'The Children of the Wind' - A History of the New Aviation 1971-1996 - Ch III, Pt 2

[Larry Dighera, Moderator]

'The Children of the Wind' - A History of the New Aviation 1971-1996

Here is a serialized account taken from Brian Miltion's magnum
opus, 'The Children of the Wind' - A History of the New Aviation
1971-1996, soon to be published by Endeavour Press, a
London-based epublisher. These first few chapters
chronicling the beginnings of man's quest to fly and how the
forefathers of aviation have influenced contemporary ultralight
aviation have kindly been made available to newsgroup
readers. They will be posted here over the next few months.
This first post is the Table of Contents.

You can learn more about TV presenter, lecturer,
journalist, award winning around-the-world microlight pilot,
author of seven books, and born adventurer, Brian Milton on
his web site <http://www.brian-milton.com/>;. You can also
purchase autographed copies of Brian's literary works there too:
<http://www.brian-milton.com/book>. And don't miss the
extensive collection of aviation videos, including Brian's Around
the World by Microlight flight for which he was awarded the
Britannia Trophy, joining a very distinguished list of aviators
who have won that award including Sir John Alcock, Bert Hinkler
and Sir Alan Cobham. Brian was also awarded the Segrave Trophy,
an award presented to great sportsmen; past recipients include Sir
Malcolm Campbell, Amy Johnson and Jackie Stewart:
<http://www.brian-milton.com/video/>

Additional links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Milton
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segrave_Trophy


© Copyright Brian Milton 2013, All Rights Reserved


============= Beginning of Chapter III, Part 2 ==============

Chapter Three - DEVELOPMENT OF THE ROGALLO WING

by a rarely-used road, complete with sidewalks and curbs. Six or eight of us
picked up the glider and trotted along in the damp evening air, expecting the
magic of flight to carry me away. No such luck. We simply backed up further and
ran harder. On the third try, we could not stop before encountering the slight
drop, the sidewalk, curb and street. I was aware of tumbling bodies around me,
and I must have flown 15 or 20 feet before grinding to a halt on the asphalt.
The flight resembled a trajectory more than it involved the usual forces
associated with taking to the air. The glider escaped injury, and our minor
abrasions were tended to back in the garage.

The only problem left was getting the fragile machine to Newport. The roof of a
car or an open trailer would probably destroy it. My brother-in-law saved the
day by renting a large truck for me.

At 7am on the morning of May 23, 1971, I woke up under the grey overcast sky
common to Southern California in Spring, also known as the June Gloom. Dick and
I assembled the glider as more pilots arrived. At the pilot's meeting the owner
of the property introduced himself, and told us the land was reserved for use
as a cemetery, casually adding that the mortuary was just over the hill in case
any of its special services might be needed. Hang gliding was lunatic fringe
before it even got off the ground. It seems so strange that in fulfilling one
of man's oldest dreams, to fly like a bird, he is judged to be less than
competent by his peers. This was something I never quite understood or got used
to. These people of quick verbal jabs had not dreamed of airplanes during their
childhood, content to walk along never looking up, both in spirit and in body.

By late morning, the overcast burnt off and the wind began to freshen. I had
visions of soaring for hours over the gentle grassy slope. My friends and I
carried the craft up the hill and gave it one last check. With helpers on the
wings and tail, I was ready. We started the take-off run. The glider began to
tug me skywards by my armpits, and just as my feet lost traction the main spar
failed. My first flight was a very short entry in my logbook.

The glider was only slightly damaged. I had not brought any tools or materials
to repair it with. I mean, after all, it would soar for hours on its first
flight. We did manage to round up a 2 by 4 and some wire. We used a hammer and
a screwdriver to split the 2 by 4 into 1 by 2 (approximately) spar splints. We
nailed these to both sides of the breaks and wrapped the splice with wire.
Field repairs, circa 1880.

