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Hang gliding 1976 part 1
This page follows Hang gliding 1975 part 2.
Most of the images on this page are artistic derivations of contemporary photos. See Copyright of early hang gliding photos.
Developments in Britain
While Australia and southern California were the centers of hang glider development in the early 1970s, innovation happened elsewhere through copying, modifying, and refining. In Britain a couple of radical new designs appeared in 1976.
Birdman Firebird
As well as stretching the Swallowtail concept, the Firebird, made by Birdman of Marlborough, Wiltshire, England, was said to be so quick to rig it opened like an umbrella. Radial battens such as these were straight — because they aligned with the axes of cones that constituted the wing shape — and they rolled up with the sail, so imposing no extra time in rigging and de-rigging.
See also Birdman and Solar Wings of Wiltshire, England.
Hiway Scorpion
The photograph by Adrian Turner on which this art is based depicts a Hiway experimental wing that evolved into the Scorpion. (See under External links later on this page for more of Adrian Turner’s photography.)
The prone launch (pictured) is used in strong winds. The wire person holds on to the front wires for the pre-launch hang check, but because the wind is strong enough to provide sufficient airspeed for the rig to fly, when he (or she) reports that he is applying little or no pressure to the wires, the pilot says “Release” (in the UK) whereupon the wire person lets go.
Notice the abundance of leading edge deflexor cables with adjustment turnbuckles. While useful in flight test, they provided the non-test pilot an opportunity to over-tension the trailing edge of the sail, which caused instability that could, in the extreme, prove dangerous. Even test pilots flew without emergency parachutes in 1976. We wondered how you would detach yourself from the glider and whether you would have time anyway…
The Hiway Scorpion sported a fin protruding downwards from the aft keel tube. I saw British champion Chris Johnson flying a prototype or pre-production Scorpion in Wales when I was instructing there late in 1976.
See also the related topics menu Hiway of Sussex, England, and Abergavenny, Wales and see under Lancer in Graeme Bird’s hang gliders for a common ancestor of both the Scorpion and the Lancer.
Chargus
The Midas, designed by competition pilot Martin Farnham, was manufactured by Chargus of Buckinghamshire, a few miles north-west of London, England.
Chargus was run by Murray Rose, who started out by building a standard Rogallo in 1972 and rebuilding it several times after crashing it. Hang gliders made by Chargus, culminating in the Cyclone of 1979, all featured innovations in either airframe design or sail aerodynamics; often both.
The key to the Midas series, apart from the fully battened sails, were the rolled keels. I remember making every one of those using a rolling machine. (Three big rollers on a metal frame.) You slowly increased the pressure on the middle one whilst pushing the tube backwards and forwards to create the curve.
-— Robin Goodwin (3)
Technical: The first flex-wing hang gliders with permanent camber curves in their keel tubes known to this author were the Seagull 4 of 1974, the Wasp Nova of 1975 — both of which also had a large amount of compensating reflex — and the Sun Sail Sun IV of late 1975. (See More developments in Hang gliding 1975 part 2.) The latter had a short keel, although not as short as the Midas, and a small amount of camber. Like the Midas, it relied on ‘truncated’ (fixed) tips for dive recovery.
See also the related topics menu Chargus of Buckinghamshire, England.
Miles Wings Gryphon
Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the mind of man.
— John Steinbeck, East of Eden, 1952
While Australia and the USA generally led development of hang glider technology, British designer Miles Handley, creator of the Gulp monoplane flex-wing hang glider in 1975, created the Gryphon in ’76. Like the Gulp, it used a bowsprit and hefty cables instead of cross-tubes to hold the wings spread. However, while the Gulp had a three-piece tail, the Gryphon had no tail.
The first Gryphons had considerable double surface and rudders on the wing tips.
The photographer here, incidentally, was Ann Welch, president of the British Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association. See ATA girl Ann Welch.
