History of Hang Gliding - Invention of The Flexible Wing

Invention of The Flexible Wing

In 1904 Jan Lavezzari demonstrated a stiffened flexible-wing hang glider in flight at Berck-sur-Mer, France. In 1908, a glider with a triangular control frame and the pilot tethered behind it, was demonstrated in the territory of Breslau. In 1948, aeronautical engineer Francis Rogallo invented a self-inflating wing which he patented on March 20, 1951 as the Flexible Wing, also known as the flexwing and Rogallo wing. Francis Rogallo had first proposed his flexible wing concept to the Langley Research Center in the late 1940s as a simple, inexpensive approach to recreational flying, but the idea was not accepted as a project.

It was on October 4, 1957 when the Russian satellite Sputnik became a concern to the United States and marked the beginning of the 'space race' and the creation of NASA. Rogallo was in position to seize the opportunity and with his help at the wind tunnels, NASA began a series of experiments testing Rogallo's flexible wing, which got renamed Parawing, in order to evaluate it as a recovery system for the project Gemini space capsules. Rogallo designed his flexible wing to allow the astronauts to deploy it like a parachute at subsonic speeds during reentry, then glide their capsule to a specified touchdown point. F. Rogallo's team collaborated with at least two American aircraft companies, Ryan Aeronautical Company and North American Aviation, as there was potential for gliders, dirigible parachutes, and other new types of manned aircraft; this mainly involved stabilizing the leading edges with compressed air beams or rigid structures like aluminium tubes. By 1961 NASA had already made test flights of an experimental STOL "aerial utility aircraft" – the Ryan XV-8 (also known as the "Flying Jeep" or "Fleep") and by March 1962, of a weight-shift glider called Paresev.

Round parachutes were selected over the Rogallo wing to be used on the Gemini spacecraft and on 1965, funding on flexible wings stopped.