Up In The Sky! It's ... An Autogiro?

From my New York Worlds Fair collection here is an August 19, 1940, autogiro cover. The route covered was from the fairgrounds to LaGuardia Airport.

After the cover and its verso I include the contents, a nicely typed partial transcript of then-President Roosevelt's declaration the prior year of August 19 as National Aviation Day. Why August 19? It was Orville Wright's birthday. He was still alive at that time.... There is still a National Aviation Day in the U.S.

Roosevelt himself was not present at the Fair to see the autogyro; he was at Hyde Park where he wrote among other things a short note covering an enclosure to Churchill:

My dear Churchill:-

I think this will interest you. It was over two weeks on its way from Berlin and coming from an American, long a resident in Germany, it has especial value. The writer was, I think, inclined to be pro-Nazi up to the time of the Munich Conference.

We are getting excellent reports of the fine job your Air Force has done the past week.

Jleb Is right.

Thanks for posting that, Roberto. I see it popping up all over Delcampe now and will have to get one to feed my sudden autogiro interest.

Meanwhile, Here are two from Paraguay.

The first is from 1977, Scott 1742f. One of a group of seven honoring pioneers of aviation shows Cierva and his autogiro. The other six depict fixed wing aircraft and their creators (Santos-Dumont, Bleriot, Sikorsky, et al...).

The second is from 1979, Scott C471 issued in a minisheet depicting a variety of vertical lift aircraft ranging from a DaVinci drawing to a Huey. But the stamp itself is an autogiro.

Image from 2005
I have no Source Information.

rod's photo is an Avro Rota Mk I (Cierva C-30A) which was, and maybe still is, on display at the Fantasy of Flight Museum, Polk City, Florida. ex-RAF

https://www.planelogger.com/Aircraf...K4235/918360

ETA: Fantasy of Flight says it is a Cierva C.30-A:

https://www.fantasyofflight.com/col...-a-autogiro/

without reference to the fact that it was a license-built version constructed by Avro in Manchester, constructor's number R3/CA/43.

More than anyone needed to know.

Thank Collin.
I am surprised on how few Postage Stamps feature the autogiro,
Checking all my Label collections of Flight, Umm al Qiwain, Oman,
Fujeira, Dhufar etc & etc there are none.

They all go from Balloon to fixed wing.

They were sort of a dead end on the evolutionary tree of aircraft development. Cool, sure, but there weren't all that many of them.

Private pilots (in the U.S., at least) have to have a separate helicopter rating to fly helicopters, and then yet another rating to fly autogiros.

You are right, Rod, there are not many autogyro stamps out there. Even our friends in the great stamp-issuing states have not ventured there. Probably too esoteric a topical to make profit.

Nonetheless there are a few.

Antigua & Barbuda 1987 (Sc. 1032) one in a set of five celebrating milestones of transportation shows a Cierva autogyro. The same exists with an overprint of "Barbuda Mail" which is Barbuda Sc. 874.



And then the Maldives in 1997 issued a set of three stamps celebrating the centennial of the death of Heinrich Stephan, director of post of the German Empire and a founder of the UPU. One of the three shows an autogyro landing in front of a government building in Washington DC.
Sc. 2247. This was never sold in the Maldives so it's purely philatelic.



And Micronesia, 1995 with Sc. 210f. One of a set of eight pioneers of flight is de la Cierva shown with his aircraft in the background.



A small handful of others I'll leave for another day.
- Jonathan

Yikes! I have been spelling "Autogiro"
hence my database results were poor.

As "Autogyro" not much better, but turned up this from
my research in 2005

Warning! most links will now be dead

(US) Autogyro Mail for Philadelphia

When the new Philadelphia General
Post Office at Market, Chestnut and
Thirtieth Streets was completed
in 1935, a modern post office
building of the most advanced design
had been constructed, a post office
unusual in many respects and which
is the only one in the world
immediately accessible not only by
motor, rail and water, but aerial
transportation as well.

