Published Airpower Journal - Fall 1988
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Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.
OF AUTOGYROS AND DINOSAURS
Who was Cierva? The explanation of why Cierva is not a household name holds a message for today's Air Force. The process of acquiring superior weapons is in trouble. Since the Air Force advocates and acquires its own proposed weaponry, we both "sell" and buy. All too often, what is sold is not bought. Advocacy--or selling the need for a weapon within the planning, programming, and budgeting system--ignores the particulars of buying an allegedly superior weapon and evaluating how it will fit into the Air Force's concept of employment. Unlike the snake oil salesmen of old, the modern Air Force not only must sell its medicine but also must take it. Overselling a proposal may diminish the Air Force's ability to meet the challenges of the future.
This essay does not address the formal array of acquisition regulations, organizations, and responsibilities. Nor does it challenge the need for superior weaponry. The thesis that victory favors the side that uses superior arms is based firmly on the history of wars and weapons and is not in question here.1 Rather, this is an account of how we may err in making proposals that compete for increasingly scarce budget dollars.
The essay discusses selling and evaluating proposed, superior weapons and the crucial role of doctrine in this process. It examines the military history of what may be the archetypical, oversold, proposed, superior weapon--the military autogyro. Much of the history of the autogyro's selling and evaluation is applicable to acquisition of the superior weaponry that is essential to the modern Air Force.
Weapons Advocacy and Selling
New weapons do not just happen. They must be sold before they can be bought. After the military identifies a need, it submits proposals for new weapons to the scrutiny of civilian evaluation. All proposals must be advocated before Congress and the American public in such a way that the need is verified. If funding is to be secured, the need for any new system must be clearly greater than that for other systems. The constant danger of this competition is the possibility of overselling, which jeopardizes the basic intent of the process of acquiring superior weaponry.2 Overselling is dangerous because it creates expectations for a weapon that can neither be built nor delivered. Overselling can produce more than embarrassment to the service; it may result in the loss of some other truly superior weapon whose advocates were not as successful in the selling process.
The military should not ignore innovation but must remain objective about superior weaponry that allegedly contributes to our national defense. Objectivity during advocacy should be based on sound doctrine. Basic doctrine is the starting point for evaluation.
Superior Weaponry and Doctrine
Superior arms are not merely technologically better than others; superiority also applies to the doctrinal context that supports the selling and evaluation of the weapon.3 Somehow, we must assure ourselves that the weapon that is bought is in fact superior. Just as doctrine provides a basis for selling a proposed, superior weapon, so does a doctrinally based evaluation tell us if the weapon fulfills expectations.
There are three basic means by which proposed, superior weaponry can meet the requirements of existing doctrine. First, a proposed weapon may fit existing doctrine exactly. This situation occurs when current trends are extended along conventional lines. Improving the speed, range, and flexibility of modern fighters would be doctrinally correct; in other words, these changes would produce a good fit of weapon and doctrine.4 Second, some proposals may require a logical extrapolation of doctrine. Technological advances offer previously unavailable capabilities that do not fit current doctrine but can be accommodated by extension. The development of the helicopter is an example. Third, a new capability may emerge that is totally unaccounted for in doctrine, which requires a serious revision and rethinking of principles. This reconsideration of doctrine should have occurred in the Army when aviation began to evolve.
Successful advocacy to ensure the nation's security requires choosing superior weaponry and establishing an appropriate "doctrine or concept of tactical or strategic application . . . to be performed by any given weapon."5 Weapon and doctrine must be synergistic, for if they are incompatible the weapon will not fulfill expectations. The autogyro is air example of a proposed, superior weapon that was oversold out of step with the doctrine of the times.