Technical:
A bowsprit rig is clearly a lighter structure than cross-tubes on a very wide nose angle flex-wing. (Intuitively, it might seem also that cables cause less drag than tubes, but I am informed that the difference is not that great.) However, the Gryphon was not the first tail-less bowsprit hang glider. See 1970-72 in Hang gliding before 1973 part 1 for Jack Lambie flying a ‘bowsprit bomber.’
The Gryphon 1 had a 33 foot (10 metre) span, which was not unusual for a high performance hang glider (then and now) but its short 7 foot (2.1 metre) root chord and broad tip chord mark it clearly as an advanced glider. This author believes that Graham Leason is in difficulty landing it in the Kössen photo because of the large undersurface area with no battens to prevent it from changing curvature in flight, which is also why handles were added to the down-tubes, increasing the maximum nose-up pitch control authority(5). I make the same point regarding the Markowski Eagle III: See under Technical in Scientific American hang glider for details.
Johnny Carr flew it at Kossen, Austria and I got in trouble with him because I failed to tell him you could parachute-land it. Had he known it, he could have won the championship.
— Miles Handley (4)
Johnny Carr of Burgess Hill, Sussex, who started flying in 1974 and is still flying hang gliders as of 2021, was effectively a Gryphon development test pilot. See under Gryphon external links later on this page for several photos of Johnny and various Gryphons. For a video interview with Johnny in 2018 and his page on British Hang Gliding History, see under External links.
Rudders:
Miles Handley said that the early Gryphon 1 was “heavy” in handling but the fitting of tip-draggers — actioned by a vertical extension of the hang point — made it “just about acceptable…” (1)
According to the Gryphon advert in the August 1976 British hang gliding magazine, “It works on weight shift (the tip draggers being attached to the hang point) — you just clip in and fly.” (Lateral weight shift actuating the rudders.) A photo by Don Liddard from behind (see under Gryphon external links) clearly shows a short white strut sticking up through big round hole in the sail above the hang point, a short way aft of the king post. Some photos from the side seem to show that, with the pilot forward just after launching, the strut is perpendicular to the keel tube. Yet in a photo showing the pilot pushing out toward the stall, that little strut angles forward; keeping in line with the hang strap. Other photos appear to show a curved connector to the right of the keel tube, connecting the hang strap with the strut. It seems to me likely that the strut and the curved connector are a single piece, secured to the hang strap. If so, it can only be the rudder actuator, lines running from its top, presumably to the top of the king post (one magazine photo seems to show lines to a point part way up the king post) then via pulleys to the rudders. That would account for the hole being so big: Not to accommodate billow shift (the king post hole shows no such leeway) but to allow the strut to tilt according to pilot weight shift without being constricted by the sail.
However, in the colour photo by Roger Middleton with Miles Handley on the front wires (see under Gryphon external links) it looks to me as though the rudders were activated by lateral lines attached to hang strap. If so, they must cross over (via pulleys) but there is no cross-tube to which such fittings might attach. That one is a mystery.
Pitch limiter:
In all the photos of the Gryphon mark 1 I have seen, a line connects the base of the hang strap to the back of the keel. It must surely have seriously limited forward weight shift, the pilot rocking head-up a lot more than normal if he pulls himself forward past the point where that aft line goes tight. Is that to prevent the rudder control lines going slack somehow?
See the related topics menu Miles Wings Gulp and Gryphon.
Returning to a world-wide view of hang glider technology…
Variometer
When you attain a large height above the ground, it is impossible to discern whether you are rising or sinking. To assist the pilot in staying in rising air, the variometer was adapted from the sailplane world (conventional cockpit gliders). The first flask variometer used in hang gliding that I know of is Dave Cronk’s 1973 variometer.
More sophisticated variometers were soon manufactured with internal flasks and audio tones indicating lift or sink. You could then maintain a good look out and listen to the variometer to assist in centering on the strongest lift. As far as I know, the first of these was created by USHGA member 007, Frank Colver. Frank’s son Matt used a cobbled together first version (taped to his control bar) in the 1973 Annie Green Springs competition (see Annie Green Springs 1973 briefing photo key). Before the contest was over, pilots were trying to buy it. However, he could not sell it because he needed to make sure he could duplicate it. (2)
See the link to Frank’s web site under External links later on this page.