We had lunch and gave it another try. I climbed into the 'cockpit' and this
time the glider held my weight. It was slightly out of trim in pitch which,
coupled with my light weight, caused it to pitch up sharply to an alarming
altitude of maybe ten feet. It was not the flight of an hour I had dreamed of,
but I had flown. We adjusted the surfaces of the glider as best we could and
tried again. I concentrated on keeping my weight as far forward as possible and
ran down the hill. The glider pitched up sharply again, but not quite as bad as
the first time. More adjustments with the same result for flight number three.

A meeting of the minds determined that the centre of gravity was too far aft
and we needed a pilot who weighed more than 135 lbs. Dick weighed 165 and was
the next choice. As the old saying goes, the bigger they are, the harder they
fall. Dick also pitched up, not as sharply, his flight resembling the
trajectory of an artillery shell. His impact knocked off the helmet he was
wearing. More weight. My brother in law weighed 180 lbs, and we figured that he
would either hit the ground really hard or the glider would actually fly
properly. On his third flight he made it to the bottom of the hill! His landing
was also an acrobatic manoeuvre previously unknown to man. As his rear touched
the ground (gear up landing) he let go of the glider. He did a half roll and
the glider did a half loop.

The day was over in what seemed to be a few minutes. My friends and I wore out
the airframe of that first glider in one afternoon, and left it in a garbage
can at the end of the day. The plastic covering had been stretched, torn and
taped, the airframe repaired by so many splints that it probably gained 10lbs.
My armpits were bruised, my buttocks punctured by wild thistles and my legs
were tired. But what a day! It changed my life. The next day my picture was in
the LA Times.

A YouTube video of that tremendously important meeting can be seen on
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-XC0dxerYs&feature=youtu.be.

More meetings were organized, more aircraft turned up, but very soon it was
apparent that the Hang Looses and rigid machines were being swamped by rogallo
wings. The rogallos had a much worse performance than the rigids, but they
caught on, and the new versions started to appear with the triangle control bar
underneath that made all the difference to rigging and control. It was not,
though, an American invention. It came out of Australia, and a man still
virtually unknown even within the sport, called John Dickenson. The story was
pieced together for the first time in its entirety by an Englishman called Mark
Woodhams....

…In 1963 John Dickenson was working in electronics, not aviation, and had just
moved to Grafton, New South Wales, Australia, with his wife Amy. As a child
John was obsessed with things that fly. But as he grew up, circumstances forced
him to train for a more down-to-earth profession. However, the urge to fly
cannot be lightly put aside, and it was on a Woolgoolga beach that John was
spotted flying a modified Benson gyro-plane by officials of the Grafton
Water-ski Club. The annual Jacaranda Festival was approaching and John, by now
a club member, was drafted in to build and fly a water-ski kite as part of the
show. If he could build and fly a gyro-plane, a ski kite should give him no
trouble.

The Club expected John to make a conventional flat-kite, the sort that doesn't
really fly but goes upwards in drag reaction to the tow boat speed. This idea
was abandoned when John discovered that every previous kite flyer at the
Jacaranda Festival had been injured, and that was what everybody turned up for!
It was at this time that NASA released the Gemini photograph, the space capsule
suspended under a rogallo wing. This seemed to be much more suited to the
aquatic environment. John saw it in a magazine and was inspired.

It is precisely at this point that history was made. Armed with only the
photograph, with no dimensions and no back-up information, John started to make
models based on the flex-wing principle. And they flew - really well! By May
1963 he had a half-size model in which he could be towed. The full-size version
was developed and the maiden flight was in September 1963. The Daily Examiner
of October, 1963, records the event for posterity. The aircraft had a
weight-shift single hang point and the "A" frame that is common to all modern
rogallo hang gliders. All the major innovations that lead directly to hang
gliding as we know it today were developed in the space of about 6 months! On
the 11th October, 1963 John filed for the patent and Provisional Protection was
awarded for the application, numbered 36189/63.

The first hang gliders had wooden leading edges, aluminium cross-booms, steel
A-frames and the sails were made from blue plastic sheeting. Total cost, $24.
By 1964 all flight and construction problems had been sorted. John's Ski Wing,
for that is what it was called, was now made entirely out of aluminium, except
for the mild steel A-frame. The sails were partly battened, and made of nylon,
and the rigging was wire cable. John had designed the nose plate so that the
leading edges swung into the keel, and the cross-boom pivoted, fore and aft,
for quick knock-down and car-top transport. And most importantly, although
launch was still being towed up behind a boat, the landings were often made off
the tow-line in true free flight.

