An aircraft that uses a freely spinning rotor blade for lift and a conventional propeller for thrust, a predecessor to the helicopter.
From Spanish 'auto-' (self) and 'giro' (rotation), invented by Juan de la Cierva in 1923 in Spain. The self-rotating rotor gave it its name.
The autogiro was aviation's bridge between airplanes and helicopters—it could land without crashing but couldn't hover, and inventors used it to solve the puzzle of vertical flight.
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