USHGA Hang Gliding August 1977 by US Hang Gliding & Paragliding Association

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_ RAINBOW T-SHIRTS!_-,,,-------,,

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!st choice 2nd choice !st choice 2nd choice !st choice 2nd choice Your name-- - - - - - -- - -- - - - -~ Address _ _ _ __ _ __ __ _ __ _ _ _ __ City _ __ _ _ _ __ State_ _ _ _ _ Zip_ __ _ Total this order$ . Add $1 .00 postage and handling for each shirt and SO• for each visor. 0/ve mail first class. )We process your order the day we receive it.

SEND TO: Kitty HawK Kites P.O Box 386 Nags Head.NC 27959

ISSUE NO. 55 EDITOR: Rich Grigsby CONTRIBUTING EDITOR: Carol Price EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS: Sharon Grigsby. Phil Warrender ILLUSTRATIONS&. LAYOUT: Mark Allison STAFF PHOTOGRAPHERS: W. A. Allen. Leroy Grannis. Bettina Gray. Stephen McCorroll OFFICE STAFF MANAGER: Carol Velderroin Cathy Colemon. Janel Meyqr. Donielle Delio, Wendi Tut11e.

HANG GllDING CONTENTS

FEATURES

USHGA REGIONAL DIRECTORS REGION 1: Vern Roundtree, Jeff Johnson REGION 2: Walley Anderson: Jan Case REGION 3: Trip Mellinger. Don Poynter. John Lake. Alex Duncan. REGION 4: Steve Thome. Lucky CompbelL REGION 5: none. REGION 6 : Jomes Cruce. REGION 7: Mike Zioskos. REGION 8: Don McCabe. REGION 9: Vic Powell, Dennis Pogen. REGION 10: Skip Smith. REGION 11: David Broyles. REGION 12: Jim Aronson. DIRECTORS-AT-LARGE: REGION 2: Uoyd llcher. REGION 6: Kay Broke. REGION 8: 8111 Allen. REGION 10: John Homs. Harry Robb. HONORARY DIRECTOR: Hugh Morton. EX-OFFIOO DIRECTOR ot USHGA as we a re a dvision of NAA· General Brooke Allen. The United States Hong Gilding Association. Inc.. Is a division of the Notional Aeronautic Association (NAA) which Is the official U.S. representative of the Federation Aeronoutlque Internationale (FAI), the world governing body for sport aviation. The NAA. which represents the U.S. at FAI meetings. h"os delegated lo the USHGA supervision of FAl-reloted hong gilding activities such as record attempts and competition sanctions. HANG GLIDING magazine Is published for hong gilding sport enlhus1asls lo creole runner inletest In the sport. by o means of open commun)collon and to advance hong gliding methods and safety, Contrlb1Jllons ore welcome. Anyone ,s In· vlfed 10 comrlbute olilcles. photos, ond lilustrollons concerning hong gliding oetlvllies It the material Is to be returned , a stomped, selfaddre5sed return envelope must be enclosed HANG GLIOING magazine reserves the right to edit contributions where necessary. The Association and publication do not assume responslblllly for the material or opinions of contrlbulor.i HANG GLIDING magazine Is published monthly by the United Stoles Hong GI/ding Assoc1ot1on. Inc whose malling address Is P 0. Box 66306, Los Angeles. Calif. 90066 and whase offtces ore lo· coted at 11312•h Venice Blvd.. Los Angeles. Coli! 90066: telephone (213) 390-3065 Second-Closs postage IS paid at Los Angeles. Coilt HANG GUOING magazine is printed by Sinclair Printing & Lltho. Alhambra. Coll!. Subscription ls available only 0$ port of membership In the USHGA. o member-controlled educalionol and scientJlfc orgonlzollon dedicated to exolor1ng all focets of uftrolfght ftlght Membership is open to anyone fn. leresledfnthlsreolmoftllgit Ouesforfullmembefshlp ore SlS per veer (Sl6 lor foreign oddr0$Ses): dues fol Assoclote ~ h i p ore SlO perVeor.ofwhlch S7 ore designated for subsalptlon lo HANG GLIDING magazine Changes of oddres~ should be seot si• weeks in advance. 1nc/1Jclng name, USHGA member,hlp n1.111ber p,evlous and riew address. and o mooing label tram o rE1CE111t !$sue.

Total paid clrc ulatlon for the July Issue was 9700

BOB WILLS

AN EAGLE AMONG MEN

by Maralys Wills and Chris Price

USHGA OFF1CERS PRESIDENT: Vic Powell VICE PRESIDENT: Vern Roundtree SECRETARY: Kay Brake TREASURER· Uoyd Ucher

AUGUST 1977

20 22

SANDIA PEAK TO ESPANOLA - 61.8 MILES PIiot account of 61.8 mile Closs 2 World Record Flight

by Bob Pruitt

GETIING DOWN

by Mike Mel&

Or why you can't hit the spot in your new ultra-performance state-of-the-art supershlp

1st ANNUAL PALOMAR OPEN ONE-ON-ONE TOURNAMENT

by Chris Price

An analysis of this year's most innovative meet

26 TERRY SWEENEY

Interview conducted by Bill Allen

28 CERRO GORDO RECORD BREAKING FLIGHTS Approaching the magical 100 mile barrier

by Jeff Scott. Jerry Ko1z and George Worthington

THE SCOTIISH OPEN CHAMPIONSHIPS Celebrating the Queen's Jli:>ilee

by Henry Heggie

44 THE 1977 MOLSON'$ NORTH AMERICAN HANG GLIDING CHAMPIONSHIPS by Mudslide Slim Canada's big money meet

52 54

DECISION MAKING IN HANG GLIDING by Don Watt& PART 2 You con never know enough SUNFUN POWER by Volmer Jensen Flying up to toke-off on 10 horsepower

DEPARTMENTS 4 ULTRALIGHT CONVERSATION 4 ADVERTISING INDEX 10 WIND LINES News, Notes and Tips 12 CONSUMER INFORMATION 15 CALENDAR 37 WINDSOCK 58 CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING 65 STOLEN WINGS 67 FL YING BULL by Bill Allen COVER: Deon TonJI pltcm a WIits Wing X-C with on SST In the background. The phOto by Chris Wills was token during WIiis Wing's HGMA compliance testing. CONSUMER ADVISORY: Hong Gliding Magazine and USHGA. Inc.. do not endOrse or toke any responstbility for the products advertised or mentioned editorially within these pages. Unless speclflcolly expla ined, performance figures quoted In advertising ore only estimates. Persons considering the purchase of a glider ore urged to study HGMA standards. Copyright © United States Hong Gliding Association. Inc. 1977. All rights reserved to Hong Gliding Magazine and Individual contributors.

Dear Editor, Since my involvement with hang gliding in 1972, I have seen many things as well bad things happen in our sport The most distressing of all the bad things [ believe to have come out of our sport is the flyer, dealer and manufacturer's anger that has developed towards one another. It seems our sport is broken up around the country, The manufacturers and dealers alike have formed a following of groupies, Whereas if you fly in their part of the country, you had better take on a defensive attitude while at "Their" sites, for most assuredly one of the locals who worships another brand of glider will start bad mouthing yours, I've seen flyers almost come to blows over who knows who, who's better and what's better. What's to the freedom that we all claim exists in our sport? In the beginning, people and wings of whatever design were welcome anywhere, Everyone shared in e,,ch other's flights regardless of their winris or their Ideas and thm1ghts were exchanged in a peaceful and non-,offensive manner with progress in flight becoming the result of such discussions, I'm surprised that something has not been said in regards to this matter that many of us have experienced, This situation has existed for quite some time now and is !urning many new people as well as some of the old away from our sport People are reluctant to offer their help at meets and other areas in our sport because of the constant battle with those who feel must criticize everythin,J and offer nothing but their presence. I feel that it is most important for all manufacturers and flyers alike to curb this downward path, This almost civil war-like attitude is break-· ing up our sport as an organization and it's tearing down the dream we all have and that's tbe Freedom to Fly! John Weaver Shawnee, Kansas

A Dear Editor, This field looks good, Yeah, I'll just put it down in this rnrner here it's close to pick,up, Oh shoot, thermal back up, Hey, where did those power lines come from? Over or under? Dive it! to fit 30' wingspan throu,Jh a 20' space, Phone pole and mailboxes. , result: lift wing over mailboxes, hit and spin off pole and land in the middle of the road, No traffic, T,G Intermediate I've been flying a little more than a year with 298 flights, I've had

more bad on landings (4) this month than in the whole year. So far, only glider damage and a shook up body, What's HOing on? I like to think of myself as a conservative pilot, but here I am Betting up from another bad landing (after a super flight) wondering what the hell happened' After trying the old "If the horse throws you, get right back on to regain your confidence," I found it just doesn't work that way! It's time to look at yourself and say, "Hey, my flying ability is to,Jether, so it must be my head," It is, Your flyin[J ability has advanced faster than your flyin[J mind. This is mainly due to high flying, high performing wings, advanced and listening to older pilots, This gives your the confidence to trick you into flying sites you are physically, but not for. Your subconscious starts concentrating on the "hot m<ives" wingovers, whipstalls, and playing in generaL The basics get pushed aside, and this is the danger zone, If you hear your brain yelling "What do I do now?", it's time to kick back and go to a site you feel comfortable This gives your mind a chance to catch up while your confidence builds naturally, So take it easy, The mountain will be there tomorrow, Will *Thonk God Elaine Chandler San Francisco

Dear Editor, I would like to comment on Jim Walker's article (June HG) on structural testing, I wholeheartedly applaud Albatross Sail,' efforts to focus attention on the problems of structural inadequacy, especially in view of the trend towards flatter sail billows, and the recent disturbing trend in accidents involving structural failures, There are, however, a number of points made in the article with which I would take issue, The first concerns the method" for determining ultimate load This method requires the formulation of a mathematical model for the load distribution of lift distribution, so as to deter· mine where to place the sandbags, such a model for a flexible wing airfoil is an excruciatingly complex and I would have little confidence in the accuracy of such model without an empirical test to back it up, Jim mentions that he intends to verify the results of the static test in a dynamic test, which is both ,JOOd and necessary, Jim says that the crossbar "failed" into the classical at slightly over 4 shape associated with this type of column failure, While the onset of this bowing is failure point in static load condition, this is not necessarily true in load situation, In flight, a crossbar is billow to the glider which serves to reduce the load on the crossbar by increasing washout and increasing the angle at which the sail is pullln,J on the leading edge, It is thus possible to have more flexible crossbar which is weaker under static load and yet stron,J under the dynamic loads of flight It is for this reason that tubing strength tables, which Jim consulted, do not tell the whole story. In with large diameter and thin wall will give the greatest to ratio under

Aeronaut Hang Gliders Inc, , , . , ,57 ,15 Albion Corporation , ,,57 APO Fli ghl Systems Arcadia Air Sports , , , , .63 Astraltune , , , , . , , , " ,7 Bennett Delta Wing Gliders ,IFC, 24, 43, 59 Bill Anderson Photography , , " ,,38 Bird Builders ,64 , , , . , ,17 Chuck's Glider Supplies Crystal Air Sports , , ,62 Duncan License Plate Frames , """12 ",,,,, , ,, , , .. , ,12 Eco-Nautics Inc , ,,,,,IBC Eipper,, Electra Flyer Corporation , , , , . , . , , . , , , , . .41, 60, BC , , , ,68 Everglades Kites , , ,,56 Every Man's Dream , , . , ,12 Flight Bag Mail Order Co , Flight Realities , , , , , ,, 12 Glider Rider, , , , .49, 65 Go-Graphics , , , , , ,50 Hall Wind Meter, , , """'""'7 Hang Glider Shop ,, ,,57 Hang Glider Weekly , , , " " ,4 , , , ,62 Kite Enterprises , Kitty Hawk Kites ""' ,,.2 MCompany , '' '.7 Manta Products , ,, ,, ,,5, 68 Marquiss Art Studios , , " , , , , " , , ,58 11/iehil Enterprises , " ,8 Morton Enterprises " " ,8 , , .. , , , , , . , , , , , , ,63 Mountain 'N' Air Sports Pacific Gull , , , . , , , , ,54 Poynter Books , , , , , ,, ,, 19 Robert Sage Memorial Hang Gliding Meet . , Sail Flight Inc, ,,,,,, ,,., " " ,6 ,, ,, ,, ,,38, 66 Seagull Aircraft , , , ,60 Sky Light Flight , , ,14 Sky Sports . Southern California School of Hang Gliding , , , , , , , . , , ,54 Steve Snyder Enterprises , , , , ,13 Sunbird Ultralight Gliders , ,47, 61 The Great Outdoors Trading Co , , , , , , , , , . , , . , ,6 The Hang Glider's Bible. ,, , ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,11 , , , , , ,64 The Happy Hanger, The Sky Jammer , , . , , , , "1!l , , . , , ,,53 Tom llllorey & Company Inc , , , , , , , , , ,39 Ultralight Flying Machines , ,,,,,,,,,,,,15 Ultralight Instruments USHGA , , , . , , , , , , ,57, 63 , , ,, ,,9, 16 Wills Wing Inc Windhaven Emergency Parachutes , " " '1 Wings for Man, , , , . , , , , , , , , .. , , , , , . , , , .£18

(continued on page 6)

JULY 1977

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static load. But under load, flexing can reduce the load, smaller ,.,,,,m,,•= thicker wall, "weaker" tube can actually be stronger, due to its increased Jim claims that a sleeved crossbar was as a possible solution because a sleeved tube crumple at the (md of the sleeve. This is true only the sleeve is too short. After the designer has de· cided what tube diameter and wall thickness most appropriate to particular application, next step in the interest of weight efficiency be to make up the desired dimensions with outer tube and an inner tube. This is the of sleeving. The length of the sleeve can be duced, because the maximum stress occurs at center of each crossbar half. One simply the sleeve, keeping it centered on center of the crossbar half, until the tube fails end of the sleeve instead of the center. 'I11en the sleeve a little and the failure point will be at the center, the tube will have the full strength that tube of that diameter and thickness would have, but will be light<,r by amount of sleeving that was discarded. Finally, while it's true that all airframes are ble, it is not true that one is not that much than the other. The degree of flexibility widely, and I think tlui pictures in ,Jim's article port this. I'm not tryin!J to imply that the ASG frame is or that the ASG the tests will be able structurally inadequate. to determine strutiural adequacy and from I've se,m so far the ASG is looking very deed. I am concerned that any condusions about structural integrity be drawn from valid data, and that these conclusions be presented in such a way that they do not encourage continuinti mis· conceptions about structural integrity in flexible wing gliders. Mike Meier Placentia, Calif.