Philadelphia Post Office
http://cjoint.com/data/kEoQ08kGVe.htm

Under the building run the tracks
of the Pennsylvania Railroad,
while the Schuylkill River flows
along the eastern side of the
structure. The building's large
flat roof, 350 by 275 feet, was
designed for use as a landing
field for autogyros carrying the
airmail, and a roof heating
system, the first of its kind
prevents accumulation of snow and
ice so that safe landings are
provided for the entire year round.

The adequacy of the roof for its
intended purposes was demonstrated
in the numerous landing and
take-off experiments.

The time is now approaching when
it will go into regular service
for the receipt and despatch
of airmail by autogyro planes
and a few weeks ago the Post
Office Department solicited bids
from air transport companies for
the inauguration of a service,
planned at first to be experimental
in character, to and from the
air field at Camden, New Jersey.

When, and if a satisfactory bid is
approved, the initial operations
will no doubt be marked by the use
of special cachets.

Postal facilities in the Quaker
City (Philadelphia) will be a far
cry from what they were in the
colonial days of Benjamin Franklin.

- George B. Sloane
Sloane's Column
Stamps
December 31, 1938


Note 1:

The inaugural flight occurred
July 6, 1939, under a contract
awarded to Eastern Air Lines, Inc.
Actually 3 flights were required
to carry all of the inaugural
flight mail.

The contract called for 5 flights
daily except Sunday and holidays.
The capacity of the autogyro was
limited to 150 pounds of mail.

The following flight cover
illustrates this use. The cover
is provided through the courtesy
of Sam D. Virsi.

http://cjoint.com/data/kEn5TUbXnM.htm

The service was discontinued shortly
after the airport for the flight was
moved from Camden Field to the
Philadelphia Municipal Airfield at
Hog Island on June 20, 1940.
(The flight covers which noted this
change were erroneously postmarked
July 20.)

An early autogyro circa 1935:
http://www.egld.com/autogyro.jpg


Note 2:

Cierva C30A autogyro
http://cjoint.com/data/kEooM0ecs1.htm

Jaun de la Cierva (Spain)

In 1923 , Juan de la Cierva , a
young Spanish engineer made the
first successful flight of an
autogiro.

An autogiro operates on a
different principle than a
helicopter. The rotor of
autogiro was not driven
by the engine but rotated
itself as the aircraft was
drawn along by its
propeller. The autogiro
used extreamely short
take-off and landing but
it could not move sideways
or hover in still air
like a helicopter.

The Autogiro's rotor is designed
so that a blade set at a low
positive angle of pitch will
rotate automatically as long
as an airstream is kept flowing
through the rotor. However,
the technology of the rotor
head and the rotor blade
developed for autogiro
contributed importantly to
the development of the
successful of helicopter.


In the 1930's autogyro technology
was rapidly advancing and its
safety and utility was being
demonstrated and accepted.

Mail carrying autogyros operated
off the top of the Philadelphia Post
Office. Four and five place autogyros
were being produced as well as
smaller ones. Pitcairn alone
developed and manufactured 14
models between 1930 and 1940.

These aircraft had performance
equaling contemporary airplanes
with maximum speeds up to 150 mph.

In the U.S. Autogyros were used for
rooftop-to-rooftop urban mail
delivery. In the 1930's and 40's,
autogyros were used to carry mail
from post office rooftops in
Camden, NJ, Philadelphia, PA,
Chicago, IL, New Orleans, LA,
and Washington, D.C., as well as
other cities in the north east.

The world's first scheduled air mail
service by a rotary winged aircraft,
began on July 6, 1939 using a Kellet
gyro to fly from the roof of the Philadelphia
Post Office to the airport at Camden,
New Jersey. This experimental service
lasted about one year.

On October 1, 1947, Los Angeles
Airways began the world's first regularly
scheduled helicopter mail service,
operating within a 50-mile (80-kilometer)
radius of Los Angeles International Airport.

