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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 sport kite, also commonly known as a stunt kite, is a type of kite that can be maneuvered in the air. A related kite, also controllable and used for recreation, but capable of generating a significant amount of pull and used for providing movement, is the power kite.
Kiteboarding or kitesurfing is a sport that involves using wind power with a large power kite to pull a rider across a water, land, or snow surface. It combines the aspects of paragliding, surfing, windsurfing, skateboarding, snowboarding, and wakeboarding. Kiteboarding is among the less expensive and more convenient sailing sports.
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.
A power kite or traction kite is a large kite designed to provide significant pull to the user.
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.
Running rigging is the rigging of a sailing vessel that is used for raising, lowering, shaping and controlling the sails on a sailing vessel—as opposed to the standing rigging, which supports the mast and bowsprit. Running rigging varies between vessels that are rigged fore and aft and those that are square-rigged.
Bowed kites such as the Japanese rokkaku, and traditional versions of the more familiar "diamond" shaped kites such as the Malay or Eddy, are tensioned into a bow in order to improve their stability to the point where a tail often becomes unnecessary.
A Scott Sled is a type of kite developed in the early 1960s by Frank Scott of Ohio and based on the sled kite, an earlier design by William Allison, also based in Ohio. In 1964 it was featured in Kite Tales, the newsletter of the American Kitefliers Association; as a result it became much more widely known. Many derivative designs have appeared since then, the design described here is as it appeared in 1964.
The Rokkaku dako (六角凧) is a traditional six-sided Japanese fighter kite. Traditionally, it is made with bamboo spars and washi paper. The rokkaku kite is often hand painted with the face of a famous Samurai. The structure is a vertically stretched hexagon with a four-point bridle. One bamboo runs from tip to toe, and there are two cross-spars. Flown on a taut string, the kite is stable and rises rapidly. When the line is released, the kite tumbles until tension is put on the line, at which point it takes off in the direction of the spine. Fighting two or more of these kites involves tipping over or destabilizing the opposing kite or cutting its kite line or bridle. Cows are often painted on kites to resemble wealth.
Peter Lynn is a New Zealand kitemaker, engineer and inventor. He is notable for his construction of the world's largest kites, giant inflatable (sparless) display kites, the popularisation of kite buggying and contributions to the development of power kiting and kitesurfing. He spends much of the year travelling worldwide and displaying his kites at International Kite Festivals.
Airborne wind energy (AWE) is the direct use or generation of wind energy by the use of aerodynamic or aerostatic lift devices. AWE technology is able to harvest high altitude winds, in contrast to wind turbines, which use a rotor mounted on a tower.
Bow kites are leading edge inflatable kites that incorporate a bridle on the leading edge. They are used for the sport of kiteboarding. They can be identified by a flat, swept-back profile and concave trailing edge allowing the kite greater depower. Bow kite design was pioneered by Bruno Legaignoux, and have been licensed to many kite manufacturers. The first major manufacturer to introduce these bow kites to the United States was Cabrinha Kites.
The ram-air inflatable single-line kite is one of the few modern inventions in the world of kite design. Although Francis Rogallo's early kite patents had ram-air members in the claims, Domina Jalbert's parafoil ram-air wing, patented in 1944, emphatically changed the kite airscape for inflatable kites.
Fighter kites are kites used for the sport of kite fighting. Traditionally, most are small, unstable single-line flat kites where line tension alone is used for control, at least part of which is manja, typically glass-coated cotton strands, to cut down the line of others.
Domina Cleophas Jalbert (1904–1991) invented the ram-air inflated flexible wing, often called the "Jalbert parafoil".
Kites are tethered flying objects which fly by using aerodynamic lift, requiring wind for generation of airflow over the lifting surfaces.
The Malay kite is a model of tailless kite. First introduced to the West in a New York City newspaper article from October 1894, the Malay kite was used for recreation for centuries before this in parts of the Far East. The article detailed how a university professor ("Clayton") had erected a series of kites and bound them all together to one kite. These kites had no tail, were bowed and diamond-shaped, and were referred to by the article writer as "Malay kites". However, the existence of a Malay-like design may have already been heard of in the United States sometime before the publishing of the article; in the last edition of the American Boy's Handy Book, another tailless kite is described. The description of this kite, which was to be included as a chapter in the book, was sent in to the author sometime around 1882, eleven years before the Malay kite was mentioned in the newspaper.
A kytoon or kite balloon is a tethered aircraft which obtains some of its lift dynamically as a heavier-than-air kite and the rest aerostatically as a lighter-than-air balloon. The word is a portmanteau of kite and balloon.
References
- ↑ U.S. Patent 2,737,360 “Flexible kite” filed September 1950, issued March 1956
- ↑ "Allison's Sled - US2737360".
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