When I walked back from grade school, I would stop by my Mom's lab before going home. Next to her lab was an aerial photography company, Spence Air Photo, Inc. They had a glass storefront displaying their work and there were usually two people working; a young man and an older man - the owner,
Robert Spence. I don't know who the younger man was - he may have been a pilot - but he was friendly and didn't mind talking about airplanes for a few minutes with a little kid. I remember the model of a Jenny that they had on display.
I'm sure that they never flew an autogyro... but I have a
1/72 RS Models Cierva C.30 that I wanted to use as practice for the 1/35 Miniart kit, so I decided to whif the RS kit as a Spence Air Photo autogyro.
I'm almost done with the build.
Each strut in both the landing gear and rotor support had to be added individually; not fun but surprisingly quick. The ugly joint between the struts and the fuselage was apparently a feature of the real thing, not a kit flaw.
I think I'll remake the camera and make a mounting bracket for it, then make up the decals. I 'll probably use one of their B&W images of either UCLA or of the street I live on now (which is near campus) as a backdrop.