1971 Ground Skimmer

BRITISH HANG GLIDING HISTORY THE MODERN FLEXWING

1981 Cross Country Flyer

Tony Prentice

An article from Tony Prentice of how he became interested and involved in building his own hang gliders

The dream of flight has always been there and people have tried to fly since before recorded history. The Chinese with their man lifting kites could have released or been cut away and managed to glide to the ground. Stories of tower jumpers persist right through the middle ages. By the 19th century many more people were striving to achieve flight with Cayley laying down the scientific principals and flying his coachman across a valley in Yorkshire in a sailwinged glider. At the end of that century Otto Lililenthal had developed gliders which we would call hang gliders and Percy Pilcher followed him with similar machines in the UK. Chanute in the USA was also experimenting with his own designs and acting as a clearing house for information to other would be aviators including the Wright brothers.

Once powered flight was achieved the hang glider was resigned to history only to reappear occasionally in the 20th century built by individuals wanting to fulfill their dreams of flight.

This was how I started as hang gliding as a sport was not an option in 1960. I was still at school and I went through the model building phases and also built larger and larger kites. The largest was built of bamboo and fabric with an area of about 120sq ft. preformed aerofoils maintained a wing profile and in strong winds it would lift a person. Living in the center of London there were no hills to test it so the pram sheds were used as a take off point. Extended jumps or short flights were made without mishap.

When I found pictures of Lilienthal and Pilcher in aviation books and saw their machines in the Science Museum I decided to build my own. Started in 1963 and ready to fly in 1964 this too was tested from the pram sheds with much longer flights being achieved than with the kite. Due to life intervening I was unable to fully test the glider until 1968 when I took it to the Northdowns in Kent for two weeks of trials.

Eventually I was able to fly the machine for about 100yds with reasonable control and often made height gains in slope lift. On the last flight a gust lifted one wing which I could not correct and damaged the machine in a ground loop. This ended the trials but the machine was rebuilt and flew for another three years.

A picture of the Ryan flexwing had been put in a flying book "New Horizon Book of Flying" published in 1963 and it offered a far simpler airframe than the Lililienthal type. So using the same materials of bamboo and fabric I constructed my first Rogallo in 1969. It did not lift very well and so it was rebuilt with a larger area. The real problem was that the fabric was too porous letting air through. Some flying was done with this machine and hand towing was sometimes used to gain height on take off.

In 1971 I saw a picture of Bill Moyes flying in Wisconsin USA. I wrote to him but the letter was returned unanswered after traveling to Australia and back to the UK.

I took the bamboo Rogallo to the Southdown Gliding Club 50th anniversary in 1972 at Itford hill on the Southdowns. Here I saw Geoff McBrooms( first British manufacturer) aluminium and ripstop nylon Rogallo wing which was so much easier to assemble and the rip stop did not leak air through the sail. From then on my machines were built with different materials.

Other machines followed but with some radical design concepts. The "split wing" was a design to fly as slowly as possible which it did very well. I later found that the planform is similar to the Platz sailwing. The idea actually came from sailboat technology using a main sail and jib. Platz probably derived his own idea from this source.

Unknown to me at the time, others had developed hang gliders on similar lines to myself . The exchange of information was better in 1895 for would be aviators than in the 1960's for those wanting to fly hang gliders. The internet now takes over from where Chanute left off and information is available to all.

Check out Stephan Nitsch web site on links page to view some of my early machines:-

http://wase.urz.uni-magdeburg.de/anitsch/Jumpnfly/ni.htm

The dates shown are when photos were taken not when built.

Standard 8 film of these early machines has been put onto video tape and hopefully soon onto DVD for those that might be interested. Quality is not good but it gives an idea of the "early days" Copies will be available at cost plus p&p

© Copyright Tony Prentice 2008    All Rights Reserved