Mariners aboard a motor launch look on in wonder as an autogyro takes off from the seaplane carrier Dédalo in Valencia harbour on the 7th March 1934. This date marked the first time such a contraption, dubbed the ‘Spanish Windmill’ by the British press, had been landed on a warship. Its pilot and designer, Juan de la Cierva, was responsible for a number of innovations in rotorcraft that would underpin the development of the helicopter. The autogyro looked at this time to have a promising military and commercial future.
Born to a wealthy family in Murcia in 1895, Juan de la Cierva y Cordorniu took an interest in aviation from a young age, building gliders and other aircraft while still in his teens. After earning a degree in engineering in Madrid, he’d began work on a series of ‘autogiro’ prototypes. His primary aim was to use auto-rotating rotor blades to generate lift for an aircraft travelling at low speed; thus, eliminating the risk of an engine stall. Cierva’s blades were shaped like conventional aircraft wings, which allowed them to generate lift when set in motion. This design also allowed the blades to continue turning under the pressure of gravity even when the aircraft engine was not running. Early rotorcraft could not take off without toppling over due to a phenomenon known as asymmetry of lift. Cierva solved this problem by adding hinges so that each blade found its own equilibrium. These innovations gave his autogyros unique flying capabilities, the most remarkable being short, steep take-offs and landings. As Pathé News reported in 1931, Cierva autogyros could ‘land on a proverbial sixpence and linger aloft indefinitely in a 20 mile breeze.’
After exhausting his own funds, Cierva had sought assistance from a private aeronautical company and members of the Spanish military to develop his first viable prototype, the C.6. This machine utilised the airframe of an Avro 504, fitted with two paddle-like wings and ailerons to mitigate roll and pitch. Testing at an airfield in Getafe in January 1923 resulted in a successful 8-minute flight. In 1925, Cierva demonstrated his prototype to the Air Ministry at Farnborough in England. The success of this demonstration led to the establishment of the Cierva Autogyro Company, in partnership with the Scottish industrialist James Weir, at Hamworth in West London.
As a result of this collaboration, Cierva developed the C.8, an improved autogyro in which he undertook a 3,000 mile tour of the British Isles and the Low Countries. Its successor, the C.9 introduced a purpose-built airframe. Further incremental design improvements resulted in the C.19. This version introduced a system for coupling the rotor to the aircraft engine, which facilitated shorter take-offs, (Previous prototypes had had to rely on men pulling on a coiled rope to power up the rotor.)
The C.30, which was unveiled in 1933, featured a ‘direct control’ mechanism by which the pilot could tilt the rotor-blades in flight both laterally and longitudinally. This cyclic pitch-control eliminated the need for wings, ailerons or a rudder, and made for safer handling at low speeds. With its hinged rotors mounted on a four-legged pyramid, its wingless fuselage, its undercarriage reinforced with three long struts, its uncovered radial engine, and its unusually shaped stabilizers with turned-up tips, the C.30 had a highly distinctive appearance. It is this autogyro that can be seen taking off from the Dédalo.
Dédalo was the Spanish navy’s first aircraft carrier. Like the first generation carriers of other nations, she was a former merchant vessel refitted to carry seaplanes. She’d started life as the German Neuenfels, which had been built by the Tyneside shipyard of Wigham Richardson in 1901. The ship had been seized in Spain towards the end of the War along with five other German vessels as reparations for losses incurred by the Spanish merchant marine. Transferred to the Spanish navy in 1921, she’d undergone a five-month conversion to a seaplane carrier or ‘portahidros’ at Barcelona at a cost of 8 million pesetas.
Dédalo’s design featured a separation of the hull space with air aviation operated at the ship’s prow and sea aviation at her stern. Blimp airships and balloons were stored in a below-deck hanger forward, an innovation copied from the Royal Navy’s HMS Canning, while seaplanes were carried aft below a short flight deck. These aircraft were raised to the deck via an elevator and shipped overboard by means of a derrick. To reduce smoke fouling operations, Dédalo’s single funnel amidships had to be raised and modified. For a time, the ship continued the wartime custom of dazzle camouflage.
Dédalo’s initial complement of aircraft included a mix of Felixtowe F.3, Macchi M.18, and Savoia S.16 flying boats. Also carried were two SCA (Stabilimento di Costruzione Aeronautiche) airships. These were probably designed by the Italian aviation pioneer Umberto Nobile. Soon afterwards, the ship was re-equipped with a number of Supermarine Scarabs, a push-engine variant of the commercial Sea Eagle. These were able to carry a 1,000lb bomb load. It appears a Parnell Panther was also carried for a brief period, presumably for experimental purposes. The Panther was a wooden framed fighter-reconnaissance biplane which had made the first ever landing on a ship while underway during tests aboard HMS Furious in 1917.