The Autogyro and Its Selling
The history of the autogyro reflects the means by which the past enlightens the present:
It is for any student of war . .. a never-ending exercise, in reading of some older problems and how they were handled, to make adjustments to later times. . . . Some ideas and admonitions are immediately recognized as still pertaining today, others as being useful only for the better understanding of military . . . history.6
The autogyro was an air vehicle supported by a large, unpowered, wind-milling propeller and driven forward by a conventional motor-driven propeller. The autogyro anticipated and supposedly had more useful features than the helicopter, an aircraft many individuals considered unworkable.7 However, on 29 September 1907 at Douai, France, an uncontrolled, manned helicopter ascended about two feet.8 By 1922 Louis Brennan of Great Britain had a helicopter that hovered for several minutes and flew 20 to 30 yards at a height of five feet.9 In the United States Dr George de Bothezat developed a helicopter for the Army that was capable of up to two minutes of flight.10 This progress was not satisfying to people who envisioned more dramatic and practical vertical takeoff and landing capabilities. Because of the greater initial success of the antogyro in the late 1920s, work on contemporary helicopters came to a virtual standstill.11 Brennan's funding abruptly ended, and de Bothezat's helicopter was dropped in favor of autogyro development.12
Don Juan de la Cierva's first successful antogyro (his fourth machine) flew on 9 January 1923 after he had worked four years on the design.13 Within days he flew a two-and-one-half-mile closed course and by 1928 had crossed the English Channel.14 The autogyro flourished in the early to mid-1930s in part due to the long-standing and frustrating inability to produce a true helicopter but principally due to its inventor's great energy and abilities as a salesman, diplomat, innovator, and enthusiast.15
Cierva created the autogyro to eliminate the major problems of aircraft safety and viewed his invention as a replacement for all conventional aircraft.16 Although safety was important in his time, it was insufficient reason to justify replacement of conventional aircraft by autogyros.17 Cierva needed a more compelling vision of the future, so he outlined features that supposedly made it the ideal vehicle for military service:
1. unobstructed view downwards,
2. low minimum speed,
3. ease of control over mobile targets,
4. ability to land easily at night and in fog,
5. stability in bumpy air,
6. comparative invisibility (the rapidly rotating windmill gave a degree of invisibility not possible with fixed-wing airplanes),
7. ease of control, thereby reducing pilot work load.18
Observers with military experience who were convinced by Cierva's vision even before military evaluation trials touted other selling points:
1. altering the outcome of future dogfights,
2. improving the coordination of air and ground forces,
3. reducing dependence on fixed-base operations,
4. providing battlefield reconnaissance immune to enemy defenses,
5. improving aircraft safety,
6. increasing bombing accuracy,
7. rescuing wounded soldiers,
8. avoiding the vulnerabilities of large aircraft carriers by dispersing autogyros to any ship with a landing platform, and
9. replacing the observation balloons19
Harold Pitcairn flew the first American autogyro in Philadelphia on 19 December 1928.20 In 1931 the Pitcairn Autogyro Company built a Cierva-designed machine, the XOP-1, for US Navy shipboard tests.21 Also in 1931 President Hoover presented the Collier Trophy to Pitcairn for his work in "making practical application of the autogiro."22 Two months before actual trials of the XOP-1, Rear Adm W. A. Moffett, chief of the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics, announced, "There can be no doubt but what the development of the autogiro is the outstanding achievement in aviation during the past year."23
The US Marine Corps evaluated Pitcairn's machine in combat conditions in Nicaragua. Redesignated OP-1, marines used it during the US incursion there in the 1930s. Testing it as a replacement for airplanes flying out of small fields and as a rescue craft for wounded soldiers revealed some limited uses.24 USMC Capt Francis P. Mulcahy's 22 November 1932 report to Headquarters US Marine Corps said its chief value was inspecting small fields recommended by ground troops as landing areas.25
In March 1935 Wing Comdr R. A. C. Brie, chief pilot of the Cierva Autogiro Company of Great Britain, became the first person to take off from and land on a warship other than an aircraft carrier--the Italian cruiser Fiume.26 The US Army was also interested; the Kellett KD-1, which flew at the Philadelphia Airport on 9 December 1934, became the Air Corps YO-60, used in the 1930s.27 By 1935 the armed forces of the United States, Italy, Spain, the Soviet Union, Germany, France, Great Britain, and Japan had either tested or ordered autogyros.28 They reviewed its capabilities within the context of their own doctrines of air warfare. For instance, the Soviet Union developed some models for leaflet dropping, antisubmarine warfare, and aerial combat. The Germans developed a submarine-based observation autogyro. The Japanese developed a version for antisubmarine warfare and aerial bombing.29 With the apparent exception of the Soviet fighter, all saw combat in World War II.
