This issue:     Towing hang gliders and more...

Disclaimer: Linking is not an endorsement.

Scooter, static, pulley, payout, aero, balloon, animal, friends, winch, boat, servant kite, servant-sail, bungee, robot-aero, dolly, platform, foot-launch, drop-mass, ocean-current drogue, river-drogue, grounded robot, PPG, DF, payout GA, self-kiting, self-payout, pay in, pay out, train hitch-hike, fly-by skyhooking, ocean liner, submarine,  ..., etc., for any hang glider from full limp to full solid.....on earth, in space, at other planets, and in Moon City and Space Colony.      Note: For safety, each method calls for a mastery of parts and operational arts. 

• http://www.birrendesign.com/LKanimation.html

• http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scootertow/
• http://www.onesite.co.uk/find/hang_gliding.htm   
• http://groups.yahoo.com/group/skysailingtowing/
•  

Also general link:      ScooterTowing

http://www.willswing.com/learn/scooterTow/

Remote control hang glider towing aircraft - Patent 4248394

[There was an earlier version. I've got the magazine archives DVDs set from USHGA. It seems that ONLY page 30 of the 1997  fifth issue of Hang Gliding is with some unreadable presentation.. As luck would have it, that's the first of two pages of Part 1 of an article on towing by Dave Broyles. If someone has a scan of that page, please send to editor@UpperWindpower.com     Thanks.  [ ] activeyet ]

• Lilienthal integrated flying times.

• Lilienthal involved flying tails.

• Lilienthal invited flight times.

• Lilienthal involved flight TCF.

• Lights in flight things.

• More L_I_F_T

• Tandem towing over water with report of light thermals over the water. Return to pontoons of the 1950s., See all the notes in
  •  http://www.paradisehanggliding.com/       
  • See this
  • Soft salt-water landing
  • Video: Paradise Hang Gliding, above the Gulf of Mexico    Back to the 1950s aqua-kiting ... 
    Launch: Platform of boat with payout winch ...

• WWW
• SWW
• RWW
• PWW

Aerotow or aero-tow

Written by Brian Fotheringham
Edited by Michael Robertson & Leslie
Updated by Peter Darian

The following linked page has a note involving Art Bean: Inventory of John J. Montgomery Collection  "A Review of Facts Related to the John J. Montgomery 1911 "Evergreen" Gliders"    

[2. Second source]

Other sources of same book.

Method: ???:  Remotely de-power water kite that is anchoring tow line after using onboard electric-powered winch to tow to altitude; upon de-powering the anchoring water kite, reel in the water kite and remaining tow line.  Would such system use less or more power than just using the electricity to power an onboard motor for driving a propeller or propellers?   Charge the batteries or ultracapacitors by wave action, solar radiation conversion, pilot power, or hydrogen made from water and sun.   [Upon tug on the water kite, the water kite "flies" deeper and at a tack that aides the stability of the hang glider lift off operation. As soon as altitude of the HG is reached, the pilot remotely de-powers the water kite and begins to reel in the remaining tow line and the de-powered water kite.]

Method ???:   v

What about not carrying the launch system with the flight system? 

Method: ???:     What about a water-site base in the ocean?  Then what?   Consider the dropping of a lead anchor to the deep with the tow line going through a stabilized pulley. Drop the sinking weight and use the drop to form tension to tow the HG up to altitude. Then consider using wave power to jiggle the dropped weight back up to surface through a jiggle-ratchet device.   Then soar about and fly back to the launch site. No electricity. No fuel. Just gravity and mechanical wave power.  Wind or no wind.

Method: ???:  Wave power and block and tackle for hi-start?

Method: ???                                             Editor@UpperWindpower.com

What is next? Perhaps having a long-line flatland launch of kite; have RC of the kite for directional control and braking. Catch a thermal and off you go for a long-line-hybrid paraglide soaring session.   Some extended fully-out-of-control unplanned glides with jumping parafoils have been made due to passing thermal or cloudsuck; add to such systems a large kite and radio-control of the kite by the far-low-hung pilot and perhaps have a flatland launch-to-hybrid-foot-launching hang gliding scenario. Who will be first to safely and well control such a flatland launching. The mechanical principles are present. The practice is not yet occurring.

1997 jump glide (I guess they did not know people were with similar kites jumping for paraglide flights off hills...):   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dqp3dv5-3g

2006 Baltic Sea  ...big hang time ...flat water launch

2007 longer glide from water launch:  kite long hang time

2008

• Authors and illustrators

• Readers make requests or ask questions

• Gift Lift Fun

• Add to lift types      Then:  * Lift types

• Niche HG activity--people specializing

• Hang Glider Bible

• Glossary

• Video links

• Member Set #001
• Living-Legend Lifters ---nominees
• Open associate editorships --one for you?
• Drachen Foundation Journal

• Eagle in Santa Barbara, California 
• Fly Away Hang Gliding

After issue closed:

• Idea put on the table by Mark Forbes:  slow trike and a constant-tension payout winch for towing PG?
• mm:   "T'was a ppg trike with a small, on board payout winch to compensate for speed differences and add to safety."
• Fredrik: "Using a kind og payout winch might be a good idea though."

