The Pitcairn PCA-2 Autogiro Package for FS 2004 If any aircraft is associated with the Golden Age of Aviation, it is the Pitcairn PCA-2 Autogiro, dubbed the safest aircraft ever made. In 1929, aircraft designer Harold F. Pitcairn purchased the U.S. Rights to copy Cierva’s invention and he started building his own autogiros in Pennsylvania. The Pitcairn autogiro is a 39 meg download from the Pilot Shop and comes at an attractive price, so it made an irresistible target for a review. Golden Age had just patched the sim up to version 1.2 at the time I downloaded it and it came down the link at seconds flat.

Pitcairn-Cierva Autogiro Company of America PCA-1A

In the late 1920's, Harold Pitcairn had established a sterling reputation as a builder of rugged biplanes used by airmail services. He had also founded what would eventually become Eastern Airlines. Yet by 1930, Pitcairn had begun dismantling these enterprises to support the highly speculative venture of developing and producing an American version of Juan de la Cierva's experimental Autogiros. Although, the Autogiro would prove to be a minor player in twentieth century aviation, Pitcairn nonetheless was able to succeed, at least temporarily, in his enterprise and, by 1940, had sold scores of the groundbreaking aircraft. The PCA-1 was Pitcairn's first Autogiro project and successfully demonstrated that he and his engineering staff not only understood Cierva's innovation, but also that they were capable of improving upon it.

The word 'Autogiro' is actually a proprietary name coined by Juan de la Cierva. His designs were the first aircraft to fall in the gyroplane category. Nonetheless, nearly all gyroplanes built from the 1920s through the end of World War Two became commonly known as 'autogiros' (or the more generic 'autogyros'), regardless of the manufacturer. A gyroplane is an aircraft that derives most, if not all, of its lift from the unpowered autorotation of a horizontally mounted rotor or rotors. Unlike a helicopter, an engine does not drive the rotor blades while the aircraft is in flight. Instead, the resultant of the lift and drag forces acts to pull the blade forward in rotation while also creating lift - the same effect that turns the sails on windmills. This state of autorotation is only possible with a sustained airflow through the rotor disc, with the air moving from below and in front of the rotor to above and behind it. The gyroplane requires some propulsive force to maintain sufficient speed to sustain autorotation and hold altitude. In the Cierva and Pitcairn Autogiros, an engine driving a tractor propeller supplied the necessary force. If the pilot reduced throttle while flying, the rotors would begin to slow and the autogiro would descend. The increased airflow of the descent allowed the rotors to continue in autorotation and maintain the blades in an unstalled condition - even without the forward pull of the propeller. Although the pilot still had to keep some forward motion for a landing flare-out, and to maintain airflow over the control surfaces, it allowed for unpowered and near vertical descents ending in a very short landing rollout. This was an excellent safety feature in case of engine failure. Nonetheless, until the advent of direct control gyroplanes, the diminished control effectiveness in slow speed flight required a highly experienced Autogiro pilot to perform minimal rollout landings.

Most of the early gyroplanes were nearly identical to single-engine low-wing monoplanes, with the exception of the rotor mounted on a pylon in front of the cockpit that provided the primary source of lift during slow-speed flight. They employed standard airplane-type control surfaces (elevator, aileron, and rudder) and fixed pitch rotor blades. The stubby monoplane wing did not serve primarily for the generation of lift. Rather, it was a convenient means of mounting the ailerons and providing stability. It also had the unintended benefit of making the aircraft appear more conventional to skeptical airplane operators who were doubtful about flying without fixed wings.

Cierva constructed his first Autogiro, the coaxial rotor C.1, in 1920. As the rotors on the C.1 autorotated at different speeds, rendering the aircraft incapable of controlled flight, he decided to switch to a single rotor design. However, the abortive first flight of the new aircraft revealed a problem that he had not considered. As the Autogiro began to gain speed during its takeoff roll, the rotor blade that was turning towards the front of the aircraft received the benefit of additional airspeed because of the forward motion of the Autogiro. However, the blade retreating towards the rear of the autogiro suffered a loss in its airspeed relative to the oncoming air for the same reason. The net effect was a difference in airspeeds of the two blades that naturally caused dissymmetry of lift between the two sides of the rotor disc (as lift is a function of airspeed). In turn, this resulted in the Autogiro to rolling into the retreating blade side. A subsequent Cierva Autogiro also suffered the same problem and failed to take off successfully.

In 1922, Cierva conceived an inspired solution to his problem. By incorporating a hinge that allowed each blade to 'flap' independently at its root, he developed a rotor that equalized lift amongst all of the blades, regardless of whether the Autogiro was flying fast or slow. When the advancing blade generated additional lift because of its higher velocity, the flapping hinge allowed it to rise, which effectively reduced the angle of attack of the blade, thus reducing its lift. On the other side of the rotor, the flapping hinge allow the retreating blade to descend with its reduced lift, which effectively increased its angle of attack, thus generating more lift. This breakthrough was not only an essential component for the Autogiro - it was also necessary for the development of the practical helicopter.

By the late 1920s, Cierva was close to achieving production of the Autogiro. Harold Pitcairn had been fascinated with the possibilities of rotary-wing flight since his youth and had avidly followed Cierva's progress. He had already established himself as a successful manufacturer of rugged airmail aircraft, such as the PA-5 Mailwing (see NASM collection), and as owner of an airmail service that would eventually become Eastern Airlines. Still unable to shake the desire to experiment with helicopters, which had little success up to that time, Pitcairn made two trips abroad to evaluate the licensing the Cierva technology as the basis for his own line of helicopters. By 1928, Pitcairn had decided to risk everything, phase out his fixed-wing production and airmail operations, and produce license-built versions of Cierva Autogiros. He returned to Cierva's facility in England and bought a C.8 equipped with a Wright Whirlwind J-5, designated C.8W (see NASM collection), and had it shipped to his Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania airfield. On December 18, 1928, one day after the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Wright brothers' first powered flight, the C.8W became the first successful rotary-wing aircraft to fly in America.

Pitcairn's first step in building his own Autogiros was to acquire the American patent rights to Cierva's innovations and to manage and license them under the direction of the Pitcairn-Cierva Autogiro Company of America. This enterprise, later renamed the Autogiro Company of America, would remain separate from the production side of Pitcairn Aircraft, which would become the Pitcairn Autogiro Company, Inc. in 1933. Cierva, when he had sold the patent rights to Pitcairn, had yet to place any aircraft into production, and was naturally elated at the potential American market for his products.

Pitcairn began flying the C.8W around the Northeast and successfully generated a wave of enthusiasm for the aircraft. Meanwhile, his senior engineer, Agnew Larsen, was hard at work evaluating improvements for Pitcairn's own line of Autogiros, designated the PCA-1 (Pitcairn-Cierva Autogiro). In July 1929, Larsen was ready to begin construction on the first three prototypes.

Originally, Pitcairn and Larsen had intended to use the rugged Pitcairn PA-5 Mailwing (see NASM collection) for the tandem open cockpit fuselage and then mate it with Cierva's latest rotor design. However, the biplane fuselage structure clearly carried weight in places that were not necessary for the monoplane, and Larsen designed a new fuselage that was similar in form to the PA-5's, but differed substantially in the structural details. The front cockpit contai

Pitcairn Autogiro Fsx