Nevertheless, autogyro development ended quickly. On 9 December 1936 Cierva died in an airline accident.30 A report of Cierva's death suggested the loss of enchantment with the vehicle by that time:
Cierva's place in history cannot be predicted yet . . . but the greatness of his fame will depend entirely on the future of the autogiro. . . Unless its speed and useful load can be considerably increased it cannot compete with the airplane, and just now the prospects of doing either are not bright.31
The popularity of the autogyro had been disproportionate to its actual capabilities and mostly attributable to Cierva.32 His purpose in the latter half of his life had been to sell the machine, and he single-mindedly pursued revolutionizing aviation with the machine he felt solved all of aviation's major problems: "The demonstration of his machine was no less a task for Senor Cierva than its building."33
Although he was the world's foremost innovator of autogyro technology, Cierva never solved its handling problems or made good on his claims of a $2,000 cost per vehicle or a seven-ton payload.34 All three Kellett Army autogyros were so difficult to fly that they were soon destroyed. To complete test trials, the Army had to order seven replacement machines.35 Cierva's own test pilot crashed so often that he refused to fly for Cierva any longer.36 Cierva underestimated the cost per vehicle by an order of magnitude and overestimated its payload by three orders.37 The Air Corps Advanced Flying School cited limited carrying capacity as the first and most serious deficiency, saying it "has limited the radio and other observer's equipment, and precluded carrying defensive armament."38 Innovation alone had not assured superior weaponry.39 After Cierva died, interest waned faster than it had grown after the first autogyro flight.
Helicopter work had continued on a small but eventually productive scale. In France Louis Brequet built the first successful helicopter in 1934.40 Within three years of Cierva's death, many countries had workable helicopters, but it is arguable that the helicopter killed the autogyro.41 The military autogyro trials, begun before the first helicopter flew, were so disappointing they might have led to abandoning the aircraft in any case. The failure of the autogyro was in part due to problems with the vehicle itself. More significant in the demise of the military autogyro, however, was the overly optimistic advocacy and lack of a disciplined doctrinal evaluation of its military utility.
The Autogyro and Doctrine
Doctrine that does not allow for the advances of technology and capability serves no one well. Doctrine is not an immutable set of principles.42 It is shaped from lessons learned through experience and must be revisited to ensure that the appropriate lessons were learned.43 Its two main goals are to show decisionmakers how experience can illuminate future needs and to provide a basis for guidance and discussion concerning common problems.44 Consequently, it "provides the rationale for favoring one weapon system over another."45 It also serves "as a background for . . . operations, tactics, techniques, and procedures of employing . . . forces."46
Popular publications in the 1920s and 1930s carried accounts of autogyro developments. Articles written under pseudonyms by military authors allowed a public doctrinal debate that yields some interesting insights. The specifics, which centered on the machine's slow speed and upward-firing defensive guns, are not as important as the essence of the argument: whether the autogyro fit into current doctrine.
An article that sparked considerable reply was about one particularly desirable feature: at speeds below which an airplane would stall, an autogyro remained stable (though descending), a phenomenon similar to hovering. It had some capabilities that could not be matched by pursuit planes of the day. The author, writing under the pseudonym "D/IOI," included a tantalizing reference to an autogyro that could turn at speeds as low as five miles per hour. He asked, "Is this what we have been waiting for all these years? Full control over the whole range of speed--and what a range! It looks suspiciously like it."47
Doctrine held that the tighter an aircraft could turn, the better it could dogfight.48 When a fighter with a turn radius of 300 yards met an enemy aircraft that pivoted in 30 yards, the latter had an obvious advantage.49 The autogyro seemingly had all the elements of a superb dogfighting vehicle. D/IOI therefore argued that the autogyro required a radical revision of those parts of current doctrine that did not favor the aircraft.