It is interesting to note that work on personal rogallos in the United States
was still a year or so off, and when it did start it would go the bamboo,
plastic and parallel bars route.

In 1964, a Brisbane newspaper published a picture of John's creation and a man
called Robin Bishop saw it and wrote to his friend Francis Rogallo, explaining
that an Australian had privately developed the rogallo principle into a
perfectly viable man-carrying aircraft for so little money it was laughable.
Understandably interested, Rogallo wrote to John Dickenson in September, 1964,
requesting information. On November 24, 1964, the entire plans and general
specification of the Ski Wing were sent to him at Langley Research Centre in
Virginia. In just about every detail the craft described in the drawings is
identical to what became known throughout the world as the "Standard Rogallo"
and latterly the "Bog Rog". We had to wait for another ten years before this
type of hang glider started to become obsolete.

In Francis Rogallo's reply to John dated January 29, 1965, he says and I quote
"I hope to make some copies of your drawings and perhaps have some individual
or groups build a glider like yours locally. Your design looks better than
other ski kites I have seen and I wish you great success with it." This is
praise indeed from the master.

By 1964 the publicity surrounding the Ski Wing was beginning to create a demand
and John started making and selling the glider to water-ski enthusiasts. Rod
Fuller now drove the boats, John did the demo flights and people like Ray
Leighton bought the early examples. However, for one reason or another the
business of marketing the hang glider as a tow-launched craft was making slow
progress.

They were flying a lot of exhibitions and everyone was very enthusiastic, but
converting interest into sales was an uphill struggle. John thinks it was the
daredevil publicity that made people wary. After all that work, they had a
complete system to sell and John was not making any money out of it. He was
beginning to wonder if it was all worth while.

In 1966 a move to Sydney and a meeting with Mike Burns seemed to open up new
commercial possibilities. Mike was a graduate aeronautical engineer who had
independently developed a Rogallo-type tow glider called the Ski Plane. His
company, Aerostructures, now started to build the Ski Wing whilst John
demonstrated it and taught people to fly. About this time John set an
Australian 2-hour endurance record and people like Bill Moyes, Bill Bennett,
and "Gelignite Jack" Murray began to sit up and take notice.

In March 1967 Moyes and Bennett signed up for trial flights. John duly taught
them both to fly and Bill Moyes bought a kite from Aerostructures. Shortly
afterwards, the company went bust owing John all the commission from the wings
that had been sold.

Bill Moyes and John became good friends. John willingly donated the design and
constructional information of the Ski Wing to Bill, and in the years between
1967 and 1969 a great deal of collaborative work was carried out in the search
for higher performance. It seems that Bill was a fearless flyer and his chase
for records and hang gliding publicity created an enormous press following.
Bill Bennett was similarly motivated and altitude records see-sawed between the
two barnstormers. In 1969-70 Bennett moved to the US with some gliders based on
John Dickenson's designs and set up a manufacturing business in California.
Moyes was already set up in Australia and beginning to make it pay.

It is ironic that at a time when hang gliding started to fire the public's
imagination world-wide, John Dickenson should begin to retreat from involvement
with its future. Pressures at work, the financial implications of the move to
Sydney and trying to salvage a Diploma in Management at the Tech; all
contributed to his withdrawal. By late 1969 John had stopped flying and
building, and by 1973 the collaboration with Bill Moyes was over, though they
are still good friends.

It is undoubtedly true that many people from many countries made very real
contributions to the development of the hang glider. The phenomenon of parallel
development has clearly operated to a great extent. Richard Miller in the US
was blissfully unaware of the work of John Dickenson in Grafton, as was Mike
Burns in Sydney. It appears that Tom Purcell Jr flew a Rogallo tow vehicle in
1961, and Jim Natland and Barry Palmer were also pioneers in the mid-sixties.

... [Continued next week]
============= End of Chapter III, Part 2 ==============