Unique Autogiro Flying Again

Story And Photos
By Jack Watson

“This is a real prehistoric monster in flight,” declared Jack Tiffany of Spring Valley, Ohio.

Tiffany, co-owner with Jim Hammond of Yellow Springs, Ohio of the Pitcairn PA-18O. “Once the helicopter was built, these autogiros became dinosaurs.”

According to Tiffany, Pitcairn N1267B (c/n G-65) is the only known example of the type flying in the US.

“It is a bizarre feeling (to fly it), especially the first time; it was like being swept off the ground by a giant pterodactyl,” explained Andrew King, its test-pilot. Others have been known to call the “fling ceiling fan.”

In 1929, after creating quite a successful line of rugged mail planes, Harold Pitcairn gambled on the future of the autogiro. Buying the exclusive U.S. production rights from Juan de la Cierva, its inventor, he established the Pitcairn Autogiro Company, later to become the Autogiro Company of America, in Willow Grove, Pa.

Based on La Cierva’s work, Pitcairn’s first autogiro, the PCA-1, was a larger, more rugged aircraft with a more powerful engine than earlier Cierva models. An updated version, the PCA-2 was offered shortly thereafter, its $15,000 price tag seriously limiting its commercial potential.

Designed to be “every man’s autogiro,” the PA-18 was a smaller machine, accommodating a pilot and his passenger in tandem. Powered by a 160 HP Kinner B-5 engine, 19 were sold in 1932 for the still hefty price of $6,500.

Built in 1932 at the Willow Grove factory of the Pitcairn Aircraft, Inc., N12678 - now N1267B - became the personal aircraft of Harold Pitcairn. He flew it until it was sold in 1935 to Anne Strawbridge, of Philadelphia.

Having a deep fondness for the little machine, she refused to sell the Pitcairn to the Pitcairn-Larsen Company so it could be converted to PA-39 specifications for use by the British military under the lend-lease program. Her decision saved its life.

In 1942, four of the seven earmarked for the Royal Naval Air Service were lost when the ship carrying them was torpedoed by a German U-Boat in the North Atlantic.

The PA-18 eventually found its way into Al Letcher’s collection, stored in the Mojave Desert, and resurfaced in the late 1990s. Tiffany ended his life-long quest for an autogiro when he acquired it in 1999 for $65,000.

“It was a basket case,” he said. “Everything from the upper longeron up was gone, stolen or destroyed. Finding the parts was a real treasure hunt.

“We just sent out for pieces all over the country and in Canada, as we knew that four had been crashed prior to losing all the other examples.”

In 2008, after eight and a half years of efforts by Tiffany’s Leading Edge Restoration team in New Carlisle, Ohio, the Pitcairn was ready for its first flight. Andrew King took it aloft on July 10.

King was the obvious choice for the job.

“I grew up around the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome, so, I was always around antique airplanes since I was a little kid,” he explained. “I used to wash them, carry gas cans, stuff like that when I was small.

“When I was 16, I learned to fly at Hampton, N.H. in a Piper Cub. Over the years, I had a lot of opportunities to move around, meet people and fly different airplanes.

“I usually say that I am a soldier of fortune of antique airplanes,” he continued. “I have about 3,000 hours of flying time, most of it - about 2,800 - in vintage tailwheel planes.”

That became very handy when Tiffany asked him to fly the autogiro, he said.

For King, the first flight was “pretty anticlimactic.” That didn’t last long.

“The next day, I went to fly it again, and the pump fuel failed,” King said. “Fortunately, the engine quit about 1,000 ft from the ground and close enough to glide back to the airport.”

A later adjustment of the rotor blade angle ended up in their partial destruction, as well as some significant damage to the tail and rudder, which kept Leading Edge busy over the winter.

The Pitcairn was ready again in the spring of 2009 and King rediscovered the long forgotten intricacies of flying the unique bird.

“When you are at the end of the runway, you put in the parking brake, set the engine at 800 rpm, and then, you slowly engage the rotor clutch,” King explained. “When you get the rotor stable, you throttle up slowly to about 1,300 rpm. As you accelerate down the runway, the rotor accelerates to 120 rpm, and you lift off.

“Then you ease the nose down a little bit to get a 58 mph climb speed, with the rotor spinning at about 135 rpm. It stays pretty much the same throughout the flight.”

King said the autogiro “flies pretty well once you are above five ft off the ground.” The critical phases are the take-off and landings.

At cruise, about 65 mph, “it is pretty nice, and the ailerons work remarkably well. The first time I put the stick in the corner hard, the plane jumped like a BŸcker, and I was stunned,” he said. “However, at landing speed, they do not accomplish anything.”

On landing, you cannot allow for any drift, which means no more than two or three mph of crosswind component, he added. If you are drifting, you cannot open the throttle, as it makes matters worse.

“It is kind of top heavy and you could tip over,” King said.

“If you do it right, you can hover at about five feet, get the stick all the way back, and it would settle in a slow vertical descent, pop on the ground, roll 20 ft and stop.

In order to prepare for flying the autogiro, King went to see the legendary Johnny Miller, who had hopped rides in the very same Pitcairn in 1935. His comments were: “You’re gonna wreck it. I never knew a fixed wing pilot who could fly an autogiro without wrecking it.”

Despite that no-confidence vote, King mastered the craft and it’s still flying around Ohio. Last we heard, anyway.