Francis Rogallo

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Francis Rogallo (1912 - ) and wife Gertrude Rogallo (1914 - ). Inventors of the 'flexible wing' or Parawing, precursor of the modern hang glider.

Self-inflating Rogallo's flexible wing (Parawing) tested by NASA for retrieval of Gemini space capsules upon reentry to Earth.

Since 1936 Francis Rogallo had been working for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) as a aeronautics project engineer at the wind tunnels. In 1948 during his free time, he and his wife Gertrude Rogallo, invented and patented a self-inflating flexible kite.^[1] They called this kite the flexible wing. ^[2] Rogallo had originally invented the wing with the idea to create an aircraft which would be simple enough and inexpensive enough that anyone could have one.

A Rogallo wing is one of the simplest flying devices ever created; It is a flying wing with no fuselage and no moving surfaces. For the next six years, the Rogallos tried ceaselessly to attract both government and industry interest in their flexible wing, and they licensed a manufacturer in Connecticut to sell a child’s kite based on it. When the DuPont company announced the development of Mylar in 1952, Rogallo immediately saw how superior it would be for his kite, and the five-dollar toy 'Flexikite' became one of the first products to use the plastic material. The Rogallos found themselves traveling to kiting events around the Northeast to fly and promote the toy, which found moderate success.

It was on October 4, 1957 when the Russian Sputnik began beeping its message from orbit that everything changed; The space race caught the imagination of the newly formed NASA and, Rogallo was in position to seize the opportunity. The Rogallos released their patent to the government, and with F. Rogallo's help at the wind tunnels, NASA began a series of experiments testing the Parawing (NASA renamed Rogallo's flexible wing the Parawing and, modern hang glider pilots often refer to it as the flexible Rogallo wing) at altitudes as high as 200,000 feet and as fast as Mach 3 ^[3] in order to evaluate them as alternative recovery system for the Gemini space capsules and used rocket stages.^[4] By 1960 NASA had already made test flights of a framed Parawing powered aircraft called the 'flying Jeep' or Fleep^[5] and of a weight shift Parawing glider called Parasev.^[6]

But in 1967 all Parafoil, Sailwing and Parawing projects were dropped by NASA in favor of using round parachutes without considering development of personal ultralight gliders such as hang gliders. That task was taken by very few independent designers, specially by Australian John Dickenson.

As of 2003 Rogallo had new designs for kites. Francis and Gertrude Rogallo currently live in Southern Shores, NC, near Kitty Hawk, the birthplace of aviation. Thousands of people have taken hang gliding lessons in Rogallo wing type hang gliders at Jockey's Ridge State Park, an enormous sand dune which is located five miles from the site of the first powered aircraft flight. Mr. Rogallo can frequently be seen at the park.

[edit] References

^ Article: How to Fly Without a Plane by Robert Zimmerman, aerospace writer. [1]
^ Diagrams of Rogallo's flexible wing.[2]
^ How to Fly Without a Plane, article by ROBERT ZIMMERMAN, a writer specializing in space, astronomy, and exploration. He is working on a book on the flight of Apollo 8 to the moon.) [3]
^ On 1965 Jack Swigert, who would later be one of the Apollo 13 astronauts, softly landed a full-scale Gemini capsule using a Parawing stiffened with inflatable tubes along the wing’s edges
^ NASA's Fleep was tested as a "flying jeep" for transporting supplies over enemy lines, this two-person aircraft used a small engine for power and Rogallo's Parawing for lift)[4]
^ NASA's Parasev aircraft (Parawing Research Vehicle). 01/25/1962. [5]]]