You can see a capital “B” followed by the word “Nut.” Searching “Beech Nut” and “Pitcairn PCA-2” brought up a lot of information on Amelia Earhart and her adventures with autogyros.Įarhart was given the opportunity to try a Pitcairn in early 1930. Close-up of Pitcairn PCA-2 at Fort Collins Airport, 1930s. Then, as you can see in the close-up below, there is some advertising on the fuselage of the airplane. It appears to be a Pitcairn PCA-2, an autogyro developed in the United States in the early 1930s. First, by comparing my image to other images on the Internet, I found the make and model of my autogyro. My intention was to end this post at this point but I kept poking around the Internet. Under license from Cierva in the 1920s and 1930s, the Pitcairn & Kellett companies made further innovations.” Invented by the Spanish engineer Juan de la Cierva to create an aircraft that could fly safely at low speeds, the autogyro was first flown on 9 January 1923, at Cuatro Vientos Airfield in Madrid. While similar to a helicopter rotor in appearance, the autogyro’s rotor must have air flowing through the rotor disc to generate rotation. “An autogyro, also known as gyroplane, gyrocopter, or rotaplane, is a type of rotorcraft that uses an unpowered rotor to develop lift, and an engine-powered propeller, similar to that of a fixed-wing aircraft, to provide thrust. Here is the Wikipedia description of an Autogyro: Here is the image: Autogyro at Fort Collins Airport, 1930s. I did a little research at that time and found the plane was a class of aircraft known as gyrocopters, or autogiros, or autogyros. Airplane,” which I took to be an abbreviation for “Experimental Airplane.” It was a photograph of a strange aircraft and on the back was a penciled caption, “Exp. However, there was one very interesting photograph, which I scanned before delivering the material to Lesley Struc, curator at the Archive. Shortly after I bought the collection, the Fort Collins Archive was doing something on the airport and I donated the collection to them. The field was said to offer a hanger, minor services, and fuel.” According Paul Freeman’s website, Abandoned & Little Known Airfields, the airport consisted “of a rectangular 200 acre sod field, within which were 5 runways, with the longest being a 3,000 foot northeast/southwest strip. Dedicated in 1929 and later renamed Christman Field, the airport was located at the west end of Laporte Avenue, about 3.5 miles from downtown. A few years ago, I bought a small collection of early photographs of the Fort Collins Airport.
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