E-PAC

"I’m now building the ElectraFlyer trike with a new feature: regenerative charging."
Article from early 2008 in four pages:  Pages   1  2  3  4
- February 2008 (Multi Part PDF)

[Ed:  Consider getting wing's airframe matter double-purposing as ultracapacitor to subtract current battery mass; consider then deleting trike mass; then go toward having the wing's sail be a solar-radiation converter to charge the airframe's ultra capacitance. Off grid. Foot launched. World-around lifetime fliking ...  Seal motor and airframe. Have FWW (floats when wanted (retractable) for water landings. Master off-water launching to soaring altitude... ]

[Robot translation (We welcome a better translation)  is very rough here of the text:

Timeline for electric-powered foot-launched hang gliding

• 1979 April 29: at Flabob Airport, California, Larry Mauro flew the Solar Riser with an electric motor powered by storage batteries charged from the sun. The Solar Riser was a modified Easy Riser hang glider.^[47]

• c. 2001? Richard Kruger Sprengel electric drive for limp-wing hang glider (paraglider)^[48]

• 2005 June: Werner Eck began work on his electric drive for limp unstiffened hang gliders.

• 2006, June 6: in Canada, Casaba Lemak ^[49] Limp-wing hang glider (unstiffened governable gliding wing which is currently called "paraglider") takes off flatland using electric motor.^[50]

• 2006, December 19: Prototype Electric-Paramotor from Helix-Carbon GmbH shows electric motor in the Coupe Icare in Saint Hilaire. ^[51]

• Foot-launched electric-powered ATOS hang glider Electric ATOS Hang Glider

• Crawinkel, Germany (ten months before the Garmisch Free-Flight Trade Fair)

• 2007 at the German Free Flight Trade Fair in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Dr. Ing. Werner Eck and his partner Jochen Geiger showed electric drives for hang gliders (for limp paraglider types and stiffened wing types).^[52]

• 2007 Razeebus Aircrafts ^[53]

• ______ The E-Lift System by FLUGSPORT TONI ROTH, Fronreute, Germany ^[54]
   
• 2009  http://www.e-flight-expo.com/en/home.html   E-Flight Expo at the AERO Friedrichshafen 2009

--------------------------------------

NOTE: Either edit the wiki or send data to Editor@UpperWindpower.com for handling toward the wiki. Corrections, extensions ?

• razeebuss
• Razeebuss vidoes   several
• razeebuss "air lab" top engine view
• Pam Electric de Christophe
• le prix de l'innovation
• the razmott power
• razmott brule
• Razmott Demo
• Diapo razmott
• Film Razmott    South of France, company Razeebuss Aircraft shows off model Razmott
• le proto
• Use air or water kites to charge the batteries or ultracapacitors
  of your next e-PHG ?

Lift futurisms: Water-proof it. Recharge it with the sun via solar-fabric of the wing. Smart nano-3-D matrix lighter-than-air "solid" floating fill of former Jalbert-parafoil forms. Wet-suited pilot. Low-mass rig and method for off-water re-launch.  Double-purpose sail, lines, flight suit.. for  XOHG.

   KiteLab

See also: http://www.astronautix.com/craft/gemglide.htm

Note: Fully distinguish the above from the different Paresev program and Charles Richards.

 "Russia- has established the first dis-
tance record for aerial trains. A
motored airplane, serving as locomo-
tive, recently towed three gliders, each
having its own skilled pilot, more than
800 miles. Several landings were made,
the glider pilots detaching and com-
ing down singly.
The take-off, with the three gliders
strung behind, is simple. The average
speed between towns is 110 miles an
hour. Moscow authorities are jubilant.
They say they see the momentous
spectacle of sky freight trains as prac-
tically at-hand."

Idea: Train tow 100s of hang gliders behind one tug; branch off as wanted for various niche purposes (recreation, peace, peace-keeping, agriculture, education, ...)

Abstract

The paraglider was conceived during the 1950s as a lightweight hybrid of parachute and inflated wing that might allow astronauts to pilot spacecraft to airfield landings. From 1961 to 1964, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) sought to convert the idea into a practical landing system for the Gemini spacecraft. The spacecraft would carry the paraglider safely tucked away through most of a mission. Only after re-entering the atmosphere from orbit would the crew deploy the wing. Having now converted their spacecraft into a makeshift glider, they could fly to an airfield landing. How and why this ingenious scheme failed is the subject of this paper.