Dear Editor, Recent articles and advertisements appearing Hang Gliding have identified me "'part owner" of Wills Wing, Inc., manufacturer of Wills Hang Gliders. l wish to correct this misct,,to,mont and set the record straight I have never been "part owner" or a share, holder of Wills Inc. or Kites, Inc. I have been by the corporation off and on for the past several years, although I am now devoting full time to my own interests and manufac. luring the Price Harness, and I am now no even employed by Wills Wing, Inc. Chris Price

Dear Editor, It's been a week now since Bob died. We're still numb. No one can imagine, nor can we the loss we Not that others don't feel sad, that we feel his loss the most; we just feel it Most of the community will Bob for his skills. Great! We will too, but something else. We worked with him every

waste than to give up'? We are assured by the family that we can and may continue if we choose. We so choose! Bob left couple of new and many ideas to work with. Determination dedication are in plentiful supply how can miss? Pass the word

We ot

Dear Editor, It is my misfortune to be a pilot, as others of you might be, who had a dear friend lost because of high wind flying. Accidents of this nature are un .. necessary. Many of the manufacturers, upon advertising their product, will give a maximum speed or penetration speed concerning that parti · cular ship. I am sure they are giving us this information so that we may be aware of a margin of safety concerning wind conditions and to facilitate thermal soaring. It is to listen to pilots, of whatever longevity, bragging that his ship is capable of flying in 50 mph wind because the manufacturer says it can. Bmvo for the rogallo Iha! can fly in 50 mph wind! Stop and think about it, pilots, C,ive yourself the margin of silfety that was intended. Many of lo· ships carry credentials alon~J this line and l would hope that eventually all ships will top end at fifty or better. But at the same time, the L/D and sink rates are better and better, which means that you don't have to sit around waitinB for 30 mph winds to insure your soaring. These ships can and do launch in O to 10 rnph and gain thousands of feet of altitude and remain ,1loft for several hours, It is not disgrace to shine·it-on in high wind conditions, even if your super ship will do 80! Twenty mph wind is plenty for you and your advanced ship to stay up, probably for as long as you want, but if the wind should build to 40, thank your manufacturer for its l think that is a lot better than launching in 30 and having the wind top out at 60 and finding yourself flying backward or up, up and away from your target and ruining l.£1Veme DeJan San Bernardino, CA

Dear Editor, I was surprised after informed of the new and last-minute chanBes in our alestablished USHGA competition rules dur· ing the pilots' briefing at the Regional Qualifi. cations held at Winnemucca, Nevada, June l8 and 19, Having qualified for the

Icontinued on page 8) AUGUST 1977

th,it mu,;ic lo your worn upon yo11r ch(",!, u,ing liPht1,11Pinht lm,1d111h,on,c", tlwl will nol il1!i;rforp with rxpcri<>nn· tiw lr<·t<dom mu!,i( i\,lrsillillJC,

sky ,rnqulm (hut unillilc to 21ocu1r,1t,11tv vidual fliers, Each

cletermiuinu factor

bad one The possibility of (rn1d others) had by

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,Jerry K;itz set two Class ll records and broke 1he HXl-mile harrier in weekend of flying at Gordo. On Sunday, ,July 24, ,Jerry new from 9000' take off to Betty's, a house of ill-repute the Nevada desert some l Omiles 11orth of Benton The Im mile fliiJhl in his Pacific Gull took ,Jerry hours and 18 minutes. During sailplane flew next to ,Jerry (about ASL) slowed down, and the pilot yelk,d at go down. Apparently the pilot was con about ,Jerry's altitude, and some ve]loi:,m,ent of clouds in the Should anyone to duplical<i this flight, tcll Betty that sent you. previous day, ,July ,Jerry re(:orctec! altitude gain, breakinu Cieorue Worthingbriefly held record of 9()()0' set July 8.

Aircraft the evening of July 14, applications for Certificates of Compliance following companies submitted applications: Albatross Delta Wing Eipper Electra Flyer Manta Products

Seagull Sunbird Ultralite Products Wills Wing

Completed packages were accompanied by film of the gliders performing the required and load test as well as supporting still photodrawings, and other d(x:umentation Ap· rm:,xirnateh; 3,000 ft. (more than hours) film viewed during the process of considerinB the submitted applications. Torn Price of A.lbatross Sails did an especially th,wr:,11c1h job of docurnentinu the tests required airworthiness standards and his

The

construction began in the old landins1 months ago, the Sylmar Flyers Association been neuotiating for a permanent landlns1 the Department of Recreation and pr<)f)()St!d landin(l area is the site of the Olive View that fell durinu the Sylrnar earthquake of

Worthinuton not ,1 man to on his l,1urels. As if r,ot eno11uh, the !i5 year old pilot from Dieqo repeated his spec (,ordo lo Benton taculm 95 mile flight from Station on July The repe<1t flight, made in his II (,oal rec-

tance for the coveted go;il record. His fliqht in the Mitchell Win,i :;tands JJJ distance but the claim for goal were not rm, cl,eclarecl.

model for other manufoc providinB basis library of technical information. The meetin(l ildjourned al 5:30 AM. The following gliders have completed the requirements for issuance of an I-I.GM.A Certifir.ale of Compliance An asterisk(*) with Quali fication" and means documentation was inade quate on certain sections of secondary importanc(i. if the certificate will ques1ionable documentation supplied to the Committee within 60 days of the issuance of the Cc:rtificate. h1rers

Albatros.s Delta Wing Phoenix 8 ,Junior* Delta Wing Phoenix Reuular* Flyer Olympus I 60* Sunbird Standard

Rich Piccirilli, flying ft 1 Wills Winu 1 lOG triple, took o!f the top of Half Dome in Yosemite rlt,c,rnnir,n his two passenuer sky divers, ,Jim tiandbury ,,m,Hi,rian Johns,:m, out of the glider one minutfi and seconds after takeoff 5,(JOO feet over Mirror Carl Boenish, who clirect(,d the currently released movie, Playground in the Sky, tllmed from the top of Half Dome the second delayed freefall and the hookup the two div· made pulling their the rangers did not appreciate the stunt one bit Rich Piccirilli, who spent the night in jail, was fined $12:) along with the two sky clivers for hang without permit. Boenish was fined for being an to hang gliding with· out a pennit. Someday, with the permission of the courts, might be able to the most outrat1eous hanu gliding-sky divinLJ stunt to be filmed!

Sandia Peak to Espanola, New

Station

to Benton Station. Official from Cerro Gordo Official Class II Altitude Gain Record. mile, ilinht 11mmCerro Ciordo to Belty' s. Official Class ll Distance Record.

AUGUST 1977

!DING

Discounts to Clubs Schools

The purposi:: of this twofold: Firs1, ,m explm1a, lion of the Cross Country modifirntions and the subsequent results 111 the third week of April, Burke Ewi11t1 hild close call while flyin[J one of our prototype [Jliders at Tmrey Pines. Durin9 the execution of a high bank 1um, the fllider sideslipped into spiral dive, \osinr; three hundred foet of altitude L>dore covering. I le w,is piloting glider of apprrndnmlely square feet desi9ned Wills Wing especially for Stephen McCmo\l to used for ,wrial pho· torirnphy, The photoglicler subsequently modified and Burk01 still flies ii. It not ;1 produc However, them are some key similari the and our new

FREE

originally designed and extensively pretested, and an e)(ccllcnt ample of the !ates! generntion Hogal\o Wint]· In addition lo the usual performance criteria, lln· equalled control sensitivity was objective We were piirhaps too successful XC was al· most totally neutral. It responded to any pilot inpul, intended or noL Many pilots were taken by surprise. Please don't misinterpret this as ,1 slur upon c1ny pi\o1's capc1bilitic;s should he initially fly XC less than optimally. It

such. As with any new glider, caution should be exercised until familiarity is, obtained. llowever, !he XC is not ,m easy fJlider to fly and is difficult tJlider to fly well. It originally lacl~ed the inherent stability and lort?iving n,1ture of the But then, it was desi,1ned with d different purpose in mind, long country flights require different flying chc1racteristics for thermallin,J without total pilot exhaustion. Even in srnooth conditions it de mandcd fine touch c1rrd constant corrections. It was definitely not for the intermediate pilot Obvionsly, it wilsn't Jon(, be/ore we were con· fronted with the foe! that we haven't total control over who flies om prod11c:L After extensive retest, ing we found ,m ilcceptable solu1ion, using a va 1icty of minor rnodificalions. The modifications were: the additions of slight billow, reflex, and dihedral, well supporting the sail camber batten to prevent loss of the airfoil in the forward por lion of the sail. "!lie result is an increase in pitch and yaw stability, a slir;ht in an already rnspectablc sink rnte c1 slight. loss in speed on the top end. Overall, the qlider is now easier to fly. But it still not a glider that can be appreciated by llw occasional pilot Onrn it i!ppearecl that rnodifiecttions seerned in order, and while we were desifjnirr,J, testing, and implementinq the chanqcs, temporary rimunding of lhe Country S(cerrwd necessary. Some of the community voiced the opinion that this was i1 bit drastic, overly dramatic, unnecessary, and pensive. It certainly expensive in lenns of timce, labor, rnatcrials ilnd potential customers losL Toughl That's unfortunate, but one of the pitfalls involved. We more th11n willinri to pay the price with the belief it worth clear conscience. We h,1ve put too much time c1nd effort and money into our reputation for safety to jeopardize it now, We realize other manufacturers make ~ioocl gliders and other nlilnufocturcrs have good business opera· lions, but we'll continue to set our own standards just the Sirme. The second, liut most imporlanl purpose for this lelter is to appmciiltion to our cus lomers for their courtesy, consideriltion, and coop en,tion in handling lhe problems caused by this unusual situation. Such attitudes are rare and therefore hiBhly valued. That we caused you delay, inconvenience, ;ind loss of flyinti opportunities is what hurts the mosL

AUGUST 1977

Firsl Annual Crnsted Uute Colorado Fly·ln, aerial event Contact llobin· son, Houle #I, Box 19, Gunni· son, Colorado 81%30. World Di:lta Glider Cl1arnpionsl1ips. money Cyprns s Toll undo I lanq rnider nounced. Worl<l Champion 111 8011th Africa, For rnoro contact Harry HolltJ, 2909 Gulf tu 0·203. Clearwater, H

OCTOFll:R

OCTOBER 15, 16, HJ/7, !all Hang Festival Mt. Cranmore Washington, NH. 20, , 1977, Mt. Wasl1i11g, ton Valley llan[l Gliding Cllillnp· ionsl1ips at Mt Cranmore. NIL

OClOBrn

CIVL Meeting, I rilllCll.

NOVEMBrn, Thanksgiving Hy,111 Cl1attanoon11

HANG GLIDING

' '' Ill

Researched and designed by Colver Soaring Instruments in conjunction with Wills Wing, Inc. the Colver soar· ing variometer i.; a dual audio and visual variometer that all the features that the best glider pilots require. 11 is a must for flight ' Audio and visual for total flexibility • Dual sensitivity for even the most marginal or extreme conditions • Super sensitive audio for the quickes1 ble reto lift • Damped visual for effect although it is '"ne electric variometer. • Prove circuit in production for over 2 1/2 years • Entirely self contained with no exterior bottles or flasks • Audio may be turned off for visual use only • Shock resistant Streamlined for minimum • Extremely I 33 ozs. • Built in mounts can control bar • Low power usage insures

$194.00 Audio

Ill

ln iho four Cl1ris Price has boon designing and sewing harnesses for qlidino pilots, he has developc,d the most comfor1able, snfest, lliqhcst quoli1y soaring harness on the market. In ndclition he now ffris cus1oin harnesses to Ht every special need.

