• Current opened records

  • Cierva Autogiro Co Ltd

Aircraft manufacturers
Location:

  • Hamble, Hampshire

History:

  • Cierva Autogiro Co Ltd was registered in 1926 to develop the autogyro designs of Juan de la Cierva, a Spanish engineer and pilot, with the financial backing of James Weir, director of G & J Weir, a Scottish industrialist and aviator, and the bankers Lazard Brothers. The company did not build aircraft itself prior to the Second World War, instead they were built to order by AV Roe & Co Ltd. Cierva Autogiro's first British-built autogyro was the C8 design and many further types followed. In 1936 Cierva was killed in an air accident and James Bennett, the company's chief technical officer, continued the planned development work. In 1943 the Aircraft Department of G & J Weir was reconstituted as the Cierva Autogiro Co Ltd to develop helicopter designs for the Air Ministry. In 1948 the company's prototype Air Horse, the world's largest helicopter, crashed, leading G & J Weir to end investment in the company and its development contracts were transferred to Saunders-Roe Ltd in 1951.

Principal and significant aircraft manufactured:

  • C8 (1926); C9 (1927); C10 (1929); C12 (1929); C17 (1928); C19 (1929); C24 (1931); C25 (1932); C30 (1933); C40 (1938); W5 (1938); W6 (1939); W9 (1945); W11 Air Horse (1948); W14 Skeeter (1948).

Publications:

  • P W Brooks, Cierva Autogiros: The development of rotary-wing flight (1988)

Records 1:

  • National Aerospace Library

    Internal project plan for W11 c.1948; plans for Cierva W11 and W11/T c.1948; brochures and marketing materials 1930-49.

Records 2:
CID:

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