An aircraft that uses an unpowered rotating rotor blade above its fuselage to generate lift while forward motion comes from an engine-driven propeller.
From auto- (self) + gyro (Greek gyros 'circle/rotation'). Invented by Spanish engineer Juan de la Cierva in the 1920s, combining the concepts of self-propulsion with rotational lift—the name emphasizes the rotor's independent, self-spinning nature.
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