On the other hand, pursuit pilots knew that speed meant survival. Responding to D/IOI, "Merlin" explained that although an autogyro could theoretically outturn a fighter while almost pivoting, a lack of speed had its disadvantages. Slow, descending autogyros had no evasive capability. Furthermore, airplanes of the time generally had guns that fired off-axis in any hemisphere--it was accepted, it worked, and doctrine accounted for this kind of self defense. The problem of firing through the windmill propeller was similar to the problem of firing through airplane propellers that had been solved in World War I, but no one could solve the windmill problem. This matter was considered a serious shortcoming.50 Thus, autogyros were vulnerable to attack from above, a point of considerable concern.51 It was a sitting duck for a fast fighter. Merlin postulated a scenario in a future war wherein the World War I sport of balloon-strafing had been replaced by gyrostrafing.52 In other words, tactics could overcome the autogyro's advantages. Merlin took the position that the autogyro was simply another aircraft and should be evaluated on the basis of existing doctrine.
Merlin had accurately described the antogyro's vulnerabilities, implying they outweighed the advantages. He correctly used his experience to show that the autogyro's lack of speed, like Excalibur of his namesake's era, was a double-edged sword. Merlin erred by considering only what was possible with current offensive tactics. He did not see that a reasonable extension of doctrine, allowing for different defensive tactics, might change the evaluation of the autogyro.
Instead of viewing the problem as an "aerialist," Royal Army Maj R. Hilton, a ground officer with some flying experience, tried to be evenhanded. His experience in World War I taught him that machines with autogyro-like capabilities met needs arising from the coordination of air and ground forces. Hilton felt that doubts about the antogyro as a machine of war were based less on utility than vulnerability. But the method of employing the autogyro determined whether it would be vulnerable. He correctly pointed out that "at this stage of development prejudice might easily damn the whole idea without a fair trial. . . ."53
With considerable doctrinal vision, Hilton described how an autogyro might be best employed for ground support. Critics had postulated that autogyros would fly high over the enemy lines like World War I aircraft; however, Hilton said that flying low over one's own lines was best. In sound doctrinal fashion, he cited an incident to illustrate that an R.E.8 reconnaissance aircraft concerned with attack from above should fly at low altitude:
On the 8th [of] August, 1918, an artillery machine (R.E.8) was attacked over Proyart by five Fokker biplanes. The observer was badly wounded and could not continue firing his gun. The pilot could only occasionally get his front (fixed) gun to bear on an enemy machine owing to the inferior power of maneuver of the R.E.8 as compared to the 1918 Fokker. The fight therefore became a rather one-sided affair, the British machine being unable to reply at all to the fire of the five single-seaters. Finally, the R.E.8 escaped from this awkward situation by gradually losing height till pursuers and pursued were just missing the tops of trees along the banks of the Somme. After a few minutes of dodging about among the trees the pursuers drew off to a safer height, and saw their quarry fly off down the river, keeping below the level of the banks and crossing the lines at about twenty feet!54
In the R.E.8's do-or-die situation, such tactics were necessarily dangerous, but Hilton explained that the autogyro could safely perform this maneuver because of its lower speed and thus offset some of its vulnerabilities.
As tactics change with time, experience, and new development, so must precepts about what works best.55 If doctrine were to speak only about experience, it would be useless in developing new weapons or employing new tactics. The example of the "nap-of-the-earth" tactics derived from the R.E.8's escape shows that doctrine must consider new tactics in resolving speculative matters. Without actual autogyro combat employment, there could be no doctrine were it not for the ability to extend current thinking.
Doctrinal extension does not have to be lunacy. Overselling a partial solution to a problem leads to folly or failure or both. The autogyro did not demand a complete revision of doctrine because it was not the revolution in aviation that its inventor and others claimed. But it was just as clearly not a continuation of current practice. The R.E.8 episode suggested that an extension of doctrine would have been appropriate in evaluating the autogyro. This extension was not considered, however, because people had high expectations for this seemingly revolutionary aircraft. In a Darwinian survival of the fittest caused by its creator's overselling, the autogyro was supplanted by the helicopter and consequently joined the dinosaurs as a historical curiosity.