FEATURES OF THE STANDARD SOARING HARNESS

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L 1208-H East Walnut Street Santa Ana, CA 92701 (714) 547-1344

To order standard you

I have known Boh Wills for over twenty years. In today's mobile society iJ is rare for a person to have the same friend through childhood and on into adult life. A lon~1 friendship gives life more meaning. It also hurts more when a friend like Bob Wills dies. I can remember when I was eight years old arguing with Bob Wills whether or nol anirnals went to heawm. He argued then that all living things go to heaven. I can remember the niuht at his house and having Wills trying to kiss all of us good-night, each one of us throwing a huge fuss. The and the beach in his TI1e orange fights in the orange 11roves. Underlorts. I can remember in his bedroom a small all the filters and oxy~1en equipment for his asthmatic condition. Once one of his rabbits had worms growing in its head and looked terrible. I wanted to whack

by Maralys Wil Is Maralys Wills wrote a particularly approp-riate eulogy for her son's funeral. It was beautifully delivered by Bob's ara1ndtatl'Jer and is printed here for its poignant insJght to Bob's and lifestyle. This isn't the ftrst time for us. ru,c>rc1thinn that has in this

since

died has The shock. Overwhelmsense of

cried for without stopping. defenseless It was different for and at first we didn't know why. We him just as much missed him just as much. Without him, whose goals have been our goals, whose life's work has been our life's work noth18

its head off with a shovel to put it out of its misery and did just that Bob could not believe I killed it, because, he said, I had no way of knowing whether or not it have gotte.n better or where there's life there's Bob was a !Ol'(]i11inf1, who never held a look for the best in

accept the worst Once, a dealer who was alreadv copying one of Bob's showed up fro;n out· of state on I he pretense of learn ing as much about Bob's newest model so that he could sell then1 better. l knew the guy was just going to copy the glider. I wanted to throw him out of the Bob believed him when he told Bob that he would not copy it Bob even let him stay at his house. Bob felt that if we threw him out, it would make i1 that much easier for him to copying it. Bob also pointed onl that he could just order one and copy it anyway, but he would never be able to copy the altitude that went behind the I was The was Bob was The copy was missin\J some that made Bob's easier tu fly and the attitude. Bob and I were arguing about some dt Wills Win~i that

and refuse to

I continued on page 51)

will be the same. there was another <iitl:er(mce, and it came to us, suddenly, what it was. was, and still is, lt seems, than llfe. Everything he did in his years was on an oversize scale .. . ger ... smarter . . better ... str,oniJer higher ... and now the image of him looms so it is almost to accept his death. He will app,iar, any moment, on a new contraption, and better <l faster a taller noisier truck. One cannot cry who doesn't seem be next next we will believe it. He started out oversize eleven and a half pounds and and determination and sometimes pure, irritating stubbornness made him a winner in areas most don't know about He was the ping and chess champion of his high school. won the tennis tournament. He swam the most under water and earned letter in swimming. He won a second and third two days 1unning in the Elsinore Grand Prix motorcycle race where a thousand men com-

and he built the tallest ever He a mo-· than any human has ever jumped a before. He shot oranges out of his cannon probably farther than an orange has ever traveled through space. Most of you know he held more endurance altitude records, gliding championships pilot ever. In every "'1'~''"'u, except one, he was in the top ten. One he was the Ca. and American simultan·· In

or best We will him for years in movies, ,· "To at the "Plavqrcmn1d in the "Five Summer Stories", "Slkvriders", "The Within" at Busch \..ictru~ms, and T. V commercials. We have cried for before and will again. But not as much as we might. Be, cause we cannot believe he is gone this boy who still seems than life. ~ AUGUST 1977

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Bob Pruitt's 61.87 mile flight from Sandia Peak near Albuquerque on dune was properly documented for a National and World (FAI) Record. Bob's application for the World Record was the first such claim since the FAI made prouisions for hang gliding records in August 1976. Bob's flight still stands as a Class II record euen though Worthington flew his Mitchell Wing (Class Ill) 95 miles only 2 weeks later. The day I went up to fly, I lay in bed until 1:30 in the afternoon, extremely hung over from the night before. I got up, called the Sandia Peak and it was Southwest 15 at the top which at 1:30 in the afternoon indicates that it's fairly light air, with lots of rising thermals. Once at the Tram, I got my barograph sealed by an official USHGA Observer. On the way up in the Tram I got the usual harrassment: "Plannin' at least to on goin' a long ways Santa " I told them. After take-off I went straight up a thousand no turns, did a couple started flyin' around and in a matter of a few minutes I was 2,000 feet above, saying, "Alright, this is it, cross country I started around for another thermal.

about two rniles from the State about 28<30 air miles.

worked lift like a thousand I 800 to 1,000 1ninute This the lowest part of my l USOO feet above the back up to l this time I'd reached the It's the of

lawn.

feet ASL of Santa

out

been ing all conditions

have to go before the level-headed kid am, the situation, "No way. Record or no I'm not going out into the boonies. I could make it, but if I land out there I'll be lost for three and don't want lo be lost for three The lift was stronu that I the bar nil the way in; the sail was nr~•,wmn ly, every

I was time to " It took close to five minutes to lose 500 feet of altitude with the bar at my and fast I could r30 It I gettinu nervous. I turned almost into the head wind. was about miles east of flew toward it I was now about [ went for it It look me

sayin9 to me, "Where the hell did you come from excited that after we broke my ""'"wtmn where l was, he into the bar and started I could drink them fast took about three hours and minutes.

when seated and do cliff launches off the

lloctar1qular wrnq wrll1 contrn11ous twist or lradeofl ,n rucluc()rl oilicirmcy

HANG GLIDING

too low an angle of attack Figure 4 shows how billow washout in a rogallo. You're

Fig

rise to at the

Shows continuous twist in a Rogallo wing

glider from the rear, and you're looking at the top of the sail at the root section, but you're seeing the bottom of the sail at the tips. Midway, seeing the sail straight on. You can thus visualize how the entire sail is continuously twisted, or washed out from 5 and 6 show the same root to tip.

2.5° BILLOW

I" BILLOW reduction in wash· in billow.

mounted with flatter sails, and you can see the corresponding loss of washout, or re· duction in twist. attempts to increase the performance of the rogallo centered around reducing the billow to increase effi. ciency. The was that the loss of washout created with Eventually it was realized that the way to in· crease performanc@ without sacri stability was to eliminate dS much twist as possible in the inboard sections of the wing

while retaining sufficient effective washout at the tips, where it is needed. Truncated tips, truncated/roached tips, roached tips, radial tips, and floatinc.i truncated tips are all to achieve a better washout distribution. These methods of achieving washout at the tips allowed for significant reductions in billow without loss of stability. Now let us mpare the landing characteristics from two hypothetical wings: the first with a amount of twist distributed continuously across the wing (the old and the second with relatively little twist inboard but a significant amount of washout in the tips, (the newer ) As we increase the angle of attack in our first glider, the root section to stall, but due to a high of twist, the wing sections outboard of the root are still flying; the glider is still stable and controllable. Due to the increased and loss of lift at the stalled root section the L/D has deteriornted from an already low value. As we further increase the of the stall moves slowly and !Jradually outboard on the win~l· The L/Dfurther deteriorates while the pilot retains sufficient control due to the fact that enough of the wing is still flyinr1 to retain some responsiveness. The root section is now at an of attack, creating lots of and the !Jlider is chuting." The actual stall in a standard lo is somewhat more than the situa· tion described but the important thing

is that the pilot is able to de" the ratio, primarily by increasing drag at increased of while retaining control over the Our second has very little twist inboard, so that as the of attack is in· creased and the root sec1ion to stall, the stall moves outbomd towards the tips much faster. The tips may not but so much of the wing is stalled that it will no longer fly. The which started out much higher to with, has not deteriorated much due to the lack of inboard twist and the fact that as a consequence the root section of attack to creisn't at a ate enough to deBrnde the glide ratio or to slow the down. The tends to retain its forward and if the swept tips are still unstalled may even try to rotate nose down. The pilot may often find himself landing with excessive ground dumping the nose after landing, running out of landing area, or committing other errors. Last with between 1 ° and 2° of billow retained some parachutintJ ability, more diffialthough they were cult to spot la,nd than previous gliders. This super ships, most with billows of less than 1/2°, and uery little twist are and impossible to hit the spot with. The compensations for this increased diffi culty in landinB come from the increased efthese exhibit in the air. "illlpll"

PHONE (213) 787-6600 (213) 785-2474 P.O. BOX 483, VAN NUYS, CA 91408 TELEX 65-1425

Chris

would launch, the chief judge would call and tell the two pilots m,'lxirmm1 amount of lines they would have the first pilot would

ifil1evcrosse,dfu1G11ins~1u~1ce foul line or "must" landing the pilots had to land for their flight to counl. flight.

HANG GLIDING

other pilot did. If neitlHer pilot got the maximum amount of lhe one who could get the most would win. If both pilots not the same arnount of lines (rnc.1:rdl,2ss of who did it first) but less than the number, it became spot landing pilot who got closer to the center of with perfect landing won. If they landings the pilot who closer the center won. were thrnc types ol l,mdinus: perfect land .. landinus, and fouled landings. In per .. foct landing only the pilot's feet and the ends of the main tubes could touch the ground. ln a bndinti anything could happen long the pilot the glider not lo be repaired to fly fouled one where the Hlider where the pilot missed the pilot foul line. If both pilots missed !he foul line, they both lost. This happened when Zarrncina flew against Mitchell. Pilots were allowed to touch down the foul line they took off r19ain within the area. If both pilots the amount of pylons the amount) regardless of how loniJ it and one pilot hit his bull's eye in the his control bar while the other pilot made it over the foul line by one inch and did a the latter would win. This hap. during the meet. thinHs wrong with the meet. up in the middle of the lines. (lotten different amounts of (continued on page

1st

7 wins ,John Brant/Phoenix 8 Never Lost

2nd

6 wins ,Jeff Scott/Phoenix

3rrl

wms

David JJeardsllee/,Alpinrr.. -Lost to Brant and ,John HHneter-.... Lost to Brant and Ashford

4th

4 wins

Jett l\nclerson/lr\enm -Lost to Scott and Beardslee Mitchell/Spider--Lost to Foul line and Freeman

5th

3 wins Don Katzen/Ol11mµ,us----Uisl Sterling ~tofl/if\.m,,tM Andmson Mike Zarracina/Phoenix 8......\..ostto Brant and foul line

6th

wins

to Brennan twice Ast1ford/Seauull 7 ....\.ost to Mitchell anti Freeman Baskini;;Stff...-l.ost to Muir and Stoll Lost to Baskins and Zarracina John Dean John Vollk/S11ah11wk• .. ·--l.ost to Ashford and Freeman Scott Weiner/Spider-Lost to Beardsli,e and Scott

7111

1 win

Lost to Stoll aod l.evy Dei,an/(Jlv..... Lo,sl to Weiner and Fenin/Siniri/ ...... [ost to Brant and to Beardslee and ,Jones Follm, a11 /S1oider ...... Quii

Daniel Miller,'Dragonfly .......[..ost to Anderson and Kaizen ,lim Shumaker/Wills

8111 0 wins

and Jones

to 7.arracma Frazier/Phoonix to Mitchell and Quit James l(enmxly/Dragonllv 2..-l..ost to Peachy and Fenn Dick Messiarr/Cal Glider-·- Lost to Follman and

Anrlerson Ogawawa/Draoonfly........[..ost to Kaizen and Scheidt/Cal Glider MK 5 -Lost lo Levy and

c11,rnsiec1 the span and dimensions little bit. And I ch,,nciec1 I started getting interested when I was about somewhere between five and seven years old ( by about the fact that it had been done in some old books. I didn't really think very much that I might be it, but as an aspect of aviation, hang gliding the fact that it was done 70 years aw>, has held my interest. What was your first actual effort in

I was about seven or building wings out of and polvethelene. ,Just square wings that didn't have any or but did have a place that vou could get into the center of it so that you might feel how it was. Dicln' t succeed in breaking ground until I was ten. We had just put together enough area to break ground. No stability or anything. At that point I knew a little more about what it might take to make a full hang ~1lider. I was involved with two nextcloor bors. Many kids build coasting cars; we built wings when we were kids, some of which we off roofs with like ft., not verv high roofs. Good thing, too, 'cause almost every time it would end in 'cause mostly we' re just talking about cambered, square sails.

nice to spruce, which rnade c1 half. decent hang and didn't end up with

When I was built a sapling glider that would have worked had I ever gone through the last work of covering it. It was an Otto Lilienthal looking sort of and had a tail on it. It had straisJht, 180° that came came back, so it was like a three.batten fan. I had made models of it and they so I knew the real thing could prc>ba,bh, be made to work When I was 16, I almost completed a Chanute from plans in an or. Boy Mechanic published sometime around 1910-14. ldidn'tgobythe

my first hang until five years later. This project got tucked away and, five years later ( 1969), after \Joing to California and seeing green, hills and such, I decided that I could be ly. So dashed home and covered it with and was indeed flying a weeks later. We numbered them in series and that was Model 1. Model 2 was a very so1:in1sllcated even standards It had a very well,.forrned and well-covered Clark-Y airfoil of 18 v~ ft. span on the upper wing, and an but not quite so nice an airfoil on the bottom that was a Hdt. span, and they were both four-ft. in chord. It was a It weighed 32 lbs. It was a probably under·stressed. We had the very bes1 flight of almost all the with it I did my first flight of longer than 30 seconds with it, and ~Jot, for the first time, [j() ft. above the It was very eilS\/ lo handle because it was so very