See also:

Gemini   By David Shayler  (pages around 305 and following, perhaps other)

http://www.worldcat.org/wcpa/oclc/47182052     May be in a library near you.

paraglider research vehicle      Nov. 1961 ...decision to go after some flying experience. Studies had been very far along from 1958-1961 on the Rogallo Wing in deep studies, modelling, flying of model hang gliders of various sorts and stiffening. Then at the start of 1962 with Paresev piloted vehicles built by Charles Richards and his team started the flight practice manned.    The first decade of 1900s ...in Breslau of 1908 in a hang glider, the simply-hung pilot behind the triangle control frame was not the arrangement chosen, but the weight-shift pendulum principle was still used in the foldable four-boom two-lobe towed hung-pilot device that they were calling a "paraglider" at that time.   Rogalo and others before him already had all the mechanical principles; NASA was formatting for high-speed re-entry from space.   Eventually, the unfurling from spacecraft of the paraglider became the challenge that was daunting.

Skynch  or eSkynch or e-Skynch or RC Skynch

When perfected, reduced, made reliable, etc. :
1. Get it so that parts of flight system are double-purposed.
2. Get to point where the PG or HG collected solar radiation and recharges the energy storage system (also double-purposed material…harness, spinal protector, lines, etc. ).
Then self-winch around the world. Nomadic hang gliding at a new level! No propeller.

As you indicated, Brett, it will be a hard press to have self-winch overcome the motoring with prop; if one had enough winching power …why not just be in assisted prop launch as one flikes the world.

Alternative in niche arrangements: Keep self-winch on ground with remote control of the winch from the air...save taking the winch and and power source to the air.

For contrast, see e-paramotoring, paramoter, eFlight, ePG, ePPG, PPG, e-FLPG, e-FLPHG, eHG, eFlight, e-Lift, skyting, e-skyting,

Other: Static-stationary-skyting with morphing wing … In moderate wind, s-kite while wing is large; morph wing as one goes through gradient; remote detach and pull in all like. SSSMW flike around the world. No prop, no motor, no winch. Moyes skyted barely, but did not un-moor from the land anchor. In Torrance, I cooperated with Bill M. to a near skyte for him, but the wind was slope and high speed…and he had no morphing going…and left the tow rope on the ground.

Glider Rider Digitizing Project - Lost Issues Still Needed!

The project to digitize and place on DVD all the issues of "Glider
Rider" magazine, with support and endorsement from the Editor Tracy
Knauss, is still a go. I am still short three issues and will
appreciate any help to find them.

The issues I still need are

Volume 1 1976 - #4   and   #9,
and Vol. ?? February 84?? #96

Special thanks to David Lindberg for his donated issues!

Please repost this request to your local club list.

Ken de Russy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICrbURGJeKk

VJ23   David Cook    and  David Cook flying VJ23E

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

is still reachable. He might have hi-res images.

Wings of Rogallo … Jim Harris might have images.

Barry Hill Palmer is still reachable. He was apparently first to foot launch a renaissance stiffened Rogallo wing hang glider. Among his seven to eight versions, he reached the 1908 hung pilot behind triangle control frame, but strut stayed. In Breslau in 1908 the very TCF we have today iconically was cable-stayed precisely as we have today. See image at bottom of http://HangGliderHistory.com

Tony Prentice has tabs on many neat images.

Drachen Foundation has the archives for Domina Jalbert whose invention gave full foundation to the limp hang gliders: paragliders of today. They may well cooperate on hi-res images on Jalbert.

Mark Forbes of USHPA has tab on large collection of publications. Maybe images, not sure. He is reachable in OZ PM etc.

Wish you the best on your project, Bart,

Lift,
Joe
http://HangGliderHistory.com
http://HGAusa.com

Hang gliding's future:   Happy Birthday Zoë        January 17   ...........9

• Landing: 
  • Flaring
  • Run out
  • Moonwalk run
  • Wheels
  • Skids
  • Skis
  • Pontoons
  • Slide
  • High-wind
  • Downwind challenges
  • Net
  • Restraining
  • Drogue
  • Power-assisted
  • Matching conditions
  • Parachutal
  • Problematic
  • Shock absorbing system design
  • Shock absorbers --historical and current
  • Anti-whack systems
  • Accident lessons
  • Training
  • Water
  • Tree
  • Crops
  • Animals
  • Cactus
  • Boulders
  • Roads
  • Roofs
  • Sand
  • Wheels when wanted
  • Wheel types
  • Rollers
  • Perching
  • Uphill challenges
  • Holes
  • Fences
  • Ravines
  • Private property
  • Wires
  • Powerlines
  • LZ design
  • LZ protocols
  • LZ clearing
  • Club LZs
  • Landouts
  • Property damage
  • First aid
  • Communications
  • Retrieval
  •    

