avro Type 641 Commodore (project only)[3]
• Cierva C.37 - twin engine, twin boom autogiro with 45-foot diameter rotor (project only)[4]
• Cierva C.38
• Cierva C.39 - two or three fleet spotter autogiro (project only)[2]
• Cierva C.40
• Cierva W.5 (first flight 1938) - 2-seater twin (outrigger) rotor helicopter with wooden frame; engine was a 50 hp 4-cylinder air-cooled Weir
• Cierva W.6 (first flight 1939) - twin rotor helicopter, 200 hp de Havilland Gipsy, metal tube frame
• Cierva W.9 (first flight 1945) - experimental helicopter to E.16/43, used blown air for torque control and direction, one built
• Cierva W.11 Air Horse (first flight 1948) - heavy lift helicopter development of W.6 design, two built
• Cierva CR Twin
• Cierva W.14 Skeeter (first flight 1948) - from 1951 the Saunders-Roe Skeeter

Notes and references

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

• CIERVA AUTOGIRO Co., Ltd Flight DECEMBER 9, 1926 p810

На других языках

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[de] Cierva Autogiro

Die Cierva Autogiro Company mit Sitz in Southampton wurde 1926 von James George Weir (1887–1973) und dem spanischen Luftfahrtpionier Juan de la Cierva (1895–1936) gegründet. Bekannt wurde die Firma durch die Entwicklung serienreifer Tragschrauber, die auch in Lizenz in größeren Stückzahlen gebaut wurden. In den 1940er-Jahren ließ Cierva den damals größten Hubschrauber der Welt bauen.

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- [en] Cierva Autogiro Company

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[fr] Cierva Autogiro Company

La Cierva Autogiro Company est une société de construction aéronautique britannique fondée en 1926 pour le développement de l'autogire.

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[it] Cierva Autogiro Company

La Cierva Autogiro Company fu un'azienda aeronautica britannica fondata nel 1926 per sviluppare una nuova tipologia di velivolo, l'autogiro. La società è stata costituita per promuovere i progetti dell'aviatore ed ingegnere spagnolo Juan de la Cierva grazie al sostegno finanziario di James George Weir, un industriale scozzese ed appassionato aviatore.

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