Note upside cJown beer bottle on wires at midspan, angled to whistle just before

HANG GIJDINC

(contirwed on

The weather on In the

lat,~d CU' s on the White Mts. forecast be At 11:00 o'clock about 14 were Gordo and the wind was about the Mt. to the 9200 ft wind rli,;,1nrmirvm,,mt set in. We

and the wind was of an inversion at Mindful of the numer-

who have taken off in conditions have ended up out of the canyons, we decided to wait while. About to be (continued on page 30)

Jeff

(continued from page 29)

I was morning when in my sleeping I lqoked up and saw rnore high clouds than blue sky. It looked like our 3Y2 hour drive from the San Fernando Valley the night before would be just for a quick flight down to the bottom of the mountain. We to get to the take-off at Cerro Gordo (9,128 ft ASL) at about 12:30. The wind was blowing about 5 10 mph. About every 5 minutes a wind could be heard the mountain sde below. A minute later the wind at take-off would pick up to 25 mph. These therrnals frightened me just from the sound they made blowing up the hill. About six pilots took off before I did. Some of them found lift and some found nothing but tremendous sink and turbulence. I took off in my Phoenix 8 at 1:30. out, I quickly found a 200 foot a minute thermal and rode up to 10,200 f1. above sea level (my highest altitude during the flight). I flew over the hills in front of New York Butte where I caught up to "Whitey" who was flying a Phoenix VI-B Sr. Whitey was in the same thermal, but about 300 ft. lower. tfo caught me at about 10,000 ft. Not wantto fly too close to anybody in the turbulent air, I left the thermal and headed farther down the I later found out that Whitey flew 41 miles that day. I was above the lower hills close to Lone Pine at about 6,000 ft. (ASL) before I found the next thermal. I spotted a about l,(X)O ft. lower working a thermal close to the mountain. As l was working this turbulent, but badly needed 200 fpm thermal, I spotted a white kite thennalling over the valley floor near I .one Pine. After ~Jainin~1 about 1,000 ft., my thermal so I moved on. The white kite turned out to be ,Jim Ketcham in a Phoenix 8 ,Jr. We were down to about 3,000 ft. above the floor before we each found a thermal. After gaining about 1,500 ft., my thermal got very weak. I Jim's thermal would do the same sol started to fly down again. I didn't have a lot of altitude and I had a big gap to get c1cross. The hills back into the mountain range a of valley floor to cross. To make things worse, the next few miles were shadowed by high clouds. I looked back and was ~1nnri•,Prl to see Jim skying out on his way to the top of the ( 10,00(J ft.). I was down to 1,500 ft. above the when I reached the foothills across the gap. so low, thermals coming up the sides of the foothills 500 ft below me were very turbulent. I couldn't climb with them but I was able to maintain my altitude by trying to

stay in them and drift with the wind farther down I travelled about 15 miles this way never gainin1J more than a of hundred ft. in a thermal. I finally reached an area covered with dark lava rock a smooth 500 ft a minute thermal. I about 4,000 ft. and out ,it 9,000 ft. thousand ft. higher than me. Jim and I met again just before Pine. We were both pre1ty low trying lo work thermals on the south side of Pass. It was so windy that when thennalling even when facing the wind in a my was about 10 mph backwards. Worst turbulence I've ever been in. The wind was rolling across the foothills and ac<:et,era,ting through the pass. We both drifted low over the pass looking for thermals. I was watching Jim about 500 ft. below me now hoping he would find a thermal that we both needed. It looked like the flight was over. I started heading out to land. I was about 500 ft. hiHh when I saw ,Jim landing. cltLst then, I flew into a 2(X) ft. minute thermal. It soon into 700 fpm and carried me back up to 9,000 fl. above sea level. I headed toward stopping occato work a thermal. As the miles went I was slowly rny altitude. When I reached I was down to 2,000 ft. above the valley again. I tried to continue but I couldn't find any lift. Down to 1,000 ft, I left the hills and headed for Highway 6. There were some thermals coming off the floor. I couldn't gain any al1itude in them, but I was able to maintc1in and drift down wind with them adding a few more miles to the flight. Three hours and 71.!'i n1iles later, I landed near Highway 6 2 miles north of the Inyo-Mono county line. (continued from page 29)

ing down a llttle, so we all set up in anticipation of at least a flight out to the landing area. It was about 1::m and the wind was coming up the mountain at about 10-15 mph. There were cumulus clouds all alonq the val Icy and a cloud street the Sierra and mountains. ,Jim was the first off fol lowed by myself, then Kevin (to whom I had lent my barograph because I didn't think the

would be very Alier take.off I encountered a nice :3()().!'i()() thermal which took me up to about 2000 ft over takeoff. wr·w1,mn a thermal over the flew in his direction but hit only sink and made it over the front where I encountered the resident th,mnal. At this altitude 800' above the valley floor) the thermal was small wiJh numerous cores, but it soon into th<" !artiest and smoothest thermal l have ever been in. After l !'i minutes, I was just below cloudbase at about lb,000 ft ASL My vario was c1t l 000 up so I de cided to leave the thennal for fear of getting sucked into the cloud. Besides, it was cold in spite of my thermal clothes and ski gear. I now had a chance to look around. The seen cry was Across the I was lookin~i down on Mt. l felt like I was down at the world. There was a cloud street running from Cerro Gordo north past the White Mountains. The only for ii cross-country flight to be some in the northern part of the Owens but l didn't would get close bothered by it how soon I found I was mistaken I I entered the cloud street at about 15,000 ft ASL over New York Butte and started to nm along ii assisted a 20 quartering tailwind. thermals every J 5 rninutes, l was able to maintain my al!itude between 12 and E°J thousand ft ASL. After flying for about 2 1/2 hours, l reached a point where the cloud street with one goinq toward Mammoth and the other aD1rJe,1red to be less toward Mammoth, so [ quickly made my decision Marnrnoth, here l come! The conditions were There to be build-up of cumulonimbus clouds in front of rne and on both sides. The flow of air in the now to be rnovintJ from the north in front of the line. I decided it was time to go down, but even with the bm sucl,ed in to my 1 was maintainin~1alti tude. The clouds were starting to close in on rne, ilnd there to be about \4 mile away. l a rain shower off to my left 2md flew to it as as possible. Sink at last' For the first time eve.r, I was coring sink with a smile on my face. The tailwind was now a siusty 25-40 mph head wind. After 3 hours and J 5 minutes, I landed goin~J 5 mph backwards near Lake Crowand 395, after 82 miles. Two fishermen came over and with my and asked me if I was crazy or Thinking back on rny flight esr)ec:iallv the last 45 minutes l honestly couldn't ,mswer the question.-.., AUGUST 1977

AUGUST 19T/

,r; gl) ()()

71 /11

Will W,nq

II(

1()1)

W<1sp 1 Wdsp h1lcon fJ W,isp

Wills Suuthern I

HANG

ill the bottom of the mountain, The weU

lift conditions wern, !\fter thousm1cl

l turned North lo

i\1

AUGUST

anoih<?r trnp like Black Mt. /\ml I'll be forced up uniil l my mind was tired and ovenNork,"cl but I felt that this couldn't I The il~!ony ended sw:1uc111\1 the sink which hand in hand wilh thermal lift

aboul the m,my Mitchell (a very tlmi he never had !rouble ly into the wind. He noticed his drift while the approach and needed. Well l need lo know lJr<:cL,:elv in the Mitclwll

CIIDIN(;

obvious to my rm>c,:ss,2s !hilt l Wds in cm b going clown tlw dirt runway ii was just about too late. In p,rnic !urned toward the wind m,icfo

Creo,1ve Pho,ography by bill anderson YOURS for the Hanging : Th is award w inn ing photograph , moun ted and read y for your persona l frame .

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Please send me the photoghraph(s) as I have indicated below .

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STABLE

WITH 2SURF

(continued from poge 27)

them at the age of ten through fif+een, even some high,aspect-r,1tio ones, but they all had one common chnracteristic which was very annoyin~1 they dived in,

Had you heard of Richard Miller and the Low, Slow, ,md Out of Control newsletter? II had been long,slanding rumor that there was magazine devo1ed exclusively to hung rilicl in,1, and l just couldn't believe it because there weren't any people devoted lo hang glidinq, Later 1 knew lhern wc1s c1 thing called Low & Slow, but couldn't find it. Did you drop biplanes right away? Kindil kept up wi1l1 the biplanes for ilwhile, The std, lfoqail0s could, in rmny cases, perform in flisJhL Even thouqh the biplane had somewha1 of 21 better L/D, it was il foirly ht1h winq loadin9 ilncl so the sink rates ended up somewha1 similar, The control rntes were some, what similar: I colild dccep1 thaL So I slowly be9,m to fly 1he std, HofJillh However, l knew all the time l was flying i1 that it could luff in and kill me, sol flew extremely cautiously, Lookin9 back, I know that I was in great danger a number of times Did you ever actually have any bad accidents or dose calls? Never, Well, few close calls, So, from then on, your own personal machimis were pretty much whatever the tory was producing? Yeah: in foc11hat's probably why [ took 1o signinq hang siliclers more for self clefonse than m1ythin9 else, What was yom first effort in designing Hogallos? Early l began qiving Tom a little bit of assistance, I've always liked the idea of ,irrnnqin9 cloth in way to do cerlain thinqs, Like the coverin9 o[ the biplilnes was kind of ,1 neat process heat-shrunk We used 1o cover lhem them outside and they'd be in 140° room: perfecL Normal, evmyday, polyethelene in 140° room'? Yeah. I! used 1o be !his incredible ordeal where spend ,m hour in lhis room doing this meticulous 121sk I took lo Ho9illlo desirJn because I really like the flyin9 that was opened to me now 1ha1 I had portable flyin9 machine, I'd been scopinq oul hills now I was 9ettin9 to them, and even, for years, tually pioneered probably 80'){, of all 1he hills in New Hampshire that i1re presently flown, So what did you design first? I was immecliiltely concerned with the safety ol iL I worked with n defined tip idea very, very early in the qame when I had my first Ro9illlo (foll, 1973). a batten in the sail thal was held in plilce by a line to the kin,ipost 1o define a minimum ,mgle of washout This goes with today's "interior t nm cations?" Thal's exactly what it was, 11 was pivoted with a bolt on the leadin9 edge. Didn't you do some advanced rigid wing de· signinn? The Bisi came alon(l in those days, too, righl ilrotmd the early Pere,irine Which was Tom Peghiny' s first advanced Ro!Jilllo design? Hi9ht; TonHmd,rne togelher's first advanced Ho9allo desiqn,

You worked on the Pere!Jrine? helped lay out lhe saiL Torn and I were workinq much as a team in those clays, We went to sail loft, and Tom had the plan form and stuff l just sort of assisted in getlin9 ii to work or1 ii tubed frame. The Biq Dipper Willi a very advanced flyinsi wing which may yet have some merit ,1 desisin, It was an accordion folding flying plank Win9spdn was 30 ft with fonr-ft.-hi9h rudders on the tips givin9 you an effec1ive span bil more than 30 ft It WilS six-ft. chord and hncl l 80 sq, ft, not includin9 the rudders which qave you ilbout 200 sq, fL totr1L And it just folded up by pushing the sail and ribs along the spar toward the center? Riqht. It WilS a fully,bilttcned, fully double sur faced sail with 1he bilttens running all the wc1y around in a continuous batten pocket in the sl1<1pe of 1hc airfoil. which was 11 Fauvel 17'){, reflexed lion, It never, unfortunately, fJOt to really do much of any flyinq, ,Jus1 few short hops, A l1orsf! destroyed il durintJ the middle of a thundershower, and possibly set my personal aviiltion back ilhoul ,1 year or better. The horse was olilrmccl and just sorl of jumped, and, unfortunately, his first jump hrou9ht him down on the flyin9 rnilchine, and his second jump brouqh1 him down over 20 ft, away which we measured with lhe flyintJ machine entan9led around him, and then he dramied i1 c1bout iln eiqhth a mile, You c21n ima9ine lhe results; i1 almost killed iL One of those unique hazards of New England How's the horsii doing these days? Uh, he's OK; bu1 the Bi9 Dippcir never flew, There was too much dama9c, It had been too carefully hand,fitted toqether, It was ii "hand carved" hm1c1 91ider carved out of aluminum tubing. You didn't go back to it because the Peregrine was flying pretty well? Al that point I started flying the first prototype Percurine, After I hild my very first flight off hiflh plilce with i1, I said, "Wow, !his is lot of fli;iht for not too much complexity,'' l stilrted to re,1lize that we could maybe dcsi9n some very s121ble, hi9h perfonnance winqs, As soon the Pere;Jrine was flyin9, and Tom Imel come bilck from the Nationals in California with it, we were doin(J a lot of looking around at