See the Variometers page for more.
It was to be some time before most hang glider pilots availed themselves of these new gadgets. Most of us struggled just to stay up in ridge lift close to the ground, where the ‘mark one eyeball’ affords an accurate and immediate indication of lift and sink. The aim was to stay up in the ‘lift band’ of rising air close to the ridge or cliff. One day in early 1976 at Baring Head in New Zealand, conditions were right for one pilot, who had thus far only flown from the tops of hills to landing areas below, to soar for the first time…
Then the line of cars on the far side of the fence appeared in my vision and I knew I was being lifted up and up. Rick [Fogel] became a little speck and for the first time since take-off I believed I was staying up. I was soaring. I felt as securely attached to the sky as I normally felt attached to the earth. Up I went until I was flying about twice the height of the cliff. I was sitting on top of the lift band where I hovered without going up or down or back or forward or sideways.
— John Veysey via e-mail on August 11th, 2020
This topic continues in Hang gliding 1976 part 2.
External links
1976 Kössen 1 de 3 15 min digitized film on YouTube by Roman Camps taken at the FAI world championship, Kössen, Austria, in June, 1976. The film, uploaded in three parts, has deteriorated over the years, unfortunately.
Adrian Turner’s photography on Facebook
An interview with hang gliding legend – Johnny Carr on the Plane Delta YouTube channel
First FAI World hang gliding championships, Austria 1976 by bobbylangs on YouTube
Frank Colver, USHGA #7, hang glider designer and creator of the Colver variometer of 1973
HANG GLIDING – COLOUR in Britain by British Movietone on YouTube
Johnny Carr in British Hang Gliding History
Photo by the Westmorland Gazette of Roger Middleton flying a Ridge Rider standard Rogallo at Latrig, Keswick, in 1976. Keswick bypass was under construction and they used the part-finished road surface as a landing field.
WORLD HANG GLIDING CHAMPIONSHIPS – COLOUR: Kössen, Austria, 1976 by British Movietone on YouTube
Gryphon external links
1976 Kössen 1 de 3 15 min digitized film on YouTube by Roman Camps taken at the second world championship, Kössen, Austria, in 1976, starting at 10 minutes 43 seconds, where a Gryphon (almost certainly flown by Graham Leason as photographed by Ann Welch) launches and flies out
Photo by Don Liddard of Johnny Carr launching in a Gryphon 1 at the Devils Dyke, Sussex, in February 1977
Photo by Don Liddard of Johnny Carr soaring a Gryphon 1 at the Devils Dyke, Sussex, in February 1977
Photo by Roger Middleton of Johnny Carr readying to launch a Gryphon mark 1 with Miles Handley on the front wires
Photo by Roger Middleton of a Gryphon mark 1 being pushed toward the stall. The pilot is thought to be Johnny Carr (again).
Photo by Roger Middleton of Miles Handley flying the prototype Gryphon
Year of the Gryphon: Painting in acrylic on canvas of the Miles Wings Gryphon mark 1 on Brave Guys and Beautiful Dolls
References
1. Miles Handley by Stan Abott, Wings (BHGA magazine) December 1982
2. Frank Colver’s reply in Annie Green Springs 1973 briefing photo key topic on the hang gliding forum
3. Reply by Robin Goodwin to Can you name this glider? topic on the British Hangies Facebook group
4. Miles Handley photo gallery on British Hang Gliding History
5. The Gryphon 1 suffered from a delay in pitch response, and handles were added to the down-tubes of Graham Leason’s Gryphon (see the photo by Ann Welch) in an attempt to increase the pilot’s flare authority: Confirmed by Johnny Carr at the home of Roly Lewis-Evans on October 28th 2021
Hang Gliding History 