Deception, Obscurity and Irony in Popular Rotorcraft Movements: Why the British Rotorcraft Movement Did Not Develop as the Popular Rotorcraft Movement of Igor Bensen

Igor Bensen created the American popular rotorcraft movement but his insistence upon iconic status, retarded advancement of autorotational aircraft. It was only after a Bensen stepped aside in the face of the rising popularity of California’s Ken Brock that the American popular rotorcraft movement would begin to free itself from the rigidity of Bensen’s designs. The British rotorcraft movement began with Bensen kits/plans but never accorded Bensen iconic status. Ken Wallis developed superbly-engineered and machined autogyros and achieved world-wide recognition, but refusing to make his aircraft available to the amateur-builder, had virtually no influence on that movement, it being shaped by the gyroplanes of Peter Lovegrove, and by questionable ethical practices: misappropriation of intellectual property by Don Campbell, and the questionable practices of Rex McCandless and Dick Everett. It is ironic that the American popular rotorcraft movement has steadily advanced away from Igor Bensen and his aircraft, while the British rotorcraft movement has a fairly unbroken line from the Bensen to the Campbell-Bensen to the Cricket and its progeny and that the British popular rotorcraft movement is more reflective of Bensen than the contemporary American movement.