In all fairness, (sailplane and Hlicler pilot, ,rnd often Terry's companion) wils the one, You know what they say: "Behind every " She s,1icl, "Well, why ciln't you make a double.,surfoced win9 out of a silil'i" A sort of lo9icill qnes1ion to her, but it sounded totally illo~Jical to 11s because no one had ever done this, So with the Kestrel where did your thinking tum? The Kestrel WilS prt!1ty much 50-50 Tom Sweeney After i1, we realized tha1 we had hit upon somethin9. It hasn't been until jus1 a few months a90 (from May, I 977) that I sort of understand what it was that we hit upon, It was that we can milke a cliff11ser winq in almost ilny sort of ilSpect ratio that can handle correctly, and the only limitin9 factor being the squilre footaqe tha1 it takes to lift a human beinq off the Bround, You rnn make an aspect-rnlio 10 qlider !}().,ft spmi that you could probilbly handle, but it would hilve a very low area and no1 be able to up at mph," pick the Kestrel you got the job of designing your first Sky Sports glider all on your own the Bobcat IL Ed felt at that point that he rniqht best nse Tom's and my talents by puttin911s on separate projects, Ed said to desi9n a qlider that would be similar in frnme dimensions to il Bobcat [ (two ft cul-keE!l std, so we mi9ht use some inter chan9eable parts, arnJ the constraints of the desiqn hcinq the maximum dimensions allowed by the Mike !forker World Cup formula, 11 was just question of en9ineerin9 it', there was no real desi[Jn, When we first made it we didn't realize i1 WilS 9oin9 to be such qood trnininn 91ider, but a few fli9hts had us convinced, What was the next step? l hild il bi1 to do with hclpinq to qe1 the varyinq of the Merlin worked out And l did a little offstint to Chil1tanoo9a for a Merlin serninar. That's right, and you also had done the clink for Kestrels. Yeah, that hilppened ri9ht aft(ir we qot the first Kestrel goin9. The 197[> Nationals were comin9 up and Ed asked if we could assemble a bunch of them and 9et people flying on them And we did, mid (at the end of it) Wf3 brourih1 a bunch of people to our favorite soarable mountain ilnd parked 1hern in 1he air for a few hours,

sail books, There were a lot of prntty-shaped boat sails, so we made a glider that we thouqht would be pretty to look at, with a nice, roilchecl saiL It's now called the KestreL In those days it had 1wo battens per side. We brou9hl it out the first cfoy, and it had an incredibly billowy sail, hut was hi~1her aspect-ratio (5,0) than anythin9 we'd ever flown, and we found, 1o our ,irnazc!ment, that it w,1s super to handle, The Kestrel was the first hang glider with

What do you think of the rnmor that a doublesurfaced wing can't penetrate as well as a single-

double-surfaced sail? Pretty much: l think c1 few people miqht have done some experiments with tha1 before, Who nets the credit for originally sugg1!stinrJ the idem of havinn double-surfaced sail?

surfaced one? Ho9wasl1. That rumor started becanse, like lot of companies new at high-per fornmnce winqs, didn't realize how sensitive our tunin9 was (wilh the Kestrel), and so probably our CC an inch, which was just enou9h to us little bit of a slow trim speed, As for as its penetration speed for an equal ability to wei9f,t shift, I 9uess it should fly just as fast as m1y rnachine of its win9 loadinq, I feel that penetrntion speed is direct function of bilr position and win,i loadin9, What's the top speed of an kams V? Do you (continued on page 42)

AUGUST 1977

Photoornrihy by Stove

S\11/t.Ui!!lnl~V /continued from page 40)

think it would go faster if it was only

singlesurfaced desiun? It's claimed to be 60 mph. I woukl guess that it couldn't possibly 110 faster with single-surface wing bemuse it wouldn't develop enough lift to pull it fast. Plus it would have the drng of the under· camber cusp, which would hurt it heavily ill higher speeds.

ls there a similar problem with Rouallo winus in considerin!} all that? Well, that problem does exist with Hogallo wings, but cl more pertinent problem to their peculiar high-speed behavior is the amount of twist that they have. Like never before have people flown wings of our aspect rntio with the amount of twist that we commonly have in our wings. 111e twist is what keeps us from going fast, I believe. The thing that lets you go fast is lift, and the more you the less effective span twist your wing, the less lift you have to let you go fast. (Looking spanwise from center !root! to tip, "twist" can be seen as il progressively more negative angle of a wing's airfoil relative to the root. Also referred to "washout." --W.A.A.)

What next? It was at the Merlin seminar [ first began working with Rick Roellu\ who is now employed by Sky Sports, and in those days was flying a very interest ing craf1 called a variahle-billow machine; inflight, variable billow control differential and collective, which essentially meant th,1t Rick was Oying a sailboat, using his feet to control the lune· !ions of it. It's a glider that's quite a hit ahead of its time. Eventually some system lilw that mitJht be adopted to aid in weight-shift control of larger spans. It was kind of a slow winter and then I got the commission to design another trainer for Sky Sports lo sort of updc1te what we'd learned from the Bobcat II days. That has become the Bobcat Ill. It sort of incorporntes the best of the qualities of both the l<estrel and Bobcat Il into one bird of simi· Jar aspect ratio to the Kestrel. Sky Sports keeps appearing in all these things; what is your relationship to the company

motorsilider. We had a lot of Irouble with low climb rates and thinus like that, but we didn't let that slop us. We flew off small hills with light air currents corning towards them so that we could at leasl, with our zero sink rate, soor these hills until we developed better thrust. And then I did some work with exhaust systems, mid, so far as I know, I probably ran and operated, for awhile, the quietest motorized hanq f}lider anyplace.

ing for in performance, and then I can sec what things have to be for a given spnn. If l'rn no1 happy with the span, I can increase ii or decrease it, and how that relates to my model. when I fi~iure out what span I can liw with and what per· formance l want, then I pre1ty rnuch have il glider defined at tl-ic1t point.

Mow large mathematical model do you work with? It's very simple and um be so because hang gliders am so drag dominated there's no need lo go to even three decimal places at this point. It's proqrarn, which is chock full for the cal culator, but we put some other thinqs in there lo kinda fill up the prorirnm. [t spits out some other informal ion Iha(' s just useful but doesn't enter into the design criteria. /\nd, so, what we're doin,J at this staqe is we lilernlly c"1n prorJrnm any kind of performance we want. We still sort of handle the shapes intuitively the nose angles and the sweeps, and the anhedrat/dihedral tuning, and stuff.

Terry adjusts the lhrotll•) of the kingpost-rnounted engine on his Kestrel. He is one of the earliest pioneers of motorized hang gliding.

What do you feel you have accomplished with the Sirocco? The Sirocco is a really interesting glider because

People don't seem to be yet focusinn on ex haust systems. It will be the only lhillfl lo focus on shortly, because il's the only thing that stands between motorized hang ,iliders being good, workable, practical thinsJ. and il noisy, stay off-in machine.

everybody has had f]liders around for a lonr, time now and everybody can plu,J in numbers and sc,1 wha1 slrearnlined crosstube does for an increase in performance, bul . What will it do'? Well, the average glider gains for a streamlined crosstube, on where its LID was to begin with. If it's a hiqher-per formance one, it may 9et up to a point of L/D by stremnlined crnsstube. For the glider, what happens if you eliminate the cmsstube? That's ,iood for a couple tenths of point more than that because even a slreamlinecl crosstube is only streamlined p,!rfectly for one angle and has il drag fitJure that's still 2fi% of what it was ori,iinally. So a non existent (or buried) crosstube is !he per fec1 solution for the crosstnbe drag problem, ilnd handily gets rid of at least sq. ft. of drag, which weiuhs very heavily in the flight model formula I use. Does it help any with crosstuhes when

Actually this wasn't the beginning of your motorization, right? No, I had put a motor on my biplane way back in the pm-Ariel days, abou1 Model 5 in the biplane the first aluminum biplane. It hc1d c1 series 7 lO-cc motor mounted behind lhe win9s wi1h a pusher prop chain driven, three ft. in diameter. I made a few, short, low-level hops wilh ii in 197 J It had a Hoffco chainsaw engine of about 8 hp, and we measured :l5 lbs. thrust oul of ii, which I predicted was just barely enough lo maintain level flight with the 24-ft. upper wing, [8 .. ft. lower winfJ biplane that l had it on. Had bicvcle wheels under

and other companies in the sport'? Well, no other company has ever really

""'''"'"'r·i,r,r1 me other than a small, local company

the 1;,ail blows down?

for some desiBn work on a medium-aspect-rntio sport glider. Most of my work has either been directed at my own personal quests of flyinf} machines, or working for Sky Sports. /\nd I'm a dealer for Eipper-Forma11ce. I've done a bit of work at several custom, one-·of-a-kind designs for people similar tu what Albatross used to do. Hiuh-AH, advanced uliders'? /\nd one advanced ladies trainer. She finally got her double-surfaced win!J. Yeah, it took years One of your own personal quests of flight has involved motors. Last fall we saw a bleak winter comin[J up and that the only hope in getting any good activity going with flying was going to be with motors. Our hills are inaccessible in the winter, due lo heavy snow and blustery northwest winds. When we do get some good wind, it doesn't last long because it's usually the calm before the storm. So we began a ureat deal of work with motors. It started with d kin[1post-mounted engine on a Kestrel that we did quite 21 bit of flying with, and eventually worked out into a pretty reasonable

Most gliders have their sail lappin9 a~1ainst the crosstube 2md very quickly lose any of their ne:Ja tive-G potential. I've seen it happen before, seen a glider fail because in ne:ptive Gs the sail was on the crosstnbe. The Sirocco has guidelines that keep the sail from touching the buried cross1ube in eilher positive or negative G's in any way that could cause a weakeninq of the crosstube. We haven't completed the HGM/\ tests yet, but we're hopinti that the Sirocco will have a similar positive and negative (,-loading of the frame. This doesn't help if you fall into it, of course if the body hits the crosstube. For years people have been talking about streamlining their crosstubes, puttinri streamlined tubing there, and everything else. But, in 1977 there's a crop of new high -performance gliders and not one of them have hild any attention paid to streamlininfJ. what they could do if had a streamlined crosstube, they're held back now. does it do to sink rate? lt's hurtin9 their sink rate IO to 15 ft./rnin. which isn'tthc1tsignificant, except if you're climbinfJ

neath it, stick and rudder pedal controls, and the whole apparntus w,!ighed 90 lbs. about what a present-clay motorf)lider weighs.

Going on, your next flex design was the rather complex Sirocco. Mow did you manage to design, lay out the sail, and test fly in such a way to do all the work with one glider instead of the normal practice of building lots of different totypes until you hit th1! right combination'? Well, nowadays in designing gliders, l use crn oplimization formula for figuring out all the pertin · ent dimensions of the glider mathematically. The formula l use correlates the span, the area, lhe weight, and the total drag figures of the glider. What l do is plug into my "model" what I'm look

(continued on page 48)

AUGUST 1977

• I Once again, Mother Nature to be a formidable opponent for gliding meet It was as though She just didn't wan1 pilots to fly on those scheduled. as the history of other meets has shown, the following the scheduled meet were clear, and saw some flying. with rain and winds from every direction, the frustrated organizers of the Molson' s North American pretty pilots arrived to ~iet in some practice flights before competition As luck would have it, most of them spent the extra time enjoyin~1 the facilities of the Alpine Motel, head quarters for the meet. On flights got off. The got in some downwind, rotor practice, much to the enjoyment and mirth of just arrivThe rest were awaiting Wednesfor a full of flying. came and went, with nary a flight. But the motel's pool, jacuzzi, and sauna were well used and that evening saw most of the pilots upstairs in 1he 5'Yr, Canadian beer with some of the Molson' s representatives. arrived with the scheduled 7:00 AM. pilots' meetintJ getting by

rfarnrnill and Max Mekilok, the 8:30. with a "welcome" to Molson's reps, Canada and the for Boris Popov of Northern Sun main force behind the meet, cial business. Numbers were handed out, rules the smooth runninfj of this indoor meeting, Ma Nature threw her best at us that The officials called the meet until the nexl than anyone would have believed. It was clear at 7:00 AM. 9:00, the were getting Unfortunately, no one told the lift operator when to get there, so the chair lift didn't get started until after 1 UX). this time, there was so much energy, competitors flew up to the top. The air was rowdy & slightly junky, but uu""'"u,'" for the task at so the meet The for this and all successive flights was to get to the 1st gate quickly as while maintaininu as much altitude Once the gate was the pilots had to recross it as often as no,ss1bJQ before for the target. The target was worth 40%, a value which raised more than a few eyebrows. Most pilots felt a maximum of 25% would have been more than

• I

some parts to fix it, and in an was hand. flying it around the parking lot to trim it out Then Mother decided that was it, and cut the time loose with another gullywumper. the rain the winds had grown to mph, to 40 mph. 'Twas in these conditions that Perkins decided to show the Canadians how to soar their hill. Instead, he showed them how to stall ou1 on 1ake-off his

AUGUST 1977

11th place finisher, Chri1; Harlor, turns away from tnko off ,n Wills HIGH1 4th wiririor, l om

Sirocco

l<Jpcl1a11kn frorn l:1rit1sh Cnl11ml1i11, ,ri ,m Olympus

had made i1 About sundown, while

shallow end, we could of the late Cohn of North hour and rmma,~icct of :vm' a hove the like much but

ever1Jone woke up The officials were going for as manlJ rounds for the finals, them The 1st round prnttl)

entire round was over in 20 minutes, tial times were very to Mike & Dave Arrambide both best of 47 seconds, After the had the lead, followed Jim Braddock Micr111qan and John Grobe! of Mirmest)til were hustled bilck up the hill, but that time, the wind had switched ilfld

