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Hang gliding 1974 part 1
This page continues from Hang gliding 1973 part 2.
The images here are my artistic derivations of contemporary photos. See Copyright of early hang gliding photos.
See also the related topics menu Waspair of Surrey, England.
Russ Velderrain manufactured Rogallo hang gliders in Lomita, California. His wife Carol ran the USHGA office.
Technical:
Pacific Gull of San Clemente, California, was an early adopter of ‘sail clearance towers’ on the ends of the crosstubes, to which the top side wires were attached. They prevented the wires from digging a furrow in the sail. (Alternatives were an enormously tall king post or extending the cross-tubes out beyond the leading edges.) Nowadays the preferred method is to pass the cable through a hole in the sail to a connection slightly inboard of the leading edge tube.
On the subject of hardware, the following photo illustrates typical mid-1970s nut-and-bolt type fittings with Nicopress (or Talurit) swaged cables and a pin through a hole in the end of each bolt to prevent the nut coming off.
Incidentally, Sailbird should not be confused with contemporary manufacturers Sunbird or Sun Sail… There were so many hang glider manufacturers that it was hard to think up a unique name, although Pliable Moose (Wichita, Kansas) surely succeeded in that respect. (See Hang glider names.) Sailbird was based in Colorado Springs, Sunbird in Canoga Park, California, and Sun Sail in Denver, Colorado.
Speakers at the Northrop Institute of Technology Ultralight Flight Seminar in January 1974, from the left left:
- Irv Culver (co-designed the VJ-23 and -24 with Volmer Jensen)
- Jack Lambie (Hang Loose)
- Lloyd Licher (president of USHGA)
- Eddie Paul (Whitney Enterprises Porta-Wing)
- Bill Allen (pilot, photographer, journalist)
- Taras Kiceniuk Jr. (Icarus 2 and 5)
- Mike Riggs (Seagull Aircraft)
See also the related topics menu Photographers of early hang gliding.
Seagull 5 and other Rogallos
The Seagull V flex-wing Rogallo used a rudder connected by ropes and pulleys to the pilot’s harness, a technique used also in the Quicksilver ‘semi rigid’ monoplane style hang glider. Together with its excessive dihedral, the rudder combined with weight shift provided turn control.
See the related topics menu Seagull Aircraft of Santa Monica, California.
See also Flying squad, a brief history of Sky Sports.
UP is where it’s at
Ultralight Products, headed by automotive racing designer Pete Brock, set the standard for high quality hardware in hang glider manufacture.
The colors (well, shades) of the sail, the pose of the pilot and his shape collectively indicate to me that this is 11-year-old Hall Brock, son of Pete, in 1974.
For more of Brock, see the related topics menu Ultralight Products of California and Utah.
Australian Bill Bennett’s Delta Wing Kites and Gliders factory in Van Nuys, California, was one of several manufacturers competing with Ultralight Products in El Segundo.
Bridge too far
For more about Dave Meyers, who took the ocean cliff photo, see farther down this page.
Hang gliders transported in this manner attracted attention, which might go some way to explaining why they were transported in this manner.
In the photo, notice the guy with crutches and a leg in a cast! See Kitty Hawk Kites for more of this long-established hang gliding school.
Of course, hang gliders owed much to sailboat design and technology. The art of sail making and time-tested hardware allowed designs to advance quickly.
— U.S. east coast veteran pilot Chris Gonzales (via e-mail)
The Tweetie, designed and built by Australian Ron Wheeler, was a weight-shift controlled hang glider built of modified sailboat technology. British hang gliding pioneer Miles Handley rigged one at the inaugural meeting of the BHGA, held in December 1974. Handley then started work on a design of similarly ‘aeroplane’ layout, but of radically different geometry and construction.
A photo in the British weekly Motorcycle News of bike racer Stewart Hodgson flying a hang glider caught my (and others’) attention.
Notice the short horizontal tube near the top of the control frame on Mick Hurst’s glider. Many early production standard Rogallos had their hang points too far aft, requiring the pilot to pull in constantly to maintain airspeed. What went unnoticed on short top-to-bottom flights became annoying and tiring when hang gliders began to soar in stronger winds on larger hills. The addition of this ‘soaring bar’ with the harness risers passing in front of it mitigated the problem.
Despite the obvious crudity of this retrofitted correction, the harness risers slid over it from side to side easily, so it did not interfere with roll control. It did not adversely affect pitch control either, at least in my experience.
This topic continues in Hang gliding 1974 part 2.
External links
Beginning of hanggliding in Norway by Reidar Berntsen, digitized film on YouTube
First International Woodpecker Hang Gliding Championship – Cam Long Down 1974-08-26 digitized film on Vimeo
HANG GLIDING – COLOUR digitized film by British Movietone on YouTube; the British championship at Steyning, Sussex, in 1974
KITEMEN digitized film by British Movietone on YouTube; Tweeties and standard Rogallos on a beach dune near Sydney, Australia
Photo by Roger Middleton of Mike Collis launching in a Tweetie at the British championships in August 1975
Wings (CBC 1975) digitized film on YouTube of Blair Trenholme flying a Seagull 3 in Brtish Columbia, with some bits of ‘instructing’ of new pilots thrown in
This is fascinating–are you still hang gliding? It’s a sport I have always wanted to try. The only true flying that we humans can do, it would seem. I love its simplicity, its cleanliness. I can imagine a push-off, then lift, then…the surrounding. Being enveloped in whole new medium of yaw and pitch and roll, but without those words.
Would I wind up killing myself if I just up and bought a glider?
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“Would I wind up killing myself if I just up and bought a glider?” — Yes! You need to get trained at a hang gliding school. You can find a list on BHPA.co.uk. Paragliding is easier to learn and is more popular than hang gliding, but I stopped paragliding a couple of years ago to concentrate on hang gliding, which is where I started really.
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I taught myself to fly back in those years. I learned on sand dunes at the beach. I believe it is the ONLY place to learn! My present craft is a Solairus ATF.
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Wow, memories. I flew a Ridge Rider on the south downs, was at the Minto championships, and later had a Chargus Vega. Happy days.
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Brilliant pics and history. Russell
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In regard to pitch problems in 70‘s gliders, in my experience the most common one was that there was simply too much, leaving two usable speeds for a prone pilot: trim and elbows locked.
In my early days on a Sky Sports Lark (a “standard”: Low Aspect Ratio Kite) preflight did include sighting down the keel for a certain amount of reflex, and if lacking, a twist of turnbuckle could bring it up to spec.
My one occasion flirting with pitch divergence was when I sent my Sirocco II off for an upgrade ostensibly to improve handling. Standing keel pockets were in vogue and Sky Sports had come up with a retrofit that bent down the keel, added a small post where a keel pocket would be, and put two pulleys on the out and down deflexor wires at the nose. The bent keel required shorter flying wires to the keel. Well an error was made on my glider where they used the length of the smaller size Sirocco. End result was a glider that flew with negative bar pressure and was quite terrifying. My instructor was skeptical – that is until he flew it!
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For more of Chris’s experiences of the early days of hang gliding, see Flying squad, my short history of the east coast U.S. hang glider manufacturer Sky Sports.
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I had a LARK as well! Learned to fly it here on Cape Cod.
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