Autogyros: Great Electric Aircraft

I apologize for the roughness of this post. I will improve it soon.

An autogyro is a an aircraft that uses forward motion to spin a rotary wing, allowing for safe flight
at slower speeds and the potential for VTOL. But their design also lends itself to becoming electrically powered.

Autogyros were developed in the early days of flight in Spain.  Originally they were basically planes which used a rotor instead of a wing. A rotor is able maintain speed, and therefore lift, independent of the speed of the aircraft. This means that an auto gyro can move very slowly through the air and not stall as a conventional fixed wing plane would.

There are two ways of thinking about this. The rotor is basically creating a large circular wing above the aircraft, or it is several small wings moving very quickly through the air. In both situations lift is increased, and slow speeds of the craft are possible. Use which ever mental model you need for it to be clear.

Now an autogyro was originally just a plane with a rotating wing. But development went far enough that power from the thrust engine could be transmitted to the rotor so that an autogyro could launch vertically, then the power to the rotor could be disengaged and it could simply rotate freely for forward flight. A auto gyro can literally switch from vertical to forward flight just by popping a clutch. No complex transitions are needed such as in the case of tilt-rotor aircraft like the Osprey.

The autogyro was developed into an VTOL airliner in the early 1960's but the Fairey Rotodyne project was cancelled for lack of funding.

Fairey Rotodyne intro video

The fact that the primary rotor is only used for liftoff and then is simply a passive wing in forward flight is a great efficiency benefit to an electric aircraft. Power is consumed on lift-off and then, in forward flight the system is as efficient as an airplane. There could even be the potential for a type of air regenerative braking as the rotor acts like a wing.

The autogyro is also very safe as personal air vehicle. Its basically non-existent stall speed and lack of complex transitions makes it potentially safe for consumer markets. The autogyro is one of the best technologies for an electric personal flying car.