[Lift archive index] 

Lift
July 2011

World Hang Gliding Association
World ParaGliding Association
builds during the month by reader inputs to
 Lift@WorldHangGlidingAssociation.org

 (Non-airframed string-controlled canopy free-flight piloted kites are invited to explore the PDMC.)

Notes are welcome during the month from all;
give some lift to an aspect of hang gliding =>
 Lift@WorldHangGlidingAssociation.org
On Thu, 21/7/11, Eric Littledike  wrote:
The ‘northern’ Pilcher Bat Mk2 has now finally been installed in the new Riverside Museum in Glasgow, complete with seagull.             

 
gliders of Lilenthal Doubledecker, Chanute, Wright, Boy Mechanic, Pelzner, Chardon, Volmer Jensen, and the Hang Loose.
Recalling ...
Chanute's Zweidecker
Otto Lilienthal's biplane hang gliders
 

 
[ ] Lift someone or something in hang gliding universe!   Send your lift to Lift@WorldHangGlidingAssociation.org
Wenk Hängegleiter of 1909
http://img840.imageshack.us/img840/8400/22232576.jpg

 
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Lippisch_biplane_glider.jpg
Lippisch biplane glider   "Biplane Tailless Glider, (possibly Lippisch) c.1920"

http://alexanderlippisch.blogspot.com/


 
Footballs in place of skids?
  • Icarus I  by Taras Kiceniuk, Jr.  (broken by Faust; stored in back rooms of Smithsonian Institute waiting for rehabilitation)
  • Icarus II    by Taras Kiceniuk, Jr.
  •  
  • G. Sablier     Construction plans. Size of PDF file: 14.49 MB   French language.  Pages: 32.   On page 21 starts the biplane hang glider plans.  Biplan Sablier Type 8. Type: Sport.    G. Sablier, 76 rue Lauriston, Paris.    [Document found by fathersmeltofelderberries2009. ]      Empty weight: about 25 kg    "Mat No. 38 8 pieces tube de duralumin" 
  • [ ] We welcome a careful translation to English of the all the text on the plan pages and the discourse.   Georges Sablier
  • Date cautionary notes here.
  • "planeur Chanute"
     
  • I've just discovered a 1935 Chanute style hang glider, the Sablier 8, typical Chanute wings, but only 15'9" span, two sets of longerons, and "olde worlde" frilly trailing edges to the tail surfaces, I reckon it would have been retro in the 1930's    http://tinyurl.com/plansOnSablier8Biplane       Note from Kevin Brown,  Jul 4, 2011.
  • Research note by Kevin B, 3Jul2013
    • "Just a quick update to the Sablier plans.

      I've started to translate them, and you are very right in it needing a sympathetic translation, as Google translate gives only a rough idea of what is being said; but anyhow, the type 8 is the original 1922 glider and a detailed 3-view is on the first page of the construction plans; the rest of the plans are the Sport from 1932. Sablier just did detail changes to the original and re-released them ?? in 1932, the changes are simply trailing edge and centre section struts, the trailing edges on the 1922 type 8 are square at the ends, and the struts are inclined, whereas the 1932 type Sport has angled T.E.s at the ends and square struts at the centre section.

      Sablier also seems to be saying that an engine and undercarriage was considered because of the robustness of the structure, but as this would make it an aeroplane, the idea wasn't pursued. The layout he mentioned had the engine mounted to the lower wing centre section, leading edge, like the Richter, but which came first ????.

      I'm also collecting data on another little French Chanute type, the plan was published in 1941, (not sure if that would be occupied or Vichy France, or both), and appeared in a French version of Aeromodeller magazine, the author "Max Williams" seems very serious about it.............interesting !! Regards,  Kev"

 

Monoplane delta? Sablier 1922?

Librairie des Sciences Aeronautiques (Fondee en 1905), F.-Loui Vivien, 48, rue des Ecoles, Paris-v. Catalogue (gratis sur demande).
  • [ ] Appears to be a robust source of early aviation data.   Anyone have full access to the documents?
  •  

Click for source and rights.

Discuss.
http://www.j2mcl-planeurs.net/dbj2mcl/planeurs-biblio/biblio-liste-p_0.php?l=34    Study each craft.

 

Click for source and rights.

Discuss.


Click for source and rights.

Discuss. 

Click image for source:


Discuss.
http://www.ultraligero.net/Sitios/Planos/planos_index.htm
http://www.unicopter.com/1764.html     1954   Sablier     Discuss.     Compare with Bensen and others of same and earlier time.

