AUTOGIRO ALOFT

Hawera Star, Volume L, 7 April 1931, Page 7

AUTOGIRO ALOFT

* WELLINGTON INTERLISTEDSOME UNUSUAL FEATURES. Gent-Major engine broadcasting a. With its. five-cylinder Siddeleydroning announcement of its presence, the autogiro arrived in Wellington at about 5.30 on Saturday afternoon. Flying over the city, with the great vanes revolving above, it caused great interest among those who saw it, states the “Dominion.” Seen on Sunday; in the. hangar at Rongotai, where it proved a great attraction, the 'machine resembled, at . first- glance, a low-winged monoplane, with "the long, drooping rotor vanes above it, like the ribs of a half-opened umbrella, high! above the fuselage. The body is fatter aud shorter than the ordinary light aeroplane, while the wing is shorter and narrower, and lias ; extra control surfaces at the extremitics. The tail unit is also of an unusual design, having two. rudders and i fins, fitted at the sides of the elevator. ( The rotor vanes, which are about 20 ] feet long, are canvas-covered, as an i ordinary wing, and raise themselves to ] the horizontal hv centrifugal force. The machine is pulled through the ] air by a Fairey all-metal propeller, in j the same way as an ordinary aeroplane, , and is equipped with a five-cylinder ] radial engine of 11Q h.p. similar to j those in the Hawker Tomtits recently , acquired by the New Zealand Air j Force. j The machine has. an overall height j lof 10 feet, is 30 feet long, and has a spanT of 30feet. _ ; The pilot of the machine is F lying- . Officer R. E. Mabheson, an old hoy of Wait aid. High School, who took a 1 .short service commission in the Royal 1 Air Force in 1924, and after complet- • ing his five years of service, went to' J Germany where he spent three months, 1 and qualified for a C glider’s license. I Ho is the only man in New Zealand - to hold this qualification. j