Abstract:
The April, 2003 Hofstra University From Autogiro to Gyroplane: The Past, Present and Future of an Aviation Industry Conference was a unique, truly historic gathering. This first university-level conference brought together an international group of pioneers and, as England's Ron Bartlett later observed in his Autogiro 1/4ly publication, this "[u]nique conference brings a long awaited legitimacy to the world's autogyro movement", a sentiment also voiced by Stephanie Gremminger in an October 2003 issue of Kitplanes and long-time PRA member (and former Popular Rotorcraft Flying editor) Paul Bergen Abbott two months earlier in an August article in Rotorcraft. Conceived in early 2000, the Conference took 34 months of planning and was accompanied by a world-class Autogiro history museum exhibit, the details of which have never been told, including inter alia: the strategies used to gain approval from the Hofstra University Board of Trustees for the awarding of the University's highest honor, an honorary Doctorate, to Wing Commander Ken Wallis for lifetime achievement (involving many copies of the Ian Hancock's Ken Wallis biography and several Corgi® models of the Wallis WA-116 "Little Nellie" Autogyro); the autogyro pioneer who initially refused to attend when he discovered that others were to be honored, and then retaliated by ignoring his conference presentation in favor of a scolding lecture on gyroplane safety that would privately be deemed "total rubbish" by a world-famous helicopter engineer in the audience; the Finish autogyro pioneer who's presentation ran so far over time that the 'plug was pulled' on his computer - and who then expressed gratitude because he was desperately trying to avoid what was coming next; the author who didn't like the rambling anecdotal presentation of a woman Gyrocopter pioneer and refused to allow his paper to be published in the Conference Proceedings; the dispute as to who would cut the Ken Wallis 87th birthday cake, settled with decisive action by Sergei Sikorsky; the presentation by the only Afro-American aircraft designer in the National Air and Space Museum, explaining why there is a black mannequin sitting in his futuristic gyroplane; and the luncheon conversation that led to the creation of the Vertical Flight History division of the American Helicopter Society International.