Some pictures of the early gyroplanes of Juan de la Cierva
 

In the very hard to find aviation museum in Madrid, a C6, a C19 and models he tinkered with.

The C6 has no controls on the rotor whatsoever, you tilted the frame by using movable wings and this tilting in turn turned the rotor head and thus the rotor disk.

Kai.

What un-orthodox planes... that was thinking outside the square alright!
The ruder on C19 looks just way too small...and they are big!!

Right on the rudder and look at how narrow the main gear is !!!

Tony

Tony, That C6 sure does have a narrow main. Looks like he changed his thinking on that looking at the other main gear.

Del

It's really great to be able to look back and see what kind of trials the pioneers had to go thru and see what has been accomplished to get us where we are today. It give shade tree builders like me a little hope and encouragement.

Tony

Did any one else notice the "overhead" control on the silver one ??

Tony

Cierva got it right the first time tony.he just went from aileron and elevator control to rotor control. The c9 rudder looks small but it has a long arm to its advantage. Basically an Avro fuselage with a rotor on top. :D