The Autogyro and Weapons Advocacy
The role of a weapons advocate in any age carries great responsibility. It combines the need for a firm understanding of doctrine, engineering, and technical matters with a balanced assessment of what is and may be possible; it requires the ability to make a clear distinction between reality and potential. Many people who felt strongly about the autogyro found that it is one thing to act as an advocate and quite another to be a responsible advocate.
The autogyro demonstrated that vertical-flight machines could be useful but not to the extent that they should replace conventional aircraft.56 The autogyro was neither airplane nor helicopter, but advocates made the mistake of trying to sell it as a combination of the two. The overselling of this limited military vehicle led to its demise and inhibited development of the helicopter. The fact that helicopters eventually developed superior capabilities may cause us to overlook the possibility that the autogyro might have had a place in military aviation if it had been properly sold and evaluated in an extended doctrinal context. The focus should have been on employing an autogyro to take advantage of its capabilities while minimizing its vulnerabilities.
The visionaries zealously predicted capabilities they no doubt expected to achieve someday. These individuals made their claims so often that they became accepted as reality and served to inflate expectations even more. Consequently, when the autogyro failed to live up to these unrealistic expectations, the disappointment was such that it was dropped altogether. There was no interest in pursuing its actual-though limited-capabilities. The fall of the autogyro was exacerbated by the unnecessary and misleading attempts of these advocates to suggest that it satisfied all or most of the needs of future military aviation. A proper doctrinal evaluation might have helped put the autogyro in perspective and might possibly have improved military operations.
The Autogyro and Us
People today think of autogyros in much the same way they do dinosaurs: they have seen pictures but have never really touched one. Thus, autogyros lack a sense of immediate reality. Nevertheless, the lessons learned from the autogyro about the relationship between weapons advocacy and doctrine are not fossils fit only for archaeologists; they still apply.
We must continue to be wary of any concepts that are oversold by their advocates.57 We are reminded that advocates who sold the F-111 promised that it would be the fighter of the future for both the Air Force and the Navy.58 Other examples from the past 15 years include the development of the fighter that could not be shot down, armed with the missile that could shoot down any fighter,59 and the space shuttle that could meet everyone's launch needs. Although these systems are extremely good, they are not as good as their advocates claimed. None of them live up to all the promises of their overzealous advocates. Failure to live up to exaggerated claims has subjected these and other vital systems to unwarranted and unproductive criticism.
The military must justify the need for all new weapons before Congress and the American public. This system of advocacy can lead to overselling, as was the case with the autogyro. If one were to reread this essay and substitute the names of current or planned weapon systems for the autogyro, the overly optimistic claims would sound disturbingly familiar. We must remember that just as the autogyro stymied the helicopter, so may some oversold weapon systems prevent us from developing others of equal or greater importance.
Advocacy is essential, but no more so than using adequate doctrine as the foundation for realistic expectations and evaluation. Doctrine does more than merely guide weapon employment and illuminate potential; it "defines the roles and missions of the service, the scope and potential capabilities of its weapon systems."60 Doctrine must allow for acquiring the best weapons, anticipating reasonable changes in the character of war, eliminating shortcomings without introducing new limitations, and taking the process of implementation from initial advocacy right through to final application.61
The idea that the experience of the R.E.8 could be doctrinally extended to a new vehicle or a new situation is still quite relevant. We constantly revise and update our basic aerospace doctrine, which includes doctrine associated with "strategic aerospace offense, at all levels of conflict."62 Were it not for the ability to extend doctrine through the use of appropriate historical lessons learned, some doctrine would be impossible to write unless we experienced actual nuclear combat.
Yet after 30 years of operating space systems in peace, crisis, and conflict, and gaining considerable detailed experience sufficient to write valuable doctrine, we have not codified our experience into an adequate space doctrine.63 Application of basic air doctrine may not be appropriate since space forces are not the same as air forces. Nor is simple extension of basic doctrine likely to prove adequate. Speed, range, and flexibility-the characteristics of air forces-do not serve space forces well and cannot be increased without eventually encountering physical and practical limitations.64 Just as in the case of the autogyro and possibly that of early Army aircraft, the Air Force stands the chance of improperly evaluating both space systems and service roles and missions in space unless its doctrine is explicit and relevant.