HANG GIJDING

Up,

FINAL STANDINGS Award pus

$1000 $800

,Jim Braddock,

Maxi-

$600

occo

$DOO

Dave Arrambide, California

Curnu, lus lO

$400

Mike Arrambide, California

Cumu lus 10

$300 $200

Colorado

Swift

$JOO

,John Duthie, British Columbia

Olyrn, pus

$70

Dale Slierrmm, New York

Chris Harter,

New York

an official decision was rmide to become the most controversial decision of the meet Hound of the finals would be flown from a different take off Most of the wem Wdry of the usual tdke-off and weren't too new spot down a ski run, bO swath cut the hillside of 30' !I()' and other

School of

again this again next

wheels over lhe 011 his way to lhe target. 13EI OW !~!GI i r Arrambide rnakos tum wit11 his eyes gl1md to the liaq, a low, BOTTOM Moet orqanizms and mpresenla liver, of Molson's L3eer,

each concerned either about the terrible condi tions or the fact that the on the

the

view was meet shouldn't be decided on survival exercise, the 1977 Molson's Meet came left for 1he motel to that would be 4:00 awards ceremony,

to flow away, Frisbees were horseshoe game set up, The realization that the meet was over sank in and sudden

music Debauche, Then

Nest

AUGUST 1977

Icontinued from page 42) wi1h somebody in a thermal for a minute. 10 or 15 ft. could mean the difference between crowded and being up and away. Considering the configuration of high· nmrm•rn,,m,,·o hang today, what do you feel is the ultimate L/D with the crosstuhe not buried? ,t.. ,minLfiu·o is pretty much very close to the "L/D barrier" for machines that sport kingpost~; and crosstubes and A. frames , . and pilots. I mean, you could makEi an outrageous wing that would break ii, but it would be a really large wing and would not handle welL Handling comes heavily into this. LID a strict function of planform and stuff you can get some pretty ou1rngeous L/D 's in a straight Ii ne. But this has to be on somethinq that can be handled, You're thinking about some pretty outrageous machines What would you say is the maximum nose angle that these gliders will get out to? To be honest, probably out to about negative 20° that is, swep1 forward 20° It sort of sounds impossible, but as we learn how these high .. performance wings ;,re flying if we learn what the real handling mechanisms of them are, it should be possible to build at least some 180° nose wings, and possibly that, and still retain the kind of handling characteristics that we're all so fond of. Besides fairing the crosstube, you can fair the too. We've been working with body and I hold a nreat future for them for both prone and supine fairings sound pretty bizarre at this staqe to most people, but the one we're with, we find you don't even know that ifs there. It only a pound or two. a really good body foiring will also protect the pilot at thi) high altitudes and long flights that we're all f:lOing to be having pretty soon. About the only time you can ever go lo cloud base is in the dead of summer in someplace warm, and even then it can get I think that pretty brisk after a couple of hours, body fairings and even increased pilot suits, like electric thermal suits, may come into use. What kind do you get with the Take an already clean glider that has, say, a 10/1 glide, the pilot's drag to about one sq. ft get you up into the 12/1 rnnge, How about body fairings as drag brakes? Yeah, if it's like 11 dorsal fin behind you, as our supine one is, it can be used quite as a drag brake by turning it sideways. Essentially you slip the fuselage instead of the whole glider. You also get a good kind of yaw feedback from the glider, The dorsal fairing tells you through your arms whether the glider is yawing on or not The fairing also gives you someplace to put some of your belongings: We plan to eventually make them inflatable with battens, very much in the same construction practice as the wings we're flying. Is there a "sink barrier" for gliders of today's It's not too hard to get a that sinks at around 200 ft/min. ln most c,ises, there's little reason to go beyond that; as them it becomes aJ. most advantageous, instead of making your per· formance increases in sink rate, to trade them for LID, higher speed, and higher wing loadings. Like when you have a shape, it would be best to

load the good shape up at a higher wing loading so that you can rnainlain the qood sink rate but fly much further for your money.

It has been said

shift control is of the past." How do you feel about control systems? Well, I think, as it's lumed out, control systems just haven't worked out very well for hang gliders. The mosl successful would have lo be the Quick· silver series of nliders by Eipper .. Formance. have enjoyed years of apparently troub]e .. free operation. But there's something about the way it handles compared to flex wing that just doesn't seem "to put it there." Like it takes a really expert pilot with the Quicksilver to do the same thing than an inexperienced pilot can stumble upon with ,:\ flex winq. There's great future for control sys terns. However, before we learn how to put con· trol systems on our gliders to augment our weight shifting control, we're going to have to learn how the weight shifting control that we have works. It's not really weight shifting control; it's weif)ht .. shiftinitiated 11erodynamic controL Ifs been around for such a long time that it's be, come a "given that, if you build a sailwing that has twist and billow and stuff, you can control it But what exactly the critical tuning is, how all the pertinent factors such as sweep, effective aero .. dynamic dihedrnl, washout and such effect the handlinq characteristics, it not really known. has their sort of favorite theory, and they all work well enough so that you can m,rnage in the 21ir. However, seems to the have onto Hw optimum in all these matlers. If they had, they would have a large that handled flawlessly. How do you feel about aerobatics? I would think, a minimum, that an aerobatic would have to have a rigid harness system. Once we get into rigid h,1mess syst,!ms, we could think about stressin(J up for na,n;:inu,p. loads and loads for aerobatics. The typical hang is good for about even in the most coordinat,id, diving tum you could ever do with it around 65 .. 70° bank, which 4-G turn. with flex wings pulling turns like that, the inside wing is so far on the inside of the circle, that its airspeed is so low, so doing 75° .. bank tum, in a semi·coordinated fashion, doesn't produce the G .. loadings that i1 would if it

was an aircrnft covering lot of airspace (where both wintJS were going approxinrntely the same speed). The wingtip c1irspeed differential in a hang glider is extreme in tight turns. It appears almost as if it is a safety mechanism: The tighter the turn, the more you clump off on the inside wing, so the less you up tire whole. However, you can pro .. duce snap maneuvers which produce very hiqh Gs, I'm sure in the rnnge of 4 or Gs just by doinq prolm1ned ,;lipping maneuver to get hiqh speed, and then snapped control motion. Are crosstuhe failures happening because of today's tighter sails? The real thinq with breaking crosstubes is de. flexers. We found with the variable billow kite, on which you could ti~1hten the billow out to nothinq, ihi1t the stresses become see·vcere on the crosstubu as the result of the tension in the de flexers. The stiffer your de flex er system the more energy you couple into your crosstube. To what do you attribute New England's rel a· tively good safi!!ty record? Actually, New doesn't have ,my better safety record than else. I've witnessed,at least 20 deaths myself, but, fortunately, they never occurred because of the trees. For instance, on

one occasion, I watched a std. Rogallo be flown off a high place by a person on his first high fli9ht, and he had kind of severe case of dive syndrome, which, after cmiain point was helped along by the design, and did luff cUve. Essentially he flew off a 700 .. ft hill and flew down 600 ft divinq foster and foster the whole way, ending it up in 1()().. ft vertical luff dive, and landed in a large oak tree. The trne sprung so severely that it flung him back out like a gigantic trampoline. He ended up with a r.ouple of bruises and scrnpes; and the glider ended up being liternlly wrinkled by the impact.

Terry flying one of !he eat1y model biplanes of his own design

Cape Cod,

(continlled on page 50)

AU(;UST 1977

Name

Box 6009 Chnttanooga, TN 31401

City

il'Ii change really quickly. We've had to focus on nricrometeorolouy 'cause sometimes we have to rnce certain weather systems around so we can ,iet a fli,Jht off before the system catches up with us.

Bow about snow? Snow is great lo fly in. You can check your angle-of-attack out and evc:rything, by watching the snowflakes. You can see uusls cornin,J iii a dis lance. You have about two-second warning when a lmge change in wind is going to happen.

That's just one t!xample of wlrnt a tree can do if you hit it squarely. As near as l know, there h,we been no fotalities yet involved with striking live, springy tree tops. Dead trees are another matter. Holes and gaps in the forest, and the borderline between the forest and open area are the clanqer zones. It's very around here landin9 in the tight landing areas that we have, because you're required to sort of fly from an impossibly turbulent situation around the tree tops, where there's a lot of wind and tucking down into a really small landing area. If you happen to misjudge things, you could find yourself a little low on the tree lops and catch into the open area. One of the fatali tip on the ties we in New Enuland was just such an instance, where the wingtip struck a tree top and pivoted him into vertical dive into some nearby open ,iround Other tlmn that, the trees haw literally saved us all around here.

How many tre<! landings have you made? I've m2Kki in the neiuhborhoodof 20. In fact, I've bushwacked in four or five different states, and al most in one foreign country.

You've developed quite a reputation locally in meteorology. (Since this interview, Terry recorded te!e, being sponsored to provide phone hang weather and news service). Around here is such chan,Jing affair that. if you don't like it, you can just wait, 'cause

Clouds

(Line on Beige

1+4 Flight

You fly in rain a lot, too. Well, you have to take what you can get around here. (,ood wind with min is a lot better than horrible wind with no rain, or no wind with no min. ,Jonathan Winsor hils been known to fly for two hours in freezin,1 rain conditions where his crosstube and control frame were icinu up. When he landed he h11d a teardrop of ice around the control bar and crosstube. There was no ice on him because he was covered with plastic garha,ie bags and flapping it all off fast it formed. II wc1s really stron,i wind and his (std. sail was luffing just about hard as the garbage bag was. Do you think that flyim; analyze the weather imough once in flight'? The way hang gliders performing nowarnorn people should spend more time analyzinq the weather while they're in the air because·

we're flying furiher and the weather can chanue. This is probably goinri to b{i the when at lec1st three han,i glider pilots will get carried away to their doom squall lines or pushing questionable weather of the violent nature that happens with storm clouds.

What some differences you see between eastern and western In the East we have different sort of thermal that breeds around here. It's a little harder to work the sailpbne pilots tell me this, because the thermals are smaller and more broken up. So you have to be Wilily good around here to be 1Jood thermal piloL The East, if anything, quite a bit more con servative than California, possibly because we're still evolving within sort of the medium phases of hanq People are learning to fly the easy way on newer, higher·performm1ce trainers, and are better equipped to step into high-performance flyinsl Eventually llyinu should catch up around here pretty easily with the level of flying in Cali fomi,L Our small landin;J areas and our gusty winds have made for a certain sort of rnution in flying. Even when we h,ive sites that are wide open, we tend lo adopt the same kind of limit on conditions that we used to when we were flying tiny landing areas with qusty winds. Basically, mound here, everybody has what we call a "hang glider politeness" attitude: "After you I'll wait little while." People draw the line around here when it's fun. If i1 ceases to become fun, then most people don't want lo do iL Some people ,Jet their fun from pushing the limits. Around her<' people uet their fun from flying well within the limits, in most cases. Well, if flying much more difficult in this

area, why do you stay in New Enuland? Uh, I don't know; there's somethint_l about th<, place you come from I have certain roots in I his area. And the ocean of air is everyplace, so I'm just as content lo fly here, and work within !he limitations that we have, I would be to fly in I lawaii every It really doesn't matter that much to me where I'm located within the ocean of ak place has its challenge.

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AUGUST 1977

to lest with Bob Wills," Tl 1c hst l

( continued from pu11e 18)

one,on,one con on lo Bob Wills I tried to the commercial and the Palorm1r first

nnanswcrecl not be answered to ta kc off

and fly the top of tlw was 1o be used in after

/\t any rn1e, his las1 270° tum and crossed under his own and leveled wings, he hit the wake At this point the ps realizing cl disaster w,1 imminent, tried to "back swinging around and pointing at Bob when it came into Bob's view it could have done, the the frame, The nose down, Bob went into the keeL The film with Rob 1/:1 way around in his first tumble. the were bu1 had no1 The witnesses on the that he tumbled more than once from an alti tude of about 80 feet before he hi1 1hc first hv died two hours later of massive internal injuries, Bob had flown with the before,

know," I\ up and told him what ing him with the kind O!L

showed no about 1% the was about bush on takeoff and little bit

posi1ion and behind him on his left side, On the second the in skill, No words could do this justice, from now we will realize how Bob Wills is, Two pretty much defined his skilL

end(c!d up in it had in the well understood "No HANG GLIDING

pilot is never copter, because if the cameraman in, it doesn't look It was the last oi the The last the commercial was finished up on the 500 foot hilL The accident was therefore How it but it does

mark in the world of mid in !he minds of the who knew hint and !Job have lost their oldest son, their

goinrJ to leave in their lives, If you nm into any of the try not lo feel uneasy; smile, and tell them what a great guy Bob Wills was, support It's to do bcca use he w,1,; co authore!cl by

dnd Mar dly:; Wille,

by Don Walter !fang is a sport that skill. It also requires accurate and effective judfJe ment. As a hirih risk sport, it demands critical de cisions which may prevent the destrnc1ion of ,.;lider or loss of life if ti 1ey are made correctly. This is Part ll of an article which explains how know· ledge about how people make decisions can help to aid pilots to insure that we fly safer and longer. First, a brief review of Part I. As we 1111 well know, the pilot of the hang glider is faced with decisions both on the and in flight. On the the pilot must decide whether 11) to toke off, orb) not to toke off. In the air he must decide whether a) lo continue flying in whatever conditions prevail, orb) to land or escape to more favorable conditions. The way in which a pilot makes decisions is discussed in Part I of this article. The factors which contribute lo his decis ions are a) the probability of safe cmd unsafe condi· lions and b) the 1Jaiues placed on the outcomes of desisions made in either condition (safe or unsafe).

