I was wondering when our airfoils would turn to energy generation.
There is a whole, untapped world waiting.

Bill Moyes <click
Hang gliding pioneer and his furthered business: LiteFlite

High Altitude Wind Power <click

HangGliderHistory     

Learn to hang glide while facing the Pacific Ocean where pioneers first trained
in 1962 with Jim Hobson of the Lawrence Welk Shows and 1965 with Richard Miller and friends:
Dockweiler State Beach flight-training park formally "saved" and well managed by Windsports:
Click a  photo to get started hang gliding:

 

 

  After NASA, and then Ryan Aeronautical, then Charles Richards made the 1961 foldable aluminum-frame Dacron-sailed four-beam kite-glider--hang-glider with heavy payload for specific purpose-- for NASA, then thousands of others began to use that wing as a format for hang gliders. Thousands of others embedded the Charles Richards' template or the Fleep's wing template for the wing of their hang gliders and kites and powered flexible wing aircraft and also adopted the at-least 1908 triangle control frame into hang gliding.  It a shame that anyone following such a gift would attempt later to grab global mechanical invention credit for the Rogallo hang gliders as a mechanical integrity (some tried and still try).  
See also 1961:   I Flew the Flex Wing (cover's short title), or I Flew the Pterodactyl! Flex-Wing published by Popular Mechanics magazine in the November 1961 issue beginning on page 85; that article was not regarding Richard Miller, but Lou Everett of Ryan Aeronautical Company I Flew the Pterodactyl! Flex-Wing Hottest Thing in Aviation.

Of course, each following maker could be proud
of his or her own ornamental product of precise appearance lines;
and that is just what happened in scores of nations around the world: USA, Australia, France, Germany, Argentina, Mexico, Canada, Russia, Switzerland, Japan, ....

 

Francis Rogallo
declares  himself as he understood the difference between mechanical invention and ornamental invention:

Special Message from Francis M. Rogallo set here before he rises in his Final Thermal

All the following to his signature are Rogallo's words:


SPECIAL MESSAGE :
from The Rogallo Kite Line

Dear Joe,
I delayed answering your letter until I had a
chance to read all of the seven Low & Slow.
I found them very interesting and envy you in California for
the great enthusiasm you have generated for L&S
flight systems. It may be caused by something in
the California environment, because I caught it during
my first 24 years spent there, and I have never
gotten over it.


A large number (about 20) patents related to flexible
wings have been taken out in my name, solely or
jointly with others.
The government owns two and
has the right to use most of the remainder, although
I retain the non-government rights.

The patents apply to both stiffened and completely
flexible wings.
I have had license agreements in the
past with a few companies, including the Irvin Parachute
people of Gardena, Calif., but none of these
licenses are active at present; that is, I am not now
getting any income from inventions.

Many people are using our ideas, inventions,
discoveries, or whatever one calls them
, which is
a satisfaction to us. We would like to get some
monetary return, but this has always been a secondary
consideration; so I guess we can't complain.
So far, I don't think anyone else is getting rich at our
expense.

The government (officially and otherwise) considered
flexible wings of no interest to the government
for over ten years after our first patent application,
which was privately financed by us (Mr. & Mrs. F.M.
Rogallo). I'll enclose a couple of pages from the
"Langley Researcher" covering the award you asked
about. The IRS later sent a bill for about $21,000
which we paid; and the final outcome is still in court.
It is difficult to determine L/D from free flight
tests. In thermals or in flow over ridges I have observed
vertical kite lines and climbing all-flexible
gliders. The NASA has made wind-tunnel tests of
representative models of many flexible designs. The
highest L/D obtained from a complete wing with all
lines in the airstream was about 3 l/2 for completely
flexible wings. This was a twin keel parawing
and the results are reported in NASA T.N. D-5965.
Wings of the Barish and Jalbert types did not do as
well, but all types are subject to further improvement,
and besides L/D is not by any means the only characteristic of importance.

Our first flexible wing patent states that rectangular
or elliptic shapes may be used and that
various forms of stiffening may be used
, including
ram air inflation (see L&S 7. 17). It is sometimes
hard to distinguish between new design and new
invention
, even in the patent office.

NASA people have made a few exploratory tests
of double -membrane, ram -inflated delta wings,
and some with scoop inlets near the aft end of the
wings.

I have notices that the press regards every man
who builds a home built aircraft as an inventor,
even if he has made no changes in someone else's
design. It must make a better story that way, and
probably very few people really care about the origin
of technology, only about its final application.
I can't say what motivated some other inventor to
do what he did. Sometimes I don't know why I do
what I do.

I have a number of different commercial stick
kites, but do not fly them much. I have heen flying
some 3 mil Mylar, no-stick kites while trying
to make some improvements in them. I also fly
some man-carrying all-flexible wings, single and
twin-keel designs, usually on an anchor line on the
beach, but at times in tow behind a boat, or in free
flight down the big dune (Jocky Ridge) at Kitty Hawk
or near there. So far I have kept out of the press,
but others have not.

I hope I have answered most of your questions.
Sincerely,
F. M. (Rog) Rogallo   


[1972 note by FMR; it was published in Low & Slow then.]


Video: Flexible wing   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXNSTkhYy_s

Notice that the Fleep project wing and the wing of Charles Richards in Paresev project encompassed all of the mechanicals found in the 1960s Standard Rogallo Hang Glider first foot launched by Barry Hill Palmer

Later versions of the standard Rogallo hang glider certainly thus could not be global mechanical inventions, only ornamental tweaking of appearance over an established mechanical integrity. We had the triangle control frame since 1800s and strongly since 1908; Barry Hill Palmer used four control systems, one of which was with a hung pilot behind the TCF; for the 12 following years many makers would use the same arts while altering only well-known parts to fit particular preferences, costs, and experiments; several local boys-made-hang-gliders were locally acclaimed "inventors" on the same matters, but such could not win global respect as all the mechanics were well-known before the end of 1961, and actually much earlier.

Thanks to Rogallo, Ryan Aeronautical, NASA, and Charles Richards, for the ornamental design for the wing that topped the 1960s and early 1970s standard Rogallo hang gliders that used the already-present triangle control frame.  Then thanks to  following people who found one way or another to use the flexible wing and TCF both strut and cable-stayed to forward the on-going sport of hang gliding kept growing in many parts of the world in every decade from at least Otto Lilienthal forward. The modern sport given seed and emphasis by Otto and thousands of others fulfilled the ancient tower leapers' dream to fly like a bird.
Send notes and questions to Editor@HangGliderHistory.com ===========================
See USHPA DVD set that holds, so far, 24 of the 216 publications
from the Self-Soar Association office.

 

Hang Glider Weekly was publisher  of some key facts on the innovative company Seedwings with founder, designer, inventor Bob Trampenau.  We have strong reason to look to roots of VG --variable geometry-- in Seedwings. The company's  Sensor's fiberglass curved wing tips and the enclosed cross bar were invented by Trampenau and first flown in 1976 and shown in Hang Glider Weekly. He further invented wire braced washout struts in 1978 now used on all topless hang gliders and the wrap-around Mylar leading edge pocket in 1979 all before the UP Comet. Trampenau continued inventing;  and he first HGMA certified the curved wing tip, enclosed cross bar, and an all-wire trailing edge reflex bridle stability system and VG. The wire-braced washout struts and wire-reflex bridles are the two most important stability safety features on today's hang gliders. Another safety-and performance-feature that is significant are the flaps on a hang glider. Seedwings owner Bob Trampenau invented the current flap system in 1992,  and as yet no one has copied it. The Seedwings  trademark is internationally operated out of the headquarters in California.    

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