"Igor Bensen, the son of Alexandra and Basil M. Benzin (Vasilii Mitofanovich Benzin), was born 1 April, 1917 in Rostov, Russia"

http://www.gyroplanepassion.com/Igor_Bensen.html

 
TCF (yoke) , hung pilot, basebar, weight-shift control through the yoke.  Gyro-Glider.  Igor Bensen.   See other notes on Bensen in Lift.      Water-pipe airframe.
http://books.google.com/books?id=ziADAAAAMBAJ&lpg=RA1-PA196-IA1&ots=88NZT_hPsL&dq=1954%20gyroglider%20Bensen&pg=RA1-PA196-IA1#v=onepage&q&f=false

GyroGliderGENERALimages

http://www.ultraligero.net/Sitios/Planos/Proyecto_Planeador_ULM/proyecto_planeador_ulm.pdf

Discuss.
A primary glider: Schneider Schülegleiter SG 38 Zögling Glider
http://www.keepitsoaring.com/LKSC/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=97&Itemid=72
SkyHigh™    SkyHigh Fund™     Announcement: M3805
PG community suffers loss of two pilots at World Championships. 
Condolence to friends and families of Eitel von Muhlenbrock and Francisco Vargas.

Too near in time (Xavier went missing on Friday 1 July 2010 in Andes) was the recent hard-to-find Xavier Murillo; his body was just located in Peru. PWCA  
 

Some reporting:  http://www.cometclones.com/mythology2011.htm

Human-powered flight has its gliding moments and meaning! The gliding sectors have mechanical implications over the hang gliding historical feathers.  Exploration of muscle-powered efforts does not diminish the impacts over the gliding dimensions of the efforts; when muscle effort is lowered or stopped, then gliding worlds begin.  Examine the mechanics of craft used in human-powered efforts for delightful insights to the gliding worlds.    What have we?  
How disruptive would success for the electron-only battery that is being explored by Stanford U.  group?   Contact person: Prof. Fritz Prinz

Project Title The All-Electron Battery: a quantum leap forward in energy storage
Organization Stanford University
Website http://www.stanford.edu/
Point of
Contact
Prof. Fritz Prinz
Project
Description
In this project, researchers Stanford University will seek to develop an "All-Electron
Battery", a completely new class of electrical energy storage devices for electric
vehicles that has the potential to provide ultra-high energy and power densities, while
enabling extremely high cycle life. The All-Electron Battery stores energy by moving
electrons, rather than ions, and uses electron/hole redox instead of capacitive
polarization of a double-layer. This technology uses a novel architecture that has
potential for very high energy density because it decouples the two functions of
capacitors: charge separation and breakdown strength. If successful, this project will
develop a completely new paradigm in energy storage for electrified vehicles that
could revolutionize the electric vehicle industry and establish U.S. leadership in
advanced energy storage technology for electric vehicles.
The Mesicopter

Swift HG guru Ilan Kroo considers mesicopters: HERE
http://www.pioneerflyer.com/Easyriser.html
Sea Angel 
  • Sea Angel
     
http://www.johnheiney.com/articles/Cheney/Dick_Cheney_3_gliders.jpg

Annie Green Springs 

Dick Cheney, Aircraft Designer/Builder
Sylmar Flight Park   (LZ talks)
Stumbles?
"Just received a $1000 donation from a professor who said I saved his life. The web is alive!
Rick"       http://www.cometclones.com
Frank Colver and Neil Larson are making neat progress on the Otto Marker Project.     July 2011.

Also, Neil Larson has been firming a great historical video featuring Christopher Talbot-Jones and others.  More in time.

My scary take-off

Hang Glider Homebuilders
  • Share tech tips
  • Share material sources
  • Share parts sources
  • Share plans
  • Share safety-critical information
  • Share testing and inspection tech tips
  •  
Perhaps it is now time for frame-controlled hang gliders
to have associations solely dedicated to their sport.

What do you think? 

