History of hang gliding
The first recorded controlled flights were by German engineer Otto Lilienthal, whose research, published in 1889, strongly influenced later designers.
[1][2] That same year, similar designs were also successfully employed in Calabria, Italy by aeronautics inventor and artist, Vincenzo Raschella.
Further hang glider research was undertaken during the 1920s in Europe,[4] Australia[5] and the US,[6][7] where designers tested several wing concepts and the 'pendulum weight-shift control system'.
Starting in the 1880s, advancements were made in aerodynamics and construction that led to the first truly practical gliders; this information was often shared and published by early aviators and inventors, building a long series of incremental achievements.
Chief among these were Otto Lilienthal in Berlin, Germany; Vincenzo Raschella in Calabria, Italy;[9] Lawrence Hargrave in Sydney, Australia; Percy Pilcher in the United Kingdom; John Joseph Montgomery at Otay Mesa near San Diego, California (1880s); as well as at Santa Clara, California (1905) Octave Chanute and his team in Gary, Indiana, in the US, to name but a few.
[11] Based on the work of his mentor Otto Lilienthal, in 1897 Pilcher built a third hang glider called The Hawk with which he broke the world distance record when he flew 250 metres (820 ft).
[12] The hang glider lost some importance from the introduction of wing warping in 1902 by the Wright brothers and subsequently of aileron control by the French.
When World War 1 ended in 1918, the Treaty of Versailles practically ended engine-driven flights in Germany, thus, in the 1920s and 1930s, while aviators and aircraft makers in the rest of the world were working to improve the performance of powered aircraft, the Germans were designing, developing and flying ever more efficient gliders and discovering ways of using the natural air flows in the atmosphere to make them fly farther and faster.
Francis Rogallo had first proposed his flexible wing concept to the Langley Research Center in the late 1940s as a simple, inexpensive approach to recreational flying, but the idea was not accepted as a project.
[31] It was on October 4, 1957, when the Russian satellite Sputnik became a concern to the United States and marked the beginning of the 'space race' and the creation of NASA.
[32] Rogallo designed his flexible wing to allow the astronauts to deploy it like a parachute at subsonic speeds during reentry, then glide their capsule to a specified touchdown point.
[33] F. Rogallo's team collaborated with at least two American aircraft companies, Ryan Aeronautical Company and North American Aviation, as there was potential for gliders, dirigible parachutes, and other new types of manned aircraft; this mainly involved stabilizing the leading edges with compressed air beams or rigid structures like aluminium tubes.
By 1961 NASA had already made test flights of an experimental STOL aerial utility aircraft – the Ryan XV-8 (also known as the "Flying Jeep" or "Fleep")[34][35] and by March 1962, of a weight-shift glider called Paresev.
The publicity[36] on the Fleep and the Paresev tests sparked interest in independent builders like Barry Palmer[37] and John Dickenson, who separately explored distinct airframes and control systems to be adapted to a Rogallo wing and be flown as a hang glider.
The last of Palmer's foot-launched hang gliders flew in the summer of 1962 and it had a ski-lift type of seat mounted to the keel with a universal joint for pendulum weight-shift control.
[41] In September 1963, Australian inventor John Dickenson set out to build a water ski wing that could be released at altitude and glide to a safe landing.
[43][44] Dickenson fashioned an airframe that incorporated a triangle control frame and used wire bracing to distribute the load to the Rogallo airfoil; the pilot sat on a swinging seat.
[51] In 2012, John Dickenson was awarded the Gold Medal by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, for "the invention of the modern hang glider".
WWII interrupted his research until 1974, with the advent of hang glider mania; adventurers were experimenting with design and exploring records worldwide.
The extreme nature of foot-launched hang gliding appealed to the freewheeling culture of the early 1970s across America more as an expression of freedom than an air sport.
In fact, Dickenson's Ski Wing was competing in the NSWWSA kite-flying section against the polygonal Japanese style flat kites.
In 1973 the ZDF German Television produced a 30 min documentary on Mike Harker's world record hang glider flight from Mt.
[80] Although by the early 1970s many rigid wings were developed, none sold terribly well, while dozens of flexible-wing hang glider companies were springing up all over the world.
As usual, essentially parallel developments can be difficult to sort out and serialize, but in fact, the flexible-wing hang glider popularity started with the publicized Paresev and Fleep concept, followed by John Dickenson's adaptation and the aggressive entrepreneurial energies of Bill Bennett, Bill Moyes, Joe Faust, Dick Eipper, Mike Riggs, the Wills brothers[82] and the massive enthusiasm of thousands of people wanting to glide, and began what estimated in 2005 to be a US$50 million annual industry.
[83] Ironically, Dickenson never made any money[84] and Francis Rogallo never claimed the rights to the patent he held, thus allowing his flexible wing airfoil to be used royalty free.
As late as autumn 1973, Mike Harker and fellow American Walt Nielsen founded the world's first alpine hang-gliding school in Scuol in the Engadine Valley, Switzerland.
