From Aero Digest, April, 1935:
Pitcairn Autogiro Company, Willow Grove, Pennsylvania
• President: Harold F. Pitcairn. Vice- president: James G. Ray. Chief Engineer Agnew E. Larsen.
TW0-place open direct control autogiro.
Wright Whirlwind R-975E engine, 420 horsepower at 2150 revolutions per minute. Diameter of rotor 46 feet 2 inches. Length overall 21 feet 10 inches. Height overall 11 feet 1 inch. Rotor disc area 1675 square feet. Rotor blade area 84.5 square feet. Vertical tail area 8.15 square feet; horizontal tail area 21.80 square feet; angular tip area 11.8 square feet. Power loading 7.62 pounds per horsepower. Disc loading 1.91 pounds per square foot.
Empty weight 2300 pounds. Useful load 900 pounds. Gross weight 3200 pounds. Fuel capacity 66 gallons.
Maximum speed 141.8 miles per hour. Cruising speed 113.5 miles per hour. Landing speed nil. Service ceiling 15,275 feet. Rate of climb 1485 feet per minute. Cruising range 337 miles.
Fuselage: fabric covered; welded steel tubing; tandem seating arrangement; dual control. Blades: fabric covered; spars 4130-X steel single tubular spar-type; ribs plywood routed-type. Tail group: fin, rudder and stabilizer but no elevators; control in roll and pitch is accomplished through the tilting of the rotor blades. Landing gear fixed type with cantilever supports with telescoping shock struts. Streamline wheels. Cleveland Pneumatic splined strut shock absorbers.
Equipment includes landing flares, combined hand and electric inertia engine starter, hydraulic brakes and parking brake.
Provision can be made for folding the blades for storage in a shed or garage. A complete complement of flight and engine instruments is installed, with duplicate flight instruments in the front cockpit.
The machine as built includes one of several general types under development by the Autogiro Company of America for which concern it was built by the Pitcairn Autogiro Company.
a Pitcairn autogiro purchased in 1931. Photograph published in Engineer in Charge: A History of the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory, 1917-1958 by James R. Hansen. Image from NASA Langley Research Center.
Pitcairn YG-2 (PA-33) Autogiro Not all the firsts that occurred at Langley were planned, such as the first successful bail-out from a rotary-winged aircraft. On March 30, 1936, pilot William McAvoy and engineer John Wheatley abandoned their Pitcairn YG-2 Autogiro when the rotor failed. The Autogiro “NACA 88″ crashed and burned in the Back River, but both men parachuted to safety.