1927
Henrich Focke and Anton Flettner are pre-war Germany's must famous helicopter pioneers, but there was a third pioneer whose name has all but disappeared from the history books. Walter Rieseler was born in Berlin in 1890. Rieseler became interested in flight at an early age. With his brother he started a small aircraft company in Breslau in 1920. On the 24th of January 1926 with his friend Walter Kreiser was given a patent for an autogyro (This was two days before Cierva was issued a patent for his autogyro in England). In 1927 Rieseler and Kreiser build their first autogyro. Financed by a Hamburg banker, the autogyro which was conventional in design, but featured a four-leaf rotor. Unlike Cierva's design, Rieseler's autogyro had blades that could be adjusted in flight. The first flight showed a strong oscillation that could not be eliminated. At this setback the banker withdrew any further funding.
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