W. Simon    
a hang gliding sport-meet user of the most simple cable-stayed A-frame
or control frame or triangle control frame (TCF) in 1908.
W. Simon is an awardee of the WHGA Flex-Wing Hang Glider Gold Air Award.

Erfinder ::  "inventor"

Neurode :: (German: Neurode) is a town in south-western Poland near the Czech border. Polish name for the town:  Nowa Ruda            wiki/Nowa_Ruda
The Polish :Wroclaw" is the German "Breslau"    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrocław

Contemporary hang-glider designer, builder, videographer, and pilot NMERider researched and found the long-sought name of "W. Simon" and thereby won the World Hang Gliding Association (WHGA) three-tiered prize echoing the cable-stayed A-frame control frame: two downtubes and basebar for controlling the position of the keel-hung pilot in hang gliders (triangle control frame (TCF) during pendulum weight-shift control of batten-assisted flexible-wing hang gliders. W. Simon seems to be the firm early exemplar for hang gliders for the most simple of control systems; such mechanical simplicity was placed into public domain. John Worth would later emphatically draw upon such public domain mechanicals to control the position of payloads in hang gliders; Worth was a mid-20th century leader for using such control system in the four-boom wing that predominately was referred to as the stiffened Rogallo wing (because of Francis M. Rogallo's leadership communications before and within a space-age special Sputnik-reaction time). Others would include the public-domain mechanical of the A-frame in their kite hang gliders.

Erzielung eines Vortriebes besitzt. Es liegt hier also gewissermassen eine Vereinigung von Gleitflieger und Schwingenflieger vor. Die Einzelheiten der Konstruktionen sind dem Erfinder W. Simon, Neurode, gesetzlich geschützt. An diesem Flieger wird ebenfalls seit einigen Wochen gearbeitet, doch erfordern gerade hierbei die Vorstudien zur Ermittelung der richtigen Form und Grössenverhältnisse der Konstruktionsteile zahlreiche, langwierige Untersuchungen und den Bau zahlreicher Modelle, so dass positive Resultate erst in einiger Zeit zu erwarten sind.                    Ingenieur Erich Schrader.

NMERider's research found W. Simon on http://books.google.com/books?id=sNM6AQAAMAAJ  page 571. It was Stephan Nitsch who gave the WHGA the first nudge toward finding W. Simon; but for years we did not have the name to match the mechanicals photographed.

• [ ] What is W. Simon's full name?  Birth date? Death date? Parents? Schooling? Associates?
• [ ] The woman in the photo had her hat off in her hand, apparently. What might be an interpretation of such gesture? Who was she?  Her association with W. Simon?   Why is she in the photograph?
• [ ] Who designed and built the hang glider launch ramp?   When? Purpose?   Function?  Specifications?  Cost? Location?
• [ ] What was the date of the photograph?
• [ ] Are the negatives of the photograph in someone's archive?
• [ ] Is Erich Schrader the article author?  Do we know if he is the photographer or not?   Who took the photograph?
• [ ] What other hang gliders were at the same sporting hang glider meeting? How many hang gliders?  Who organized the association's meet? What announcements of the meet were made? In what way was the meet announced?   Who did the meet's planning?
• [ ] What might have been published in W. Simon's home town about his pursuits?
• [ ] Erich Schrader seems to state that the W. Simon mechanicals were "protected by law" ... if the translation to English is correct. If so, can we find evidence of any text toward that protection?   "gesetzlich geschützt"  Effort at translation: Art1 
• [ ] Did newspapers cover the particular hang gliding meet?
• [ ] Did W. Simon have a second effort?  Did he have efforts prior to his meet showing?
• [ ] There is a photograph somewhere that has been seen that shows a multitude of other gliders at that meet; one other, at least, showed the triangle control frame; finding and linking that photograph would be part of this story.
• [ ] Will Polish language holders in the present hang gliding community be interested in helping to research W. Simon ?
• [ ] The apparent hometown of Neurode (which is the German name for Nowa Ruda
  
  Neurode :: (German: Neurode) is a town in south-western Poland near the Czech border :: Nowa Ruda
  wiki/Nowa_Ruda         So, what about that town then? What were the conditions? Any newspaper? Any aeronautical club in town? Who were the actors surrounding W. Simon?  How far from Nowa Ruda was Breslau?   How did W. Simon travel to get to the Breslau hang glider meet?
   
• [ ] What was the source of Stephan Nitsch's copy of the photograph that he used for his book?
• [ ] NMERider mentions a page number in:
• [ ] Erich Schrader mentions.... or some editor in asterisk mentioned ---which was it?---Meerwein 
  http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1954/1954%20-%202345.html    Karl Friedrich-Meerwein, Bird-Man  
• [ ] Contact current glider clubs in the region of Wroclaw and also Nowa Ruda.
• [ ] Contact librarians
• [ ]

Der apparat erinnert sehr an denjenigen von Meerwein von Jahre 1784 (vergl, Moedebeck, Taschenbuch für Flugtechniker und Luftschiffer. S. 305. [Ed:  not sure if the commas are actually commas or periods; a better transcription might be had by someone having access to a library copy of the original document.  The translation directs to a paperback book for a flight engineer and aeronaut, page 305, apparently a book by Moddebeck (?)]  ONE TRANSLATION: The apparatus is very reminiscent of those of Meerwein from 1784 (cf, Moedebeck, Paperback for flight engineer and aeronaut. Page. 305.

• Hermann Willhelm Ludwig Moedebeck
•  

[ ] Is she holding a hat?  Or something else?

[ ] What is her relationship with W. Simon?

[ ] Why is she in the photograph?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrocław

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technische_Hochschule

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrocław_University_of_Technology   Polish: Politechnika Wrocławska

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Wrocław

"The Unification of Germany in 1871 turned Breslau into the sixth-largest city in the German Empire. Its population more than tripled to over half a million between 1860 and 1910. The 1900 census listed 422,709 residents. Important landmarks were inaugurated in 1910, the Kaiserbrücke (Kaiser bridge) and the Technische Hochschule(TH), which now houses the Wrocław University of Technology.

  See another: double atterrissage