How is your national association handling the PG question?
Will coming restrictions on PG affect frame-controlled hang gliding?
Ryan Voight shares: 
It's getting pretty short notice (end of the month), but as you may or may not know, every year I run an aerobatics clinic here in Utah. It can be anything from an intro-to-aerobatics for H3+ pilots that want to learn safely, to an improvement clinic for people that are already doing aero.
More info here: http://www.wingsoverwasatch.com/Clinics/Aerobatics2011.html
But the big news is that Aaron Swepston has agreed to come and help coach us! The catch is that we don't quite have enough people signed up yet. I actually only have ONE signup so far. If we can get four people (so three more), Aaron will come down and we get to have some fun.
The clinic is open to anyone with a H3 rating. If you have questions, feel free to PM me. I'm going to have to make a go/no-go call fairly soon, so if it's something you want to do, this is the time to register!
Morningside

Rio Grande Soaring Association

Towing hang gliders

Coming Down

How not to land a hang glider

NME vs PGs + Hawk Attack!

Hang Gliding on the Treetops
We (NASA LaRC) are experimenting this summer with wire cut EPP foam arc kites with various different coatings. EPP is relatively cheap, can be recycled, and very tolerant of “unscheduled landings” and we believe can perform fully-autonomous re-launch from a water surface. The EPP holds a very nice profile tolerance compared to the not very good profile tolerance of a ram air kite. We are able to produce foils with good thickness-to-chord ratios (8%) and aspect ratios of up to 20. Our goal is to improve L/D from 3-8 for current ram air kites to maybe 10-12 which would improve specific power output (power/kite area) by up to a factor of ~8. 

The EPP foam is a solution that is mid-way between a soft wing and rigid wing that has benefits of both. 

We are building a servo motor controlled kite flying system that can measure kite speed, trajectory, line forces, and line speed and should be producing data within a few weeks. 

We are also doing some experiments with a simplified optical tracking system that uses only one or two (cheap) cameras for flight control. No control system instrumentation onboard the two-line kite (no GPS, no IMUs, no gyros, no telemetry).  

Stay tuned. Will keep you all informed of progress. 

Dave North

NASA Langley Research Center
Mark Smith
Monkey flying without hang line and without harness, but the tendons of the body are the kitelines:
Music and performance by Rick Masters: Green Lantern
 
Karman vortex street               

nathan hang gliding in Austin

[ ] Tom Valentine

[ ] Frank Colver  recent notes

 
Flying Machine by Taylor McDaniel

Patent number: 1905298
Filing date: Aug 13, 1930
Issue date: Apr 25, 1933                    Click image for full patent.

Discuss claims

  

  • Popular Science Monthly, October, 1930, page 19.  American ~ Unknown to Fame First Man on Record to Leave Earth on Wings  by Robert Martin:  

     "The man usually spoken of as the trail blazer of gliding is Otto Lilienthal. Yet in 1884, a full seven years before this great German pioneer got into the air, John J. Montgomery, a lonely and misunderstood twenty-six-year-old experimenter, sailed for 600 feet down a hillside near Otay, riding a homemade monoplane patterned after a gull."  ... "Born February 15, 1858, at Yuba City, Calif., the first of twins."   ...""Long before he could make his own kites, he begged his mother to make them for him."  

    See the drawing of the cockpit in the issue... pilot seated behind downtubes and basebar; frame controlling. ( TCF )
     

    • http://cdn.calisphere.org/data/13030/wp/tf5j49n7wp/files/tf5j49n7wp.pdf
    • Daniel Maloney in tandem glider ... (meaning two wings, one behind the other; single pilot)
    •  (Do not confuse with 1911 Evergreen)
      March 17, 1884 gull wing:
      Span: 20 ft   
      Chord: 4.5 ft
      30 lb   for the first glider
      Curved-chorded wings

    • Brother James Montgomery ... kite launch Joseph.
      hillock
      Charles Burroughs
      Special note by Robert Martin in the 1930 article: "In his famous book, Progress of Flying Machines," published in 1894, Octave Chanute reports Montgomery's success, as does Victor Lougheed, former Secretary of the National Aeronautic Association, in his Vehicles of the Air. Singularly enough, many later histories of aviation give Montgomery scant space and some omit his name altogether."
    • Second machine was heavier. 1885.  Flat wings; not good  (his first glider had curved-chorded wings).
       
    • Then after a period of experimentation following professional growth: The April 29, 1905 flight with "Santa Clara" was a glider made of two monoplanes set in tandem position. Author is using term "tandem monoplane."     Maloney, "known to fame as Professor Lascelles" ...
      Height estimates to be taken as rough estimates.    Travel path: 8 miles.  Landed glider safely in mild outlanding. Dan Maloney.  Daniel Maloney, circus performer.
       
