December 2009

Flying cars: None has entered production but some of the 12 concept designs could be on the market by 2011.

Flying car prices: Terrafugia’s Transition flying car would cost $100,000 to $200,000 if it enters production.

November 2009.

Unmanned aircraft operations: FAA is working on standards for routine commercial operations of small unmanned aircraft.

Unmanned aircraft (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle/UAV) are the way of the future but they are not ready for commercial service says the FAA.

UAV use needs both a jump in technology, operating and safety procedures to enable them to operate safely.

UAV systems have a single point of failure for hydraulics, electrical, flight control and satellite links which is unacceptable.

UAV vs. piloted aircraft: A pilot can look and scan to the left and right. For UAVs, there is a perceived unacceptable level of risk the public mind.

September 2009

Paragliding & Kites

Francis Rogallo / Father of hang gliding & the paraglider

Jan. 27, 1912 - Sept. 1, 2009

Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Source New York Times

Francis Melvin Rogallo, an aeronautical engineer, employed by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), was the father of hang gliding & the paraglider. He was born in Sanger, Calif., on Jan. 27, 1912, and caught the flying bug at 7 after a barnstormer flew over the town. Later, when he tried to join the military as a pilot, he was rejected because he had lost part of his right foot in a childhood accident, The Virginian-Pilot reported in 2003. He graduated from Stanford with a degree in mechanical and aeronautical engineering in 1935.

The invention of hang gliding & the paraglider began after World War II. Mr. Rogallo's wife, Gertrude, helped him develop his ideas for a flexible, ultra-light aircraft. She used her sewing machine and a flowered chintz kitchen curtain to give substance to the vision, a sort of cross between a boat sail and a parachute. The result was a triangle-shaped kite that turned out to be perfect for performing stunts.

News and pictures of Mr. Rogallo's work for NASA occasionally popped up in the news media. In 1954, it was such a novelty that Meyer Berger wrote in The New York Times that it "would startle Ben Franklin”. That same year Rogallo prophetically told Ford Times, a monthly publication of Ford Motor Co. that he could envision men walking to the tops of hills and mountains and soaring away.

In 1957, the year the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik satellite, NASA, which by then had succeeded the NACA, was suddenly very interested. Mr. Rogallo's invention, now called the paraglider, was seen as a way to bring space capsules back to earth with more precision than a traditional parachute allows.

Nick Greece, editor of U.S. Hang Gliding and Paragliding Magazine, said the first person to build a glider using the Rogallo wing was Barry Palmer, who learned about Mr. Rogallo's work in Aviation Week magazine in August 1961, and who two months later near Sacramento made the first flight.

Today about 50,000 people glide annually in the United States, with many paying more than $4,000 for gliders.

Such was Mr. Rogallo's influence on lightweight flight that the wings of hang gliders for years were called Rogallo wings, and that members of the Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association are still called Rogallo members.

Rogallo thought his "flexible wing" might be used for new kinds of boats, ground vehicles and aircraft, but nobody, including his employer, NACA, was interested. The couple got a patent in both of their names and started selling the invention as a kite.

Wernher von Braun, the pre-eminent American rocket scientist, summoned Mr. Rogallo, who headed a team of 100, to Alabama for a personal briefing.

Rodney G. Rose, who managed escape, landing, and recovery for the Gemini program, told The Times in 1962 that the paraglider transformed "the landing problem of a manned spacecraft from something out of the ordinary to something ordinary -- the landing of a light plane”. Nevertheless, in the race against time, the paraglider was abandoned in 1964 for the old-fashioned parachute.

In Australia, people began to think the new wing might be just the thing for flying behind boats, while adventurous Americans imagined jumping off hills.

Rogallo, beginning with a model made from a kitchen curtain, designed the wing that led to hang gliding, paragliding, sport

parachuting, and stunt kite flying, died Tuesday Sept. 1, 2009. He was 9

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Headline News was last updated: December 1, 2009

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