Rogallo Wing Hang Glider
In 1961-1962 aeronautical engineer Barry Palmer foot-launched several versions of a framed Rogallo wing hang glider to continue the recreational and sporting spirit of hang gliding. Another player in the continuing evolution of the Rogallo wing hang glider was Australian inventor John Dickenson, who in 1963 set to build a controllable water skiing kite/glider. Publicity from the Paresev tested and flown hang gliders sparked interest in the design among several tinkerers, including John Dickenson.
Dickenson fashioned an airframe to fit on a Rogallo airfoil. Dickenson's model made use of a single hang point and an A frame: He started with a framed Rogallo wing airfoil with a U-frame (later an A-frame control bar) to it; it was composed of a keel, leading edges, a cross-bar and a fixed control frame. Weight-shift (mass-shift) was also used to control the glider. The flexible wing - called "Ski Wing" - was first flown in public at the Grafton Jacaranda Festival in September 1963 by Rod Fuller while towed behind a motorboat.
The 'Australian Self-Soar Association' states that the first foot-launch of a hang glider in Australia was in 1972 In Torrance, California, Bill Moyes was assisted in a kited foot-launch by Joe Faust at a beach slope in 1971 or 1972. Moyes went on to build a company with his own trade-named Rogallo wing hang gliders that used the trapeze control frame he had seen in Dickenson's and Australian manned flat-kite ski kites. Bill Moyes and Bill Bennett exported new refinements of their own hang gliders throughout the world.
The parawing hang glider was inducted into the Space Foundation Space Technology Hall of Fame in 1995.
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