While researching today for an effort to help protect the trade name of Seedwings,
I came across the back page of Vol. 2, No. 3, March 17, 1974 issue of Hang Glider Weekly that held a small article about myh Jim Hobson meetings and borrowings of his materials:
Jim's last name is properly with "son" in the name. I published his hame in that issue with an "sen" incorrectly. His professional record is on the Net. Apparently I had overlapped HGW with some L&S; fuzzy memory, but L&S had exactly 36 issues. HGW had about 170 editions. I have a copy of the #25-36 of L&S. The L&S 1-24 are in the USHGA DVD in B&W, thus not the 4-color L&S centerfold of PhotoFly image. In below article I used "r" in the Rogallo reference. Jim had activity with his flying ...at Dockweiler before Richard Miller ...by a few years. We are still hoping that the heirs of Jim have held onto his notebooks and scrapebook that I had itemized on a typed working sheet; I will one day be giving the sheet to Ken; I sent Gerry a copy of that record. My borrowed HGW copies from Joe Greblo may one day at his approval go to Ken. Mark Forbes and Ken are equally permitted to republish the about 170 issues of HGW.

=============================On back page of Vol. 2, No. 3, March 17, 1974==============================
JIM HOBSON
1961 marked Jim's recording of a triangle control bar and flexibly hanging seated pilot attached to a sharp-nosed rogallo conical hang glider. His notebooks and photographs covering his early 60's mind and hardware adventures will be featured in the coming bimonthly L&S. ...
=============================================================

At that time I was not steeped in the aviation history that clearly
showed that cable-stayed triangle control bar with hung pilot in a battened
cloth hang glider had been fact in the territory of Breslau in first decade
of the 1900 with teachings in the following several decades with both strut and cable-staying the triangle control frame. Also, in 1974, I was not aware of the 1910 or so Weiss flying wing with twist that looks very close to contemporary 2000 hang gliders' DS wings.. The Palmer (1961-2), Hobson ('61), Burns ('62-63), and later Dickenson (late '63) were fifty+ years after the Breslau hang glider fact. The GA powered sets lifted the glider pilot to positons to use aerodynamica controls while the frame and wheels served takeoff and landing purposes; but the CG mechanical invention and arts were already known. Early 1800s had the pendulum control mechanicals well underway. Then Espenlaub strut staying and Spratt revisiting the Breslau tactic simply continued things.

And in 1973-74, there was zero contention, only raw open innocent caring to post what came into my desk.

Lift,
Joe

PS: I see now that throughout a couple of years without any correction from Pat, I had spelled his name Pat Conniry, whereas an Eipper Formance print once had "airy" in the last part of his name. In HangGliderHistory both spellings are put forward. Pat had many times visited the Low & Slow office; and he helped me when I crashed at Malaga Cove; he drove me to the doctors to get a cast for my arm.

PPS: All are invited to play a part in professionally protecting the tradename of Seedwings in the hang gliding community from abuse; there is a challenge by a let-go affiliate. See a blurb on the lower part of the page at http://HangGliderHistory.com for Seedwings.

I would share this with Mike Burns and JD, but the word is that there is a blocking, so I did not cc them; others are welcome to include them professionally.

PPPS: Apparently I overlapped some HGW timing while finishing off the L&S. And a mention of a possible L&S 37 ...never happened. The last of L&S was large format #36.
The count of all publications for HG was 216. That 216 include two Grass Skimmer issues for San Dieo interest (not the Ground Skimmer), a couple of Hang Glider Business Newsletter.

PPPS: Ken will be given whatever I have ...when I next retire from HG. He received the lion's share of items when I first retired long ago. This second period began in 2000 or so and has been gaining momentum, thanks to Art Bean, Joe Greblo, and the Internet along with the special project related to the research challenge stumbled upon in the GH-JD effort. Much work to be done yet. I see in an early HGW a White (designer's last name) bow hang glider that has not been mentioned; it might be revisited along with other bow HG interests. My Omega Aircraft and Omega Hang Gliders manufacturing firm has been scratching up a thermal with some designing that has effected some trial contraptions, one family of which will spawn hundreds of wings; there is a return to the primitive forms...more later; a touching of early dreams with the benefit of history to inform. There is no actual going back; but there is an informed renewal of fun ways to relate to wings. Markowski's Bible noted the Omega trade name for my address.  

JpF

Truck tow ATOS   

Design and video by Martin Henry.

Thanks to all of you
who sent lifts
for others!!
Here is a little thank-you-gift L_I_F_T_ for you:
Lay inside frame tubes.