Estimation of the Probability of Unsafe Conditions It would be fortunate if one could count on a single hand the number of accidents which occur in hang gliding which are due to mis(,stimating the probability of unsafe conditions. This estimation is the most difficult to make of all factors involved in a fly, no-fly decision, but it is also the most ,mic>nnhlo to chanrie throufJh training and education. It is essential that it be estimated accurately. This requires maskiry of three areas of knowledge. First he must know the <:llpabilities of his glider, both in <1ctual flirJht and on paper (specifications). It is very important that each pilot have a great deal of air time on his !Jlider (20 to 30 hours), and know intirrrntely how it reacts in a variety of flying silua lions. He should be an avid reader not only about the specifications of his glider but about aero· dyn<1mics in general. He should know a great deal about such thin~1s as tipstalls, spin recovery, load factors, structural integrity, maneuvernbility, etc. Second, he must know his own cnpabilities. This topic will be taken up in a subsequent article. For the present we can say that 11 normal pilot's skill in maneuvering a glider can be considered to be the degree to which the flying of the sJlider is automatic. That is, each motion needed to fly the glid,ir need not be consciously pl11nned, but is automatically carried out and intes3rated smoothly with other movements. Third, a pilot must know the site he is flying. Most of us who have flown a nurnber of different sites, know that each individual site has its own

personality (this especially true at inland mountain sites). A siood example of two sites which differ great deal in 1erms of safoty am the Elberta Bluffs at Frankfort, Michigan, and the Big Walker Lookout site near Bland, Virginia. Among other things they differ in terms of launch (gentle, cliff, room), landing area (distance, turbulence, size), and wind and lift conditions (lift typ<!, turbulence, elevator location). Big Walker has plenty of room for a sientle or a difficult takeoff, hilly landing area 800 below at 4/ l ,ilide ratio, and has both thermal and turbulent ridue lift. Frankfort, on the other hand, little room to take off, (but enough) but has an easy cliff launch. 11 also features a very large flat beach landing area and very smooth ridue lift. Differences like these must be taken into account. Much can be learned from the pilots who reBularly fly a site; th,iy ,ire the only people who nm !Jive a detailed description of clan qerous peculiarities with any degree o/ precision. Without a doubt a qood estimation of the prob abilities of unsafe conditions can be made usin,i a composite of information about the glider, the piand the site. ln the days in which standards common, many pilots would fly sites in which a 4 to 1 ratio would barely reach the landing area, and they wonld fly such sites in a standard glider in a strong headwind. This is clearly fool hearty, but only for standi1rd gliders at some landinu site situations. New high performance gliders have glide ratios of 7 to 1 or better. However, it takes more pilot skill to fly (and land) such !.Jlider. A high performance qlider can operate to the land ing area in the face of a tremendous headwind, but the qlider might not be safe if the pilot is not skilled enough. In this case, the safety of the conditions really depends on a complex glider .. pilot .. site combination. Another case involves turbulent sites. There is nothing so incredibly awesome as to watch an unskilled pilot fly an intermediate or high performance glider, which beyond his skills, in turbulence. Even though a maneuverable Glider in the h,mds of a pilot may easily navi !Jill<" a turbulent flying site, that same glider in the hands of a poor pilot can result in disaster. What is notable, however, is that the situation may be exactly the opposite in smooth air. That is, a bigh per formance glider may be safer than a standard, even with a fairly poor pilot. 1t is simply not known how the three components (glider-pilot-site) are combined to arrive at an estimate of the probability of uns,1fe conditions. lt probably involves a detailed k:,s:iical analysis of the factors. It is almost certain that the more knowledge a pilot has in each of the areas and the more he practices making es1imates, tlui more accurate esti . mates will be. Most errors made in estimates of this type can be traced to gross ignorance of some very simple fact in one of the areas.

Outcome Ei.1lmatiom; of Flying In Safe and Unsafe Conditions lt is simpler to determine the outcome value of flying in silfe conditions or flying in unsafe conditions and having an accident. The former depends much on the pilot, the site, and weather conditions. For example, on days in which there is good soaring, there is a much hiriier value given to flying in safe conditions. This is true (obviously) because it is possible to stay in the air longer and go farther. Determining the value of having an acci· dent is a bit more involved. There are three com-

ponenls to this value: First, the value of the and/or the inconvenience ,md cost to fix the Second, the inconvcnienc:e of getting the out of where it (with you) had its accident. the cost of injury (or death) to the pilot. these three components will make a different lribution depending on the situation in which accident mi'.]ht happen. A crash into a wooded area made up of uery small trees is lil,ely to injure the pilot seriously or glider to any degree. However, the of disengauinu a glider from many small considerable. Similarly, an accident in the sand of some of the more popular coastal sites is usually not at all in convenient, results in damage to the glider, and causes few injuries. the other hand, the cost of having an volving a rock cliff is high indeed. lt is likely ulider will be destroyed and that the pilot will serious injury. Each must combine factors to determine the cost of havin(l an in each specific situation. In-Flight Decisions Them am some important differences those decisions which are made before and the decisions that are made in flight. major difference is that a pilot can carefully :;icier estimates involved in the decision to take or stay put. Once in flight, however, he may flight the pilot must about his present situation developing new conditions. whether to continue or whether to get out of Biven condition. Exarnples in which quick ment must be exercised are flying close to flyin,i in marginal lift close to objects such as flying to shoot gaps. etc. In these situations probability and outcome factors used in decisions continually change and new ,,,,1m;m,, must be made rapidly and accurately. Value mates need to be changed less than ability estimates because they depend more general terrain. Probability estimates may dras1ically and rapidly mid the pilot must his estimates at the sanui pace if he is to make decisions in flight. It takes a pilot of great skill experience to be able to do this. Flying the must be almost totally automatic, and it is ful if the decisions involving thermal seekintl, are well practiced, for then the pilot can !rate all his efforts into making safety which must have the highest priority. A good perienced pilot will make decisions involving safety and strategy continuously, and with comparatively little effort. What the ing pilot must do to facilitate in-flight decisions anticipate and plan. For each flight, a flight should be made with options. When a the flight mitJht result in unsafe conditions, the should plan possible actions before he takes This will result in: a) a quicker reactions, practice in predicting and reactin'.] to unsafe conditions. In the two previous articles that l have have stated that the key to safe flying seems to education and learning. l cannot nuc>rc•rrnnll;,si;,c, the value of learning e1Jery detail that you can about your ~Jlider, the sites you fly, your abilities, and atmospheric conditions in You can ne1Jer know enough. lf you think that do, yon're already in trouble. ....

AUGUST 1977

months of research and develop, Aircrnft is pleased to mmrnmce thal Sunfun has completed an exlensive of flighl lestin1i lfoving studied per charncterislics with three differe11t expansion chambers, eiqht mufflers, two manifolds, four rubber shock mounts propellers, they have perfected !heir lo the point where it will perform and reli<1bility well beyond the ,wern11e dreams. most hang qlider flights have bc1en For the pasl year, however, they have the VJ,24E from a flat which is a V2 mile ridge frlllging in 400 to 600 ft. Last Sundm,,, Volmer off in a few steps, clirnbecl to ~mo feel :l60 degree turn. He then headed 600 ft. peak at the far encl of the ridge another 400 feet on the downhill letJ. him well above the normal hang ~1lider site, where he intended landing. On the while still ten or twelve feet off the gunned the throttle a couple of times in make his touch,down as close to the, edr:ie of lhc ridue as possible. Everyone below waitin~i their tum to fly, and he on top to help him get off again. The uneventful. He cut the switch and the glider by the t,1il a few fed farther to position for launching. The on the first pull of the starter cord lifted the craft up in the launching po was off in four or five quick steps into an 8 a,iain quite effortlessly. the first time Volmer Aircraft lrnd the practicability of launching c1 from level ground and flyinq 'up-hill', to the normdl point of departure. Ob able to do this makes flying a whole Instead of disassemblinq the craft c1t the flight and loadintJ it on a trailer for lhe by road to the lop, one can simply fly isn't a new idea, of course, but the sue, <1pplication of rnotor,qlidinq to foot, craft is new. bein9 ide<1l for soarinu, he followed until he had sufficient altitude to shut off He then "worked" the ridge for about

20 minutes before circlin[l hack for a lc1nding on the farm below. Three other pilots were impatiently wniting their turn to fly. They made nine flitihts, with four pilots, during the afternoon, 11sinq only three qmirts of fuel A 1()() .. IJom priwitc pilot, whose only previous hann ulidintJ experience hiid been shorl downhill hop lasl summer on the beginner's slope, look off ,:md quickly gained 100 feel. He was enthused and confident 1hdl, i11 stead of choppinq power and landinn slrniqht ahead recommended on first flights, he rnilde a complete turn ,md landed back where he started from I The Sunfun has been flown, both with and with out the enqine by co,desiriner, Irv Colver. It should be noted !hilt Irv tips the scales at a !rifle over 200 pounds, which calculates to be the maxi, rnurn useful load for safe flyintJ. Irv, bein/J ,rn perienced pilot of sailplanes and conventional aircraft, is at an advantage in flying hanu uliders, whereas those of simil,ir wei;Jht but little perience might have to have a little more wind to make a takeoff. Landings c1re even easier. Touch downs can be made, birdlike. Some have been made with zero ground speed by just benc!in,1 the knees. /\t the present time the sunfun not licensed by the FAA. The emit is always flown at tablished hang glider and never from airports. However, some powered hanu gliders known to be opemtin9 from airports and in such cases the craft can be licensed by the F.AA at no cost. The pilot must also hold a student permit, at least. Vol mer Aircrnfl is inclined to advise against flyinq in the vicinity of airports, for obvious reasons. A li9ht. ly loaded hanri 9lider is likely to become unman, ilf1eable in the wake of even ,1 small, lowpowered aircraft like a Piper Cub. Most hanu tJlidcrs are diffi cult to see at a distance headon (or taiJ,on); their slow speed makes them vulnerable. After learning to fly tl1e Sunfun rilider without the cJngine, it is very for anyone to install the ent1ine and fly with power. This engine is rated at 11 V2 11.P. at SGOO HPM, bul at operational speed of 7200 it develops JO HP. and bums only l 1/2 (Jills. per houri For further information write to: Volmer Aircraft P O Box Li222 C,lendale, California 9120 l

HANG GLIDING MANUAL & LOG

A basic flight manual: authoritative, corn pact, concise, complete. $1.50 postpaid. (Californians add .06¢ sales tax). HANG GLIDING The first complete book on foot launched ultralight fliqht 7th revision, 205 pages, over 100,000 sold 1 $5.95 postpaid. (Californians add 36¢ sales tax).

KITING The only book on tow launched hang gliding. 2nd revision, 102 pages, over 12,000 sold' $3.95 postpaid. (Californians add .24¢ sales tax).

AUGUST 1977

of matcri,11 in your film truly much .. 11

Man's Dn:am" mcch the modern dernands ol the instnJClor pn:scn1ing in ,111 c,isy lo 1rnd1.:rs1and way. Done with r1 well rounded rcrspcctivc lor the ul1ima1 safely of the studenl, ii is an icleal i11t1oduc1io11 for and is ly 1:ntcrl Im the Chris Wills,

animc11ion.

r (continued fmrn f

What's the

son may lw interested in purch21si11g. The day of the I then my loq ,md the circumstances of each person's J;,st

son.

if in <1 studenfs !?1st

l.indinqs problem, the Instructor c,111 then orient the student Iowan! better Lmdin(JS without confusinH him with thinkin,J about other thinqs. On the hill, the sluclent is 1hill you remembered the l<1sl lesson. right down to theil helmet This will cncouraqe more confidence in the inslmctor. rn?1kinsi the lemninu process lot already usinq il jomnal, it your memory and ii will ~Jive when complimented with

Only flyers their lJSI lC/\ or Hm1q 4 rnrds, with Turbulence. /\ltitude. Cliff

climbinq and skiinn fd· lillities over the hils Mt. Washington's and unpredictable disposition. Temperaturv drops of forty in few hours possible. likely. Rapid shifts in wind velocity been observed. This mountain of the mosl experienced mountain hang qlider pilots, rated Hiln~; with Turbulence, Altitude, Cliff and :160 en usiJ19 the most G·rrefully conditions. With precautions in NH, entered Summit Auto Hoar!

Mt. W;,shinHton, Enql;mcl, the Hockies, hiker

corridor for h,mg 1Jlidin!J The actual mountain. duding this corridor and the summit the White Mountain National Forest, by the National The owned by Parks. Neither any lmnn qliding usin,1 their lands, through the of the Auto ri!Jh1-of wc1y that the sport delicate condition, to acquiw administered ;;i1c rnn attest. lhe continued of this mies been put into

l.cnmch. and :JC:,() 0,11dorsernenb, will lw per rnilte,I past the entrance wi1h their qlidcrs on their vehkfo. All others will be required to wrnovc their qlidcrs before, proceedinq ( Note on ratinq: the CiSI c;-ml will 1101 ni;'.c~ I after ,July 28, 1')77) If the weather conditiom unfavor,rble (h~Jh wind, foq. turbulence) the SJUilld may require c1ll flyers lo remove their s~klerci before prrxv.edinq :l. If there ,rny question ,ibout ,\ qualified 1o fly Mt. Wdshi11,Jlon lw quired lo c,-11! Peo1~e in North Conway ( 10 miles c1wc1y) in order to \Jet necess1ry approv,11 before proceedi11s1 p,~;I tlH, <Jrte with his ,Jiidcr

Ml. Washington is beautiful, perhaps unique, flyinsi site. By using nood ,md seJf.n,9u!ation we will continue to have lo the hi9hest vcrti drop of the Hockies by Don

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SUPERFLY HANG GLIDERS Southern Oregon's for qualified instruction. We mp· rnsent Ultralite Products, Sun Siiil and now frrnture Aircraft. 853 N.E. Streel, C,rnnts (!io:3) 479 0826, ask

,Jeff PENNS YI.VANIA ENDLESS MOUNTAINS HANC, CiUDEES.

gliding classroom and on sile training. Representing eight major manufac. Complete lino of accessories iind repairs.

