Harold Pitcairn: The Man Who Built the Autogiro

On this site in nineteen twenty-four, aeronautical pioneer Harold Pitcairn established his first flying field, launching one of the more remarkable careers in early American aviation. Pitcairn founded Pitcairn Aviation, which eventually became Eastern Air Lines, and pioneered some of the first air mail routes on the East Coast.

But his greatest technical achievement came with the autogiro, an aircraft using a freely-spinning rotor for lift combined with a conventional propeller for thrust. Unlike a helicopter, the autogiro's rotor is unpowered and cannot hover, but it offered dramatically safer low-speed flight than conventional airplanes of the era. Pitcairn and his team introduced the American autogiro here and developed it through the late nineteen twenties. In nineteen thirty, they received the Collier Trophy, aviation's most prestigious annual award, for their achievement. His Autogiro Company held well over a hundred patents.