It is my pleasure and privilege to deliver this lecture about the state of development of the autogyro in North America. I would like to deal with some of the early history of the autogyro, the progress of which had been steadily increasing up to the start of the Second World War. The introduction of the helicopter and the prospect of cheap transportation for all, tended to bring a temporary halt to autogyro construction. The last of the Cierva line of Autogiros was the C.40 which was a two-seater capable of a jump take-off by spinning up the rotor in zero pitch above the normal rpm required for flight, and using the excess kinetic energy stored in the rotor to achieve a satisfactory jump. Cierva's first autogyro experiments were conducted during 1922 using blades attached rigidly to the hub; the single rotor machines rolled over on take-off due to lift dissymmetry on the disc. Cierva also experimented with a contra-rotating rotor but this system was.unsuccessful, since the two discs did not behave in an identical manner.