Dédalo’s aircraft played a small role during the Spain’s Rif War against Berber independence fighters. In November 1925, they carried out both reconnaissance and bombing raids during the amphibious landing of Franco-Spanish forces at Al Hoceima on Morocco’s northeast coast, which led to the defeat of Riffian forces the following year. A period of political instability followed this controversial conflict, and by the early 30s, Dédalo was part of the navy of the Second Spanish Republic.
The first president of that Republic, Niceto Alcalá-Zamora, was one of many to witness Cierva’s demonstration of the C.30 (G-AC10) when he visited in his native country in 1934. Large crowds gathered at the airfield at Manises outside Valencia on 7th March, from where he was to attempt the historic feat of landing an autogyro on a stationary warship. Many more witnessed the aircraft as it passed over the city, skirting the spires of Valencia Cathedral and the Church of Santa Caterina. Cierva landed on Dédalo without serious difficulty, and his subsequent take-off from the carrier required only 24 metres of her flight deck.
Newsreel companies such as Movietone and Pathé were keen followers Cierva’s aerial exploits. With the release of Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps, his invention was even promoted in a motion picture. In the 1935 film, Robert Donat’s character Richard Hannay is pursued over a Scottish heath by a police surveillance autogyro. Although clearly a model, this aircraft is also clearly one based on the C.30. At this point in time, the autogyro appeared to be the future of aviation, with over 140 C.30s slated for production by Avro in the UK and aircraft manufacturers in France and Germany.
By this time, autogyro development was also an American concern. In 1928, Cierva’s autogiro technology had been licenced to Harold F. Pitcairn, a US aviation pioneer who had purchased one of his early prototypes. Pitcairn immediately set about manufacturing ‘sport’ versions that could be used for civilian transportation much like a family car. By refining Cierva’s coupling of the rotor blade to the engine, Pitcairn’s developed autogyros that could take-off almost vertically in what was termed a ‘jump-start’. Retractable rotor-blades meant that the smallest models could even be stored in a family garage. Pitcairn’s PCA-2 autogyro resembled the C.30, but with its rear stabilizers replaced by short wings.
Pitcairn generated publicity for his machines by having one test-piloted by aviatrix Amelia Earhart, who in 1931 set an altitude record of over 18,000ft. The same year, a Pitcairn autogyro paid President Hoover a visit, landing on the lawn of The White House. In 1932, a Canadian pilot performed the first ever loop-the-loop in a PCA-2 advertising ‘British Consols’ cigarettes. The Detroit News was another of the company’s early autogyro customers, using a rotorcraft to gather news (and sell its newspapers) between 1931 and 1933.
Kellet, another American aviation company licenced to manufacture Cierva autogyros, sold a number of their own machines to the US army, though these were never tested in war. A Kellet autogyro also formed the prototype for the Kayaba Ka-1 and Ka-2 operated by the Japanese army during World War Two. These rotorcraft had an endurance of up to 175 miles and a top speed of over 100mph. Around 30 autogyros are believed to have entered Japanese military service, being used initially as artillery spotters. Some were later deployed aboard the army escort carrier Akitsu Maru from which they undertook anti-submarine patrols, for which they were equipped with 60kg of depth charges.
The US military also took a keen interest in Pitcairn’s autogyros, but eventually decided to pursue the vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft being designed by Igor Sikorsky. To exploit the essential Cierva patents, Sikorsky was forced into a business partnership with Pitcairn. This collaboration led directly to the development of the first practical helicopter in 1943; the R-4, a rotorcraft capable of both backwards flight and controlled hovering.
Sadly, Cierva’s personal involvement in autogyro development had ended with his death in 1936. On 9th December, he’d boarded a KLM-operated DC-2 airliner bound for Amsterdam. Shortly after taking off in fog from Croydon Airport, the aircraft had clipped the rooftop of a house in Purley and crashed. Cierva and 14 other passengers and crew had been killed. Dédalo also met a violent end. Laid up at Sagunto in 1936, the obsolete vessel was attacked the following year by German bombers allied to Spain’s nationalist forces. Damaged by several near misses, she sank in shallow waters of the port.
Dédalo was not the world’s first helicopter carrier, but she was the first aircraft carrier to host an aircraft capable of a short take off and vertical landing (STOVL). Her name, taken from that of the father of Icarus, would be revived for her successor. The second Dédalo was a former US Independence-Class light aircraft carrier. As the USS Cabot, she had participated in the later stages of the Pacific War, suffering damage and casualties from Kamikaze attacks off the Philippines in November 1944. She was acquired by the Armada Española in 1967 after a long period spent in mothballs.
Interestingly, the new Dédalo would also bear witness to a significant event in naval aviation. On 8th November 1972, she was the first aircraft carrier to test the STOVL capabilities of the Hawker Siddeley Harrier. From 1976, a squadron of these aircraft, renamed ‘Matadors’, began operating from this ship alongside a variety of combat helicopters.
Bow Creek to Anatahan 