We should learn the lessons of history and pay close attention to particulars because no two situations are ever exactly alike. We should use these lessons to anticipate the future and prepare ourselves for the changing character of war. If we do not do so, then in the eyes of history we shall join the autogyros and the dinosaurs.
Notes
1. I. B. Holley, Ideas and Weapons (Washington, D.C.: US Government PrintingOffice. 1983), 10.
2. Charles W. Cook, "The Genie Is Alive and Well," address to the tenth annual Aerospace Power Symposium, 11 March 1986.
3. Holley, 10.
4. Air Force Manuel 1-1, Basic Aerospace Doctrine, 16 March 1984, 2-2.
5. Holley, 10.
6. Bernard Brodie, "The Continuing Relevance of On War," introduction to Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984), 57.
7. Chester L. Morris, Pioneering the Helicopter (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1945), vii. The 1937 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica says that a helicopter is "extravagant of power. In the light of modern knowledge, one horsepower cannot be expected to lift more than about 15 lb. The whole of the power of a modern commercial aeroplane arranged as a helicopter would be needed merely to sustain it, leaving nothing to raise or propel it."
8. G. Apostate, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Helicopters (New York: Bonanza Books, 1984), 8.
9. "Aeronautical Briefs," Aviation 12, no. 13 (27 March 1922): 378.
10. Apostolo, 10, and Robert A. Hasskarl, Jr., "Early Military Use of Rotary-Wing Aircraft," The Air Power Historian 12, no. 3 (July 1965): 75.
11. Apostate, 10, and Hasskarl,75.
12. Apostate, 10, and "The Improved Autogyro," New York Times, 20 September 1928. This editorial and other articles in various publications repeatedly tried to clear up the mistaken impression that the autogyro and the helicopter were the same. That misconception grew until It contributed to the difficulty of finding funds for real helicopter research and development.
13. Juan Cierva, "The Autogiro--Its Future as a Service Aeroplane," Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, May 1928, 698. Cierva explains that in 1918 a severe accident after stalling a conventional airplane led him to search for the means of stall prevention that was eventually incorporated in his invention. See also Warren R. Young, The Helicopters (Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 19821, 56.
14. Apostolo, 12. See also "Helicopter Rises 81 Feet," New York Times, 11 February 1923; "Autogiro Hailed as Plane of Future," New York Times. 2 December 1930; and '"Autogyro' Flies from London to Paris," Baltimore Sun, 18 September 1928.
15. "W. Wallace Kellett," U.S. Air Services 25, no. 9 (September 1940): 24-28. Cierva was able to enlist capable and ardent supporters, not the least of whom were Pitcairn and Kellett in the United States.
16. Thomas R. Reed, "Juan de la Cierva," U.S. Air Services 22, no. 1 (January 1937): 12.
17. "Autogiro Is Able to Land Upon Almost Any Backyard," New York Times, 24 February 1929. The issues of night safety and the invulnerability attributed to the autogyro were sources of considerable debate. Thomas Carroll, test pilot for the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics, asserted in the Times of 16 November 1930 that "the element of personal safety is governed, in the autogiro, in a ratio of about 10% piloting skill to 90% inherent aerodynamic safety. It would be practically impossible to overstate my optimism for this style of flight." However, a few crashes early in the autogiro's history and several crucial ones in its military testing served as much as any factor in discrediting such claims. These accidents were due to the difficult handling of the autogyro, which brought into question the validity of previous claims.
18. Cierva, 699.
19. See H. L. Lewis. "The Military Value of the Autogiro," U.S. Air Services 17, no. 10 (October 1932): 36; Lt Col G. P. Lawrence, "Ambulances Take to the Air," U.S. Air Services 18, no. 6 (June 1933): 16; "Ships Can Carry Autogiros to Spot Submarines," Scientific American 161, no. 6 (December 1939): 339; and Observation Aviation (Headquarters, Air Corps Advanced Flying School. 1938), 12.
