Charles Richards (NASA Engineer)

Charles Richards (NASA Engineer)

Designer engineer Charles Richard used data from NASA research over Francis Rogallo's mechanical inventions to produce a wing configuration for manned hung-pilot kite-gliders that was to be found copied only with slight ornamental variation in a decade of hang gliders. Richards was of the Flight Research Center's Vehicle and System Dynamics Branch. The four-beamed wing folded from the noseplate; one of the beams was the spreader beam that kept the flexible-wing's sweep. Those in the following decade copying the Charles Richard wing configuration expanded kiting, hang gliding, ultralight, and trike flight.