    • "The Santa Clara College monthly magazine, The Redwood, once referred to the Montgomery glider with naive accuracy as a dirigible-parachute."
    • Another source:   "Picture 1: April 29, 1905, saw the first public demonstration of winged flight above 1,000 feet. John Montgomery stands proudly beside “The Santa Clara” while Dan Maloney assumes the pilot’s position. At left are Justice W. G. Lorigan and Frank Hamilton. * "

      Art Bean built a Montgomery glider replica from plan published in Low & Slow. Photos of Art's result show also.
    • Author Weston George wrote and article He made the first controlled winged flight Western Aviator John Montgomery.     Aviation Quarterly Vol.5 #3    3/1979        March 1979.     Magazine ceased publication.    Issue in question: Vol.5 No.3 3/1979
      Texas Lady - A Color Photo Essay; Waco - A Color Photo Essay; The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot by Alvin S Flick (June 1944 Pacific Air Battle); Lady Southern Cross by Fred Morton (Kingsford Smith's flight to Australia);       The Story of John Joseph Montgomery by Weston George (1883 Hang-glider pioneer); Mystery Ship: A Color Photo Essay (Travel Air); The Swept Wing by Robert D Culp (History of Swept wings); B-24: The Liberator by William Holder and Clifford Glassmeyer (B-24 history)
       
    • See Here for seemingly sharper report.
    • Pamphlet included  Paper included a 13-page section: "The Aeroplane: A Scientific Study" by John J. Montgomery.
      s.a. Montgomery, John J., "The Aeroplane, A Scientific Study," The Redwood 4:5(8). Santa Clara College, (May 1905), 440-453.
      http://www.oac.cdlib.org/view?docId=tf5j49n7wp;style=oac4;view=dsc  Might be good to go and spend time in the archives ...Jack Lambie, Art Bean and Spurgeon, J.R. contributed to the collection.
       
      (4IS44-Box 9) Bean, Art. Plans for reconstruction of 1905 glider with changes.
       
      (4IM21-99) Spurgeon, J.R.  John J. Montgomery 1905 hang glider, 1973. 2pp.
       
    • http://www.scu.edu/engineering/about/montgomery.cfm
    • Bosh, but bona fide
    • Did he have another brother "Robert" or not?     Were there three sons in family?
    • The 1011 Evergreen
    • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Joseph_Montgomery     Work on timeline and on patents. Timeline of gliders.
    • http://earlyaviators.com/emontgom.htm    has note: "1911-Built camp at Evergreen, south of San Jose, to resume gliding experiments which were witnessed by many. On October 31, Montgomery made a slight alteration in control pattern. The plane pulled up sharply off rails and side-slipped 13 feet barely bruising the right wing. A protruding stove-bolt penetrated Montgomery's brain behind his ear, killing him"
Are you making    airframed hang gliders    and offering them for others to purchase?   If so, send note and get listed here:

Former manufacturers of airframed hang gliders (no longer making airframed hang gliders)   (send notes; thanks)

  • Airwave                        Historic note.      I find on their 2011 website no offer of airframed hang gliders.
  • Seagull Aircraft           (past: 1970s to ___)
  • Ultralight Products (UP)
  • Enterprise Wings  (Moyes has taken over some responsibilities).
  • Delta Wing Gliders     (Bill Bennett).    

Questionable status with respect to airframed hang gliders:

  • Flight Designs    (past: 1980s)
  • Pacific WindCraft
  • Solar Wings
  •  
WW T2 News
http://topaflyers.com/kites/index.html   Fred Vachss
http://www.bigsurskypark.com/sito_en/
VTS_01_1.VOB - Assorted Hang glider crashes by Bob Cordier of Willington CT
Person using form:  There are no words to describe how bodacious this is.
Mitchell Cary and Don Gum were test piloting a replica of Wright B Flyer.  Crash and fatalities are beng investigated.  Condolences to their friends and families.     Some news notes: Here1 and Here2..
Craft by Wright B Flyer, Inc.
History:  Done.

> > On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 2:49 PM, Pere Casellas

Dear friends/Queridos amigos/Chers amis/Estimats amics,
> >
> > - This Weekend  we will be in Yelmo (Sierra de Segura, Andalucia),
> > presenting
> > the new wings!
> > - Este fin de semana Estaremos en la FIA el Yelmo, presentando las nuevas
> > alas!
> > - Ce week-end, nous allons au Yelmo à présenter les nouvelles ailes!
> > - Aquest cap de setmana, estarem al Yelmo, presentant les noves ales!
> >
> > fins aviat,
> > Pere