Page:The Fun of It.pdf/156



FTER the airline was organized and comfortably operating, it was time for me again to do some flying of my own and such experi­menting as opportunity might offer.

Just then the autogiro was the very newest thing in aviation, and so naturally enough I found my­self drawn toward it.

Probably no other recent aeronautical develop­ment has created the interest it has, among engi­neers and laymen alike. Miles (I’m sure) of words concerning it have appeared in newspapers and magazines. In fact, so much space has been as­ signed its doings that I am at a loss to know how or where to start another biography. Perhaps if I begin at the beginning, I may find some bit of information not told a hundred times already.

Perhaps the public’s unusually great interest in it is conditioned by its promise of greater safety to the inexperienced flyer. Perhaps the very strange­ness of its design is responsible for the great in­terest displayed in it wherever it makes an appear­ance.

Curiously, the history of the autogiro starts in a book. Before ever a model of one was made, a portly volume had been written about it. Under the title, The Theory of Autorotation, a young Spanish mathematician had described the habits