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Hang gliding 1974 part 2
This page continues from Hang gliding 1974 part 1.
The images here are artistic derivations of contemporary photos. See Copyright of early hang gliding photos.
I am convinced that if there is a truly inspired race upon the face of the earth, it must be the hang glider pilots.
— Carol Boenish-Price, USHGA magazine Ground Skimmer, May 1975
Even those who did not fly wanted to be part of this social revolution. This is from a description of a meeting of the Southern California Hang Glider Association, soon to metamorphose into the USHGA:
The first speaker was a youth in glasses who must have been from Cal Tech because he drew formulas and equations on a blackboard, mumbling abstractly and mostly inaudibly until everyone began stirring.
— Maralys Wills and Chris Wills, Higher than Eagles, the Tragedy and Triumph of an American Family, 1992 (see this site’s review of the book)
Ed Cesar subsequently became a test pilot for Eipper-Formance. He ran a business creating aircraft interiors and his clients included the actor and jet pilot John Travolta.
That looks to me like the Scripps Institution of Oceanography pier, which is at the south end of the Torrey Pines ridge, San Diego.
Kent Trimble, Lee Wilson, and Alan Dimen founded Manta Products of Oakland, San Francisco, in November 1972. Only two other Rogallo flex-wing hang glider manufacturers existed at the time, at least in California and possibly in the world; Bill Bennett’s Delta Wing and Dick Eipper’s Eipper-Formance, both in the Los Angeles area. Manta claims to be first to introduce the foldable control frame and no-tools set-up. (Source: Whole Air January-February 1983)
See the Manta Products of California related topics menu.
Rich Grigsby was a founding partner of Sunbird Ultralight Gliders, based in Canoga Park, California. He took over from Carol Price as editor of Ground Skimmer.
Swallowtail
Despite the performance advantages of the rigid wing hang gliders, the simplicity, portability, and ruggedness of the Rogallo ensured its popularity.
Could its performance be improved without sacrificing its advantages? The Wills brothers and Chris Price took the 90-degree nose angle standard Rogallo with reduced billow and cut a ‘helical’ curve into the trailing edge. They called the resulting design the Swallowtail.
The leading edges of Chris Price’s prototype were each four feet longer than the keel, restoring the sail area, but resulting in a lanky look reminiscent of the Windlord 4, Cirrus, and other contemporary short-keel Rogallos. However, early production Swallowtails were made in several variants, some with equal length leading edges and keel, and some with longer leading edges.
They subsequently added a small amount of ‘roach’ at the wing tips, each supported by a short radial batten. (By radial, I mean each batten was aligned towards the nose. It was therefore straight and it rolled up with the sail for transporting.)
The Swallowtail was the first glider I owned that flew really well. It was the first properly balanced and well-tuned wing that I ever flew that enabled me to experience anything approximating trim. It was a revelation and showed me what real control was like.
— Ken de Russy (e-mail correspondence, February 2020)
There are some color photos that include Swallowtails later on this page. See also the Sport Kites/Wills Wing of California related topics menu.
Tommy
A politician in San Diego is campaigning on the promise to eliminate us.
— Photographer Leroy Grannis writing in Hang Glider, Fall 1974
The Ken Russell movie Tommy, filmed in 1974, featured Roger Daltry of rock band The Who apparently launching from a castle tower near Portsmouth, England, in an all-white Birdman standard Rogallo. He flew shirtless and helmet-less while singing a long-forgotten song, thus causing dozens of mods and rockers on the streets below, some wearing World War 2 German steel helmets, to stop fighting and instead break out into spontaneous gyrations while they looked up at him in awe.
The point is that, with the advent of hang gliding, you no longer needed to use a multi-million dollar airplane to drop napalm on iron-age villagers in support of a corrupt capitalist regime half a world away (fighting a brutal communist regime) to be a flying hero.
In the Tommy video clip on YouTube (linked farther down) Birdman’s Dave Raymond did the flying, but the cuts to close-ups of Roger Daltry of The Who hanging in the glider suspended from a rig were seamlessly edited.
See also the related topics menu Birdman of Wiltshire, England.
Rogallo versus Quicksilver in colour
The pilot in the preceding image (possibly Laverne DeJan?) was known as ‘Spoon’ and the guy watching from in front of his glider is Dave Meyers.
See the Eipper-Formance of Torrance, California related topics menu.
The parabolic-curved leading edge Seagull 3 was first produced when most Rogallo wings were of 80 degree nose angle. Ninety degree nose angle wings were thought of as for experts only, perhaps because a right-angle was feared to be a physical limit in a self-inflating fabric wing. Yet the Seagull had a wide nose angle of 102 degrees.
See the Seagull Aircraft of Santa Monica, California related topics menu.
The ‘official organ’ of the (UK) National Hang Gliding Association was the Illustrated Monthly Flypaper. The September 1974 edition contained a report and photos of an early British hang gliding competition held at Cam Long in Shropshire.
Winter escape: The 1974 U.S. nationals
The 1974 US nationals were held at Escape Country, California, in late December 1974 and early January 1975. In the flex-wing (Rogallo) class, Bob Wills won first place, Chris Wills second, and Chris Price third, all flying Swallowtails.
See Dave Cronk, Bob Lovejoy, and the Quicksilver in Cronk works.
See the related topics menu Ultralight Products of California and Utah.
While Hang Glider magazine featured the color photos of Leroy Grannis, Wings Unlimited, based in Topeka, Kansas, showed mainly color photos by W.A. Allen. The cover photo here is of the prototype Dragonfly, likely with its designer Roy Haggard aboard.
As a boy, Jim sometimes hiked to the top of Saddleback Mountain. “It’s a funny thing about that,” he muses, “When I got to the top, I used to wish there was some way I could fly back down. Who would have thought people would some day be doing it?”
— Maralys Wills (mother of the manufacturer Wills Wing) quoting Escape Country entrepreneur and hang glider pilot Jim Robinson in Ground Skimmer, August 1973
The ‘surfing model’ of hang gliding in southern California, when top-to-bottom flights were the norm, naturally lent itself to the concept of the flight park, much like the motocross park. Indeed, the winner of the 1974 U.S. nationals, Bob Wills, was a motocross racer as was 1974 British champion Brian Wood, along with some other notable hang gliding Brits including Ken Messenger and Len Hull.
Escape Country featured a motocross track, as did nearby Saddleback Park, both of which were also hang gliding competition venues. Note MX racing Sundays under Bicycling. This was an early manifestation of BMX racing.
However, the ‘surfing model’ of hang gliding was becoming an outdated concept. Hang gliders were already starting to fly cross country, thus escaping the confines of venues like Escape Country.
This topic continues in Hang gliding 1974 part 3.
External links
Chelan – The Early Years unusually high quality film taken at the Washington State site, on Jack Olson’s YouTube channel
Mark Woodhams writes about the early days of Hang Gliding (in Britain) on the Southern hang gliding club web site
Revisiting Escape Country launch zones 2016 on the US Hawks forum
TOMMY (1975) Sensation [1080 HD] video clip on YouTube