This year, somewhere, hang qlider pilot ,Joi11y to 10w up, cntch tlrnmml, and fly rn1t of sight Ii may IHi yo,1. Be, prr,parnd 10

ND l<ito

30 $1.00 for infomrntion package. residonts add 5% sales all orders requin-: 50% deposit.

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AUGUST 1977

BOOKS: Books available through USHGA are fly, Book Guide to

WEST VIRGINIA ·---

MOUNTAlN

-------

C1UDERS Manta

DISTRIBUTORS South Electra Flyer Aircraft. Now or write: LONE South SmithMetro. (817)

MC CULLOCH MC 101 M/C engines, hubs, and to bolt on Beach New product WESTWIND WINDJAL. Fully calib-

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HANG, GLIDING

)r'IVt'

SPECJALII! BACK ISSUES OF (JROUND SK[M MER MAGAZINE sues at the Box 66306,

PATCHES & DECALS !ems 3" dia. Full color Inside or outside ,m,·,,w,rnrm WINDHAVEN has information on how you can business. Write Schools, CA

WINDHAVEN EMERGENCY PARACHUTE SYSTEM meets TSO testing. The best availa ble! to your harness and glider. Write for Windhaven, 12437 San Fernando Rd., Ca. 91342.

TYPE: Manta Fledgling. SAIL PATTERN: Red leading edge, yellow trailing erJge. Red bag and no tip rudqers. WHER~ _& WHEN: Lexington Reservoir, Los Gatos, Calif. m Apnl '77. CONTACT: Super Fly Sky-Sails, 21383 Aldercroft Hgts. Rel., Los Gatos, CA 95030. (408) 353-2926. Reward $100.

BIORHYrl·lMS Research has shown that sons who are aware of their 'critical days' reduced accident rates by as much as 80%! Commercial airlines use Biorhythm charts every day. Now computer technology, this same ser·· vice is to you at an economical price. Don't make another flight without r11,oru·mn BIORHYTHM chart. birthdate to BIO-GRAPHICS, P.O. Box .oonersro•.vn. NY 13326. MEDALLIONS YOUR EXCLUSIVE DESIGN, CLUB INSIGNIA, OR COMPANY LOGO repro duced in fired enamel jewelry. Trade them with other pilots. Promote with them! A gift idea! Sizes%"X3". Any No Minimurn order only 25 pieces. (50 1" medallions only list and brochure or send EN. Box IL 60056. WINGS OF THE WIND", an award winning 16mm rlang Oliding film, is ideal for showing at club meetings, for promotional use and entertainment. Re rental, contact GibCo Films, CA 91607, or telephone

BENNET

TYPE: Seagull IV. SAil PATTERN: Purple leading edges. Keel out; white keel pocket, yellow, orange, lite blue. Patches, 2ft. in length on the loading edges near nose plate. CON'fAC'f: Ray Arrington, 11626 E. D. Ave., Richland, Michigan 49083. TYPE: New Cirrus Ill. SAil i'AITERN: Keel out; dk. blue, It. blue, red, with It. blue leading edges. TYPE: Seagull Ill. Keel out; purple, red, oranoe, 2 yellow. WHERE & WHEN: Winnemucr.a, Nev. in January, 1977. CONTACT: Brad ,Jenkins, 1155 S.W. 11th St., Ontario, Oregon 889-3484. TYPE: SST 1008 SAIL PATTERN: Red, orange, yellow, wl1ite. WHERE & Kitclier, Idaho, on January 18 or 19. CON'fACT: Breck, % Wills Wing Inc., 1208-H East Walnut St., Ana, CA 92701 (714) 547·1344.

TYPE: LEAF World Cup Stnd. 16V2-15, Serial #5500. SAil PATTERN: Keel out; dk. blue, yellow, orange, dk. blue. TYPE: LEAF World Cup Stnd. 20-18, 244 sq ft. SAIL PATTERN: White sail with blue sleeves and keel pocket. DISTINGUISHING Blue control bar and kingpost; wheels. WHERE ll, WHEN: December 16, Col. Spgs, Col. CONTACT: Leading Edge Air Foils, 331 S. 14th St., Col. Spgs, Col. 80904.

TYPE: Wills Wing SST, #807, without control bar. SAIL l'AITERN: All white with orange and yellow panel. WHERE Iii WHEN: 27th, Sandy, Utah. CONTACT: Wasatch Wings, (801)

U.P. SUN BIRD

Riser avai

Used glider Safe small 1st with glider purchase.

TYPE: Seagull IV 1 #6435. SAIi. PATTERN: Keel out; Blue, white, white, blue. TYPE: Seagull #7149. SAIL Blue, gold, blue, gold, blue. & WHEN: Stolen from Windtiaven in Van Nuys, Calif. in early March. CON'fACT: Winclhaven Sl<Y School, 12437 San Fernando Rd., Sylmar, Ca. 91432. (213) 367-1819. Cash Reward.

TYPE: Seagull 111 Z· 19. SAIL PI\ITERN: Yellow sail with black keel panel and black WHERE & WHEN: December, Wells, Nevada. Freedom Sprts, 516 Idaho St., Elko, Nevada 89801

dealers for: LL

UFM (fi

THE ULTIMATE EXPRESSION OF GLIDING EXPERff!NCE. A fun shirt silk na<:Kgrmmo Makes $4.50 + .50 to: "Soar" Wilson, Adelphi, MD 20783.

TYPE: Cumulus 10. SAIL PATTERN: Yellow sail with black leading TYPE: Olympus. SAIL PATTERN: All yellow on one side gold, orange, dark blue, light blue, white, white, on second side. & WHEN: Both kites were stolen out of John Dunham's truck while in San Diego in early March. $100 reward ottered by Electra Flyer for the return of the Olympus. CONTACT: Eipper-Formance, Electra Flyer, or ,John Dunham, Reno Hang Gliders, 960 Matley Lane, Reno, NV 89502. (702) 323-3456.

Eco Milan, Mich. Taken 17390 Redman Rd., Milan,

484-1210. As a service to the hang gliding community, HANG GLIDING Magazine is publishing (free) information on stolen gliders. If your glider is missing, send us a complete description along witl1 your address and phone number to: USHGA, Box 66306, Los AngeJes, CA 90066.

AUGUST 1977

The Bicentennial The National Profile: Chuck

HANG GLIDING

<II

- -

' •

Experience what others only claim. We invite you to test fly tlrn Seagull glidnr dosignnd for you. Light to heavy pilot weight, Hang 1 to Hang 4-cross country, marginal ridgn soaring to high wind thermallin9, there is a Sea9ull 9lider that will take you up and away to undreamed of controllability and performance.

All Seagull gliders are designed to meet HG MA specifications. Materials are certified by the FAA for aircraft use. Special construction and deflector system produces the security you need for turbulent cross country flights.

Move your eyes along the flowinu lines of the Seagull 10m. As in the family tradition, it represents a smooth aerodynamic curve, accented by the finish only one of the oldest and experienced manufacturers could pro· duce; a bird of beauty, a joy forever. TH

THE 10m SOARING SHIP

SEAGULL 10m

THE

Seagull evolution has produced this latest cross country glider for Hang 4 pilots. A pacesetter for our '77 line of soaring ships.

At last, a high performance glider for Hann 1 to Hang 4 pilots. Docile and smooth in response for beginners, yet affords a glide and sink by expert pilots.

All SEAGULL GLIDERS ARE BALLOON DROP TESTED

Will SEND COMPLETE DETAILS WRITE TO:

3021 AIRPORT AVENUE CA 90405

151

remember in ,Jan. 1973 ofhia at 360's, trying to learn how not to fall out of them. summer the scoffed the 200.ft. hill, and those remaining left when conditions arrived; but Bob out on one downwind take .. off after another, establish, the very he and his group ended with an impromptu spot contest. Hard and his equipmcmt's capabili. situations others would not try. And it him the consistency that made him real pioneer. SOULE ACCIDENT PROBF.: of Stuart Soule's fatal accident indicates that his Sirocco had been an unusual point of such that at stall it would snap it.'l nose under, well vertical, without warning or time for pilot reaction. Apparently Stuart ignored some clues of m· may missed them because of unique cockpit arrangement of bis own design which he flew with his legs much as his which required nose,heavy trim to obtain leg back tuning since has been found to be affected lntmid, which to one of many contributing Sirocco certainly to be absolved from defined tips have and very carefully blame, written·section on tuning is for the owuer's manual. MORE ";.;:,,,,,,.,,,.," Stick" batten around Hl78"74 probably "interior truncation, but did not use Cronk sciparately suggested the idea to "'"'"'""" at the 1976 Nationals, what lm already had hoard. And Manta was apparently the first to put the idea into with NORTHEASTERN ·-Mount Washington (4,500ft. drop) in northern open again It is under control with USHGA Hang-IV and all required before with a It heist high sits over it, killing all but thermal ""'"'"""''" turbulence (so bad you couldn't put on it) toll with

an you can only go up before 8:,!0 but once the glider on top you time. there's restaurant, shops, and derby,Jike "Alpine Slide." I Morningside Rec. Area Claremont, has manager in Steve Marshall, and 1rnw office phone: (608) I Mitteraill Mar Franconia, N.H., following the sue· Qualifier there, has heen closed due to endless insur, running the ski lift. lt is not known ifhike,up will bo tolerated by the management. I The Vermont H.G.A. has been site at Snake Mtn. near Addison, with takeoffs, and '°''"'"''"'·'L for more info. I Force has put out a warning to flyers not to linger in front of the Truro radar station on Cod. to Assoc. Press, two Air Force wiw$

HANG GLIDINC;

raised quite a ruckus in local newspaper over from microwave ovenlike radiation. vicinity have been torn down. ll.,",n,,,.a.,.11,, the Massachusetts Aeronautics Commission has post· its review of with eye imposing some state rules. Meanwhile, the state of Vermont preparing to reopen flying sites on stat<, land under ment with the Vt. to rate sites, and that participating flyen; have USHGA Hang This will be the most important relationship in the country between flyers and state government. 'I'he Connecticut H.G.A. found that its state legislature has research bureau to which legislators for information on new subjects. [t be idea in your state to find ifthere is a sirni, larunit, and then stock it with information on the sport and lation against the day that your has reason to review the sport. NEW ENGLAND SERVICE That rrn:orded message mentioned here previously (603) 654,680] has been to three mins. of'l'erry Sweeney on weather and yours truly on news and coming events. GROMMETS Sometimes grommets are put into sails with force to start th11 fabric, an bad no reinforcement or grommet. hood of trouble increases with use, so keep checking yours. ISSUES The caption on page of the ,July HG indicates an version problem only with motorized flex wings. The ently exists to some extent in all tail-less, triangle designs, especially those which are statically tail heavy (you know at launch before inflation if yours is one). I Another for ukraRiser with twin 12,hp lots oftowpilot in case his charge noses in. / As for John Halcrow's lc"tter on "Avoidiug Aircraft," I'd be bitterly to any effort to establish reserved hang zon!Js as in aerobatics, skydiving, and sailplane flying. Symbols on tion sectional chart.s to indicate llndefined areas of intense hang glider activity wouldn't be a bad idea. But tolling pilot skydiver that yoll think special zones are good idea, be ready to wipe spit from your eye" If zones do reduce accidents, l imagine it's because they tremendously and thus reduce the amount of flying all do to think done. We aren't going to get outlawed, hut about mixing carefully with conventional aircraft, for which of Mr. Halcrow's letter does fine job. Have two confirming comments from pilots of unusual with blue Dacron in their experience. And a balloon pilot told about the deterioration of!ight blue Nylon in his balloon before the fabric of other colors, Our problem does not appear to be structural at all, hut says the FAA may force balloon manufacturers to give custlm1ers report on the rates of deterioration of various colors of Nylon as the result of bad experience with light blue, llpparently more susceptible to ultraviolet radiation damage than all other colors. Would hearing if anyone has anything concrete on this. l<:NU, WITH A F'LARK"·· There's a rumor that watchers of 'I'V Jato movies have heen getting treated to commercial foaturing hang to prornote Hanitary something about "the new dom." Now, that some kind of indication of new for the sport or what?! NEWS/OPINION-" Write c/o Flight Resources Co,op, Wilton, N.H. 0:3086.

I J fl B.

C Custom-up to

I I 141t 18" Double brolded rope chain- $40,

STEA UNG

Fl. 11 B, Sterling 18" Double braided rope choin,, $'10,

Est'1mate on Custom order

Brochure

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at home on your local dirt fiE:