Spanish Inventors Codexery

Juan de la Cierva

Spanish inventor of the autogyro and pioneer of rotor-wing flight.

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He was born into a wealthy aristocratic family on 21 September 1895 and died in a plane crash on 9 December 1936.[1][2][3]

Life and work

He earned a civil engineering degree and moved to the United Kingdom in 1925, establishing the Cierva Autogiro Company with Scottish industrialist James G. Weir.[2] In 1919 he began considering using a rotor to generate lift at low airspeed to eliminate stall risk.[2] Early failures involved unbalanced rolling movement from dissymmetry of lift between advancing and retreating blades.[2] He died when a KLM DC-2 exploded after hitting a house near Croydon Airfield on 9 December 1936.[3]

What the cited sources add

The programme offers 350 contracts for doctors at public and private R&D centres.[4] These contracts last three years, unlike the five-year Ramón y Cajal programme.[4] Researchers may apply to both programmes but cannot request changes if hired under the Juan de la Cierva scheme.[4] Applicants must have spent at least 12 months at R&D centres different from their host institution after earning their doctorate.[4]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Juan de la Cierva" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: George Galdorisi, "Leave No Man Behind: The Saga of Combat Search and Rescue", Voyageur Press, 2008; Trevor Homer, "The Book of Origins: The first of everything", Hachette Digital, 2007; Aero Digest, Feb 1939, p. 27 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Juan de la Cierva" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Autogiro's Inventor", Queensland Times, 10 February 1937, p. 11 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Juan de la Cierva" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Invented Autogiro", The Border Watch, 24 December 1936, p. 8 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  4. "BOE-A-2004-2964 Orden CTE/351/2004, de 10 de febrero, por la que se establecen las bases y se hace pública la convocatoria de concesión de ayudas de los Programas Ramón y Cajal y Juan de la Cierva, en el marco del Progr. facts only, no text reused. boe.es

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Juan de la Cierva (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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