20. "Pitcairn to Manufacture the Autogiro in America," U.S. Air Services 14, no. 3 (March 1929): 56.
21. "Navy Buys Autogiro to Try on Warships," New York Times, 23 January 1931.
22. U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 57, no. 8 (August 1931): 1119.
23. Rear Adm W. A. Moffett, remarks upon presentation of the Collier Trophy to Harold Pitcairn, 22 April 1931.
24. Lt Cal Victor Dallin, "National Guard Autogiros," U.S. Air Services 24, no. 5 (May 1939): 27. BrigGen T. E. Rilea, president of the National Guard Association of the United States. said the National Guard needed at least one autogyro in each state as an emergency vehicle. Maj Gen E. C. Shannon at the Pennsylvania National Guard said the autogyro would replace the observation balloon.
25. U.S. Naval Aviation, 1910-1980, NAVAIR Publication 00-80P-1, 161. The less than encouraging results of the trials were of due to any shortcomings of the aviator Mulcahy. While in Nicaragua he earned the Nicaraguan Medal of Distinction and Cross of Valor (see The Marine Corps Gazette, March 1934). As a sidelight to the history of the XOP-1, Lt A. M. Pride first flew the XOP-1 from the USS Langley on 23 September 1931.
26. U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 61, no. 3 (March 1935): 438.
27. Joseph N. Kane, The Pocket Book of Famous First Facts (New York: Pocket Books, 1970), 29. See also Apostotolo, 16.
28. "Autogiros and the Future," The Fighting Forces 12, no. 2 (June 1935): 158; U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 60, no. 8 (August 1934): 1175: 60, no. 7 (July 1934): 1024; 58, no. 8 (August 1932): 1235: and U.S. Air Services 18, no. 1 (January 1933): 46.
29. Norman Palmer and Floyd D. Kennedy, Jr., Military Helicopters of the World (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1984), 61-62, 103, 147. Some German submarines towed antogyros and used them to spot enemy shipping over the horizon without being detected. The Japanese used some copies of their Kellett autogyro for antisubmarine work.
30. "British Air Crash Kills Cierva and 13," New York Times, 9 December 1936. It was ironic that Cierva died in the crash of a fixed-wing airliner. The Times reported that "his distrust of the modern airplane . . . led him to regard patronage of airlines as an emergency measure."
31. Reed, 12.
32. Polmar and Kennedy, 2.
33. "British Air Crash Kills Cierva and 13," New York Times.
34. "Autogiro Is Hailed As Plane of the Future," New York Times, 2 December 1930. Cierva predicted a 7-ton payload and speed of 200 mph for his autogyros, which at the time flew at 115 mph with a gross weight of 3,500 pounds. Compare "Navy Buys Autogiro to try on Warships," New York Times, 23 January 1931. The Pitcairn XOP-1 was sold to the Navy at a cost of $29,500 per copy, far in excess of Cierva's earlier prediction of $2,000 per copy for a two-place autogyro, made in the Times of 20 September 1928.
35. Hasskarl, 77.
36. U.S. Air Services 10, no. 12 (December 1925): 47. In one of the earliest military tests, Capt F. T. Courtney flew a Cierva machine at Laffan's Plain, England, in late 1925 and crashed due to a design flaw in the rotor attachment assembly and the aircraft's poor handling qualities. In February 1927, Flight reported that Courtney crashed another autogyro near Hamble, England, and broke his ribs. Afterwards he refused to fly for Cierva.
37. Hasskar, 77. Fixed-wing observation planes were costing the Army about $30,000 compared to the $40,000 to $50,000 per Kellett autogyro. The useful payload of an autogyro was about 50 pounds more than crew weight.
38. Observation Aviation,12.
39. T. C. Hone and M. D. Mandels, "Interwar Innovation in Three Navies: U.S. Navy, Royal Navy, Imperial Japanese Navy," Naval War College Review 40. no. 2 (Spring 1987): 80; and Col D. M. Drew, "Technology and the American Way of War: Worshipping a False Idol?" Air Force Journal of Logistics 11, no. 1 (Winter 1987): 21.
