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HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY, TECHNOLOGY, OBJECTS AROUND US
Hang glider. History of invention and production
Directory / The history of technology, technology, objects around us A hang glider is a heavier-than-air aircraft made according to the tailless scheme (flying wing) with a swept wing, the flight of which is carried out by shifting the center of mass by moving the pilot relative to the suspension point (balanced glider). A characteristic feature is the start from the feet and landing on the feet (when towed by a winch or a trike, the start most often occurs from the starting cart). The name "hang glider" was given for the similarity of the wing of the first samples with the Greek letter Delta.
A hang glider is an aircraft, which consists of three duralumin pipes connected to each other at the front point and forming a fan in a horizontal plane, with an angle between the pipes of 90-140 degrees. A fabric of light, but dense and durable synthetic fabric is stretched between the pipes. The two side tubes and the trailing edge of the fabric formed an almost triangle when viewed from above. To maintain the shape, the main pipes were fixed with smaller diameter auxiliary pipes and steel cables. The pilot in a special suspension, originally borrowed from a parachute, was suspended on a rope by the central tube in a certain place, close to the center of mass of the apparatus. With his hands, the pilot held on to the trapezoid - a structure of three pipes, when viewed from the front, which is more often a triangle with a horizontal base, fixed in space with braces - steel cables with a diameter of several millimeters. Flight control is carried out by the pilot by moving his body relative to the suspension point. Takeoff and landing are made on their own feet. On a sunny day in 1919, seven-year-old Francis Rogallo saw a two-seat plane flying over the California town of Sanger. Since then, his favorite toys of his childhood have become handmade models of kites made of paper and wood, and flying has become an obsession. But pilot training was very expensive, and when Francis matured, he decided to join the army. A military career did not appeal to him, but he passionately wanted to fly. However, he was rejected by the medical board. He ended up going to Stanford to become, of course, an aeronautical engineer. After graduating from university in 1935, Francis joined the National Committee on Aeronautics at Langley (NACA, NASA's predecessor) and became involved in improving the design of aircraft. But the dream was still far from coming true, although pilot friends repeatedly carried him as a passenger. A few years later, Rogallo developed slotted flaps, and Piper Aircraft invited him to help install them on aircraft. The company gave him several piloting lessons, but on the day on which his first solo flight was scheduled, fate again violated his plans. The plane, on which he was supposed to fly, on the way to the airfield caught fire in the air and crashed. After the end of World War II, Francis became fascinated with improving the aerodynamics of kites using his knowledge and laboratory wind tunnels. As one of his colleagues later recalled, he once said a prophetic phrase: "Someday snakes will become large enough to lift a man into the air." The authorities did not approve of these activities, but Rogallo built a wind tunnel at his home and began to study the design of sails, wondering if they could be turned into wings. Models made from chintz curtains, he tested on the coast of the Chesapeake Bay. Soon he and his wife (and colleague) Gertrude realized that such a wing did not require either masts or a skeleton, but could only maintain its shape due to the oncoming air flow. In 1948 they applied for a flexible wing patent (which they received in 1951). Alas, neither the public nor the companies showed interest in the new wing scheme, and by 1957 Rogallo had sold only 7000 toy kites. Everything changed on October 4, 1957 with the launch of the first Soviet satellite. The Rogallo scheme allowed the wing to be packed into a very small volume and was excellent for reentry spacecraft. NASA launched full-scale experiments.
In 1961, Rogallo's wing was featured in Popular Mechanics with the note: "Don't try it yourself!" Luckily, one of the readers, engineer Tom Purcell, flouted the advice and built what is today called a hang glider: a device with a flexible 5-meter wing, an aluminum frame and a pilot's seat. Soon he met with Rogallo, and the inventor was amazed at how accurately Purcell copied the design from the magazine pages. And in 1965, 53-year-old Francis Rogallo took to the air for the first time on an aircraft of his design and Purcell design, towed behind a boat. The path to the dream took 47 years. Author: S.Apresov
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