History
Trikes are referred to as "microlights" in Europe and have been extremely popular since the 1980s. The history of the trike is traced back to the invention by Francis Rogallo's flexible wing and subsequent development by the Paresev engineering team's innovations and then others. On 1948, engineer Francis Rogallo invented a self-inflating wing which he patented on March 20, 1951 as the Flexible wing. It was on October 4, 1957 when the Russian satellite Sputnik shocked the United States and the space race caught the imagination of its government, causing major increases in U.S. government spending on scientific research, education and on the immediate creation of NASA. Rogallo was in position to seize the opportunity and released his patent to the government and with his help at the wind tunnels, NASA began a series of experiments testing Rogallo's wing -which was renamed Para Wing- in order to evaluate it as a recovery system for the Gemini space capsules and recovery of used Saturn rocket stages. F. Rogallo's team adapted and extended the totally flexible principle into semi-rigid variants. This mainly involved stabilizing the leading edges with compressed air beams or rigid structures like aluminum tubes. By 1960 NASA had already made test flights of a heavily framed cargo powered aircraft called the Ryan XV-8 or Fleep (short for 'Flying Jeep') and by March 1962, of a weight-shift experimental glider called Paresev. By 1967 all Para Wing projects were dropped by NASA in favor of using round parachutes without officially considering development of personal ultralight gliders, but the airfoil's simplicity of design and ease of construction, along with its capability of slow flight and its gentle landing characteristics, did not go unnoticed by hang glider enthusiasts. The challenge then, was to modify and fit a Rogallo flexible wing with an appropriate frame to allow it to be used as a hang glider.
Read more about this topic: Ultralight Trike
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“This above all makes history useful and desirable: it unfolds before our eyes a glorious record of exemplary actions.”
—Titus Livius (Livy)
“In all history no class has been enfranchised without some selfish motive underlying. If to-day we could prove to Republicans or Democrats that every woman would vote for their party, we should be enfranchised.”
—Carrie Chapman Catt (1859–1947)
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)