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Hang gliding is an air sport or recreational activity in which a pilot flies a light, non-motorised, heavier-than-air aircraft called a hang glider. Most modern hang gliders are made of an aluminium alloy or composite frame covered with synthetic sailcloth to form a wing. Typically the pilot is in a harness suspended from the airframe, and controls the aircraft by shifting body weight in opposition to a control frame.
A fixed-wing aircraft is a heavier-than-air flying machine, such as an airplane, which is capable of flight using aerodynamic lift. Fixed-wing aircraft are distinct from rotary-wing aircraft, and ornithopters. The wings of a fixed-wing aircraft are not necessarily rigid; kites, hang gliders, variable-sweep wing aircraft, and airplanes that use wing morphing are all classified as fixed wing.
The Rogallo wing is a flexible type of wing. In 1948, Francis Rogallo, a NASA engineer, and his wife Gertrude Rogallo, invented a self-inflating flexible wing they called the Parawing, also known after them as the "Rogallo Wing" and flexible wing. NASA considered Rogallo's flexible wing as an alternative recovery system for the Mercury and Gemini space capsules, and for possible use in other spacecraft landings, but the idea was dropped from Gemini in 1964 in favor of conventional parachutes.
Francis Melvin Rogallo was an American aeronautical engineer inventor born in Sanger, California, U.S. Together with his wife, he is credited with the invention of the Rogallo wing, or "flexible wing", a precursor to the modern hang glider and paraglider. His patents were ranged over mechanical utility patents and ornamental design patents for wing controls, airfoils, target kite, flexible wing, and advanced configurations for flexible wing vehicles.
Kite types, kite mooring, and kite applications result in a variety of kite control systems. Contemporary manufacturers, kite athletes, kite pilots, scientists, and engineers are expanding the possibilities.
Taras Kiceniuk Jr. is a hang glider pioneer from southern California.
An ultralight trike or paratrike is a type of powered hang glider where flight control is by weight-shift. These aircraft have a fabric flex-wing from which is suspended a tricycle fuselage pod driven by a pusher propeller. The pod accommodates either a solo pilot, or a pilot and a single passenger. Trikes grant affordable, accessible, and exciting flying, and have been popular since the 1980s.
Hang gliding is an air sport employing a foot-launchable aircraft. Typically, a modern hang glider is constructed of an aluminium alloy or composite-framed fabric wing. The pilot is ensconced in a harness suspended from the airframe, and exercises control by shifting body weight in opposition to a control frame.
The NASA Paresev was an experimental NASA glider aircraft based upon the kite-parachute studies by NASA engineer Francis Rogallo.
The SZD-45 Ogar (Hound) is a T-tailed cantilever high-wing monoplane of wooden, aluminium and fibreglass construction designed and manufactured in Poland.
A foot-launched powered hang glider (FLPHG), also called powered harness, nanolight, or hangmotor, is a powered hang glider harness with a motor and propeller often in pusher configuration, although some can be found in tractor configuration. An ordinary hang glider is used for its wing and control frame, and the pilot can foot-launch from a hill or from flat ground, needing a length of about a football field to get airborne, or much less if there is an oncoming breeze and no obstacles.
The Bristol Gordon England biplanes were a series of early British military biplane aircraft designed by Eric Gordon England for the Bristol Aeroplane Company that first flew in 1912. Designed for easy ground transport, the aircraft could be quickly disassembled.
A glider is a fixed-wing aircraft that is supported in flight by the dynamic reaction of the air against its lifting surfaces, and whose free flight does not depend on an engine. Most gliders do not have an engine, although motor-gliders have small engines for extending their flight when necessary by sustaining the altitude with some being powerful enough to take off by self-launch.
The Skycraft Scout is an Australian designed and built single-seat, tail dragger, microlight airplane, used primarily for recreational aviation.
John Wallace Dickenson was an Australian inventor, who developed some liquid flow measuring devices and designed a successful hang glider configuration, for which he was awarded the Gold Air Medal, the highest award given by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, the world governing body for air sports, aeronautics and astronautics world records.
In aeronautics, a flexible wing is an airfoil or aircraft wing which can deform in flight.
The Bowlus/Nelson BB-1 Dragonfly is an American, two seat, strut-braced, high-wing motor glider that was developed from the Bowlus BA-100 Baby Albatross glider by Hawley Bowlus.
The Farner HF Colibri 1 SL was an unusual canard motor glider with a unique control system, designed and built in Switzerland in the late 1970s. Only one was constructed; much modified during the 1980s, it was still flying in 1990.
The Purcell Flightsail or Flight Dynamics Flightsail is an experimental towed glider by Thomas H. Purcell, Jr. He sold plans in several publications for the tow-launched hung-mass controllable kite-glider. He flew first off water in late 1961 and then arranged things for off-land and landing on land. His efforts would find similarity echo later in early 1963 by the SkiPlane of Mike Burns.
The Politechnika Warszawska PW-4 Pelikan was a motor-glider variant of the two seat Polish PW-3 Bakcyl glider. Only one flew.
References
- ↑ Air Trails: 84. Summer 1971.
{{cite journal}}: Missing or empty|title=(help) - ↑ January 1963, Popular Mechanics magazine, "Space Wing for Sport"
- Taylor, Michael J. H. (1989). Jane's Encyclopedia of Aviation. London: Studio Editions. p. 393.
- Jane's All the World's Aircraft 1977-78. London: Jane's Yearbooks. p. 540.