AIRCRAFT NAMED
ROTAPLANE MACHINES DECISION IN BRITAIN [FROM OUR OWN" CORRESPONDENT] LONDON, Jan. 16 The aircraft section of the British Standards Institution has decided that aircraft deriving lift from freely turning wings shall in future be called "rotaplanes." Hitherto the officially recognised title for these machines has been "giroplanes." There has been some difficulty about finding a name for the rotaplanes, because they were an entirely new invention. The first rotaplane was the Cierva Autogiro. but the name Autogiro is proprietary, and when other machines deriving lift by similar means came into being the problem arose of what they should be called.
It was important to avoid their being called helicopters, because the term helicopter was already set aside for the type of aircraft deriving lift from one or more power-driven airscrews. On the other hand, the Autogiro derives lift from a freely-rotat-ing airscrew, rotor, or, to take the most exact word of all, windmill. The Air Ministry follows the lead of the British Standards Institution and will in future call giroplanes rotaplanes. The definition which will soon be issued by the institution lays it down that a rotaplane derives its support from one or more "rotors which normally rotate freely."
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Bibliographic details
New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23577, 10 February 1940, Page 12
Word Count
201AIRCRAFT NAMED New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23577, 10 February 1940, Page 12
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