40. Hasskarl, 77, and Willis L. Nye, "Pitcairn-Cierva C.8," American Aviation Historical Society Jounal 11, no. 4 (1966): 278. The depth of the depression is cited as another reason for the demise of the commercial versions. Young agrees that the depression was influential. Neither of these sources explains how the military autogyros failure was a result of the depresssion.
41. Apostolo, 16-20.
42. Carl vol Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984), 140-41.
43. Maj L. Parker Temple III, "How Dare They Tamper with the Sacred Functions of the Horse Cavalry?" Air University Review 37, no. 3 (March-April 1986): 25.
44. Maj Gen I. B. Holley, Jr., "The Role of Doctrine," Air Force Journal of Logistics 10, no. 1 (Winter 1986): 9.
45. I. B. Holley, Jr., "An Enduring Challenge: The Problem of Air Force Doctrine," The Harmon Memorial Lectures in Military History, no. 16 (USAF Academy, 1974), 2-3.
46. Gen Charles A. Gabriel, foreword to Air Force Manual 1-1, Basic Aerospace Doctrine, 16 March 1984, iii.
47. D/IOI, "One, Two, Three . . .?" The Fighting Forces 10, no. 3 (August 1933): 253.
48. Lewis, 36. Attributed to "no less an authority than Capt. Lewis A. Yancey [who] has expressed the opinion that the autogiro could be essentially superior to existing pursuit planes for fighting purposes. Captain Yancey has on three occasions offered to make a flight of about one hundred miles between given points and so maneuver his autogiro that it would be impossible for a standard pursuit job to photograph him with a camera gun." There is no record of anyone accepting his offer.
49. D/IOI, 254.
50. Synchronizing upward firing guns with variable rate of the unpowered windmill's rotation would have required a technology far in advance of that of the 1930s.
51. Merlin, "One, Two, Three. . .? (a Continuation)." The Fighting Forces 10, no. 5 (December 1933): 508-9. Merlin did not know of the capacity problem that would have prevented carrying defensive armament. See also Capt F. T. Courtney, "Inst.Ae.E. House Dinner," Flight 19, no. 15 (14 April 1927): 229. (See note 36 for Courtney's qualifications.)
52. Merlin, 508-09.
53. Maj R. Hilton, "The Alleged Vulnerability of the Autogiro," The Fighting Forces 11, no. 3 (August 1934): 231.
54. Ibid., 234.
55. Col Kinzie Edmunds, Foreword, Military Review, 1 June 1940.
56. U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 51, no. 5 (May 1925): 854. "The whole idea of this machine is still in its infancy, but it may contain the germ of a great and fundamental improvement. . . ."
57. Cook, "The Genie Is Alive and Well."
58. Robert J. Art, The TFX Decision: McNamara and the Military (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1968), 33.
59. This example derives from remarks of Gen Robert T. Marsh, commander of Air Force Systems Command, when discussing the establishment of a formal program of review for weapon systems and their advocacy.
60. Holley, "An Enduring Challenge,"3.
61. Holley, "The Role of Doctrine," 9.
62. AFM 1-1,3-2.
63. Temple, passim. The author acknowledges the existence of the Air Force Space Doctrine, AFM 1-6, which does not fit the criteria for doctrine as outlined in "Functions of the Horse Cavalry" and the present essay. It contains little information about space experience and even less doctrine.
64. Ibid. This essay discusses the inapplicability of current doctrine.
Contributor
Lt Col L. Parker Temple III(USAFA; MBA, University of Northern Colorado; MS, West Coast University) is assigned to Headquarters USAF. He has flown the F-4 and the T-37 and has had assignments at Headquarters Air Force Systems Command and Headquarters Tactical Air Command. Colonel Temple won second prize in the Era C. Eaker Essay Competition in 1986. Colonel Temple is a graduate of Squadron Officer School, Air Command and Staff College, and Naval War College.