Note:
The Second Byrd Antarctic Expedition
from 1933 to 1935 also flew a Kellett
autogyro. Unfortunately, it did not carry
any mail.

You'd want to search both spellings if you're looking for something, but giro is technically correct.



[from the Pitcairn entry at the Fantasy of Flight website: https://www.fantasyofflight.com/col...ogiro-pa-18/ ]

Thanks for the followup info.

Yes, when searching for autogiro stamps, one must use both spellings. It also helps to search for Cierva, which can bring up still more stamps not described as autogiros.

Speaking of whom, Cambodia has issued three stamps featuring de la Cierva autogiros.

First up, 1992, Sc. 1218. one from a set of five celebrating inventors, issued for the World's Fair held in Seville, Spain.



Second, 1993 Sc. 1314 one from a set of five stamps depicting various "vertical take off" aircraft shows the Cierva model C8 from 1927.




And lastly, also from 1993 is Sc. 1317, issued in a mini-sheet a different stamp showing Cierva's C4 model, the first functioning one from 1923.

It was a fine summer day on June 18, 1931,when the Michigan Air Tour flew from Detroit to its first stop in Marshall, Michigan, where the town fathers were celebrating the dedication of Brooks Field as the town airport.

A crowd estimated at 6,000-8,000 gathered. Some 45 aircraft landed, then took off at 1:30 pm for Pontiac, their next stop in a 19 city tour of the state according to reporting by the Kalamazoo Gazette.

Here is a airmail cover from that day, depicting various aircraft including an autogiro. Alas, The Grand Rapids Press, reported that very evening the autogiro belonging to the Detroit News, was "unavoidably delayed" and did not show in Marshall, but would join the tour later. An Army blimp was also supposed to appear, but I do not see coverage to confirm.

Here is an autogiro cover celebrating the delivery of a Cierva C8-W to the Smithsonian Institution back on July 22 1931. Pilot James Ray flew it from the Pitcairn works outside Philadelphia PA to the Smithsonian where it landed on the Mall in front of the Arts & Industries Building where it was to hang on display.

This particular autogiro was the first to fly in the US and was used by Pitcairn to advance autogiro design until they began commercial production. At that point they retired the original with its peppy Wright Whirlwind engine.

Alas, time and the Smithsonian itself have not been kind to it as you can see in this article in the Smithsonian's Air & Space Magazine https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-...m-180961679/ . It's been stripped of its engine and is in tatters. This cover is in better shape.



I suspect the Maldives stamp I posted earlier in this thread is based on the delivery of this autogiro to the Smithsonian, which did attract some press coveragge, although it could be based on a landing of another autogiro on the White House lawn.

As noted above, Spain is by far the dominant issuer of autogiro stamps due to de la Cierva being a native son. We've seen several singles and two biggish sets thus far from Spain. But there is another set of Spanish autogiro stamps not yet shown.

Spain, March 1936. 15 airmail stamps were issued to commemorate 40 years of the Press Association of Madrid. Among those were:

• four depicting an eagle nesting in newspapers (that's what it looks like);


• four showing a fixed wing monoplane over the Madrid Palace of the Press;


• three depicting Don Quixote and Sancho Panza riding their flying wooden horse - something you don't see often;


• and (drumroll please ) four depicting a soaring autogiro.

So here are Scott C77, C80, C82, and C84 of 1936 showing a Cierva autogiro flying above the Convent of Las Descalzas Reales (called by Scott the "House of Nazareth") in central Madrid. This was a nunnery established as a residence for impoverished single and widowed women from the royal and other noble and well-to-do families. Literally "barefoot royals."

These do not have much catalog value, but from what I can tell they are actually uncommon in the marketplace today. Quantities issued were 331,000 for the C77 15 centimo, 481,000 for the C80, 221,000 for the C82, and just 146,000 for the 1 peseta C84.