Except the rules don't allow it,  "Autogiros and helicopters, or aircraft which rotate their propellers to a horizontal plane to act as rotors for hovering flight, are prohibited"              Mike

I looked at the XC-142 at the Air Force Museum and noticed besides the four 4-bladed props on the wing there is also a 3-bladed prop mounted horizontally on the tail.  Note the notch at the bottom of the rudder to clear the 5th prop.

Clancy

I was there at the Tri-Cities NATS when the auto gyro was deemed illegal for profile carrier.  If the rules had stated that the projected disc area of the rotor could be counted, it would have been well over the minimum wing area of 300 sq. in.  Never did get to see it fly.  There was also another plane there that had the wing tilt up on low speed.   The Northwest did have some ideas.   

Just so everybody knows I know that it is not legal, I know the rules as well as anybody else.  I just ran across the video and saw that it was on an aircraft carrier so I put it up here because I thought it was interesting, I had never seen it before, and thought others would enjoy looking too.   I thought those stupid little smiley faces were for getting the tone of how I was saying it(saying it jokingly) across. 

I didnt mean to stir anything up!

Sorry to bring this up after so long, but here's my version of the autogiro controversy. I can't address what happened before it landed in my lap, but boy did it land in my lap! As chairman of the CL Contest Board (there was only one all encompassing board at that time), it was up to me to decide the legality of this specific aircraft. There were two different points of contention. One was whether rotary wing craft were allowed at all, and the other was the  minimum wing area issue. I could not find anything in the rules that led me to believe that rotary wings were specifically meant to be  disallowed. Rather, I felt that they were probably never even considered when the rules were written. Just like any other new idea or concept, I thought they should be legal until they were called illegal. As for wing area, I talked to some engineers from Bell and LTV, and the consensus was that there was no easy comparison.  It wasn't disc area, and it wasn't rotor blade area. So, based on the premise that the minimum 300 sq. inch area in profile was meant to dictate a certain level of performance, and MY JUDGEMENT that the autogiro in question was consistent with that intent, it should be allowed. It was also MY JUDGEMENT that allowing the rotor to be spun up by hand for takeoff was adding energy to the craft, just like pushing it would be, and should NOT be allowed.

The AMA rules were subsequently changed through the normal rule change process, reflecting the majority opinion that rotary wing and tilt rotor aircraft should not be allowed. This subject generated lots of ill will on all sides at the time, and NOBODY was happy with me, but hopefully we are all over it by now. I don't mean to stir up any hard feelings now, I just want to share some more information.

Bill Bischoff

Anybody know how an F-8 would be recieved under the carrier rules using a functioning change in wing incidence as the full scale plane did for slow flight and landing?

Or what about a Ryan FR-1 Fireball with say a .45 in the nose and a small turbine in the tail for a "One Turnin, One Burnin" flight?  Maybe a North American AJ-1 with a pair of good .24 or .28 glow engines, and a small turbine in the fuse?  Or in fact any turbine aircraft for carrier, with an actual turbine engine?  Say that F-8 with variable wing incidence, or maybe an AD-2?  Twin Turbine?

Remember scale competition also has some rules.  If the wing tilts up for low speed option, it must return to normal flight attitude.  That is why I couldn't use flaps as an option as I couldn't get them to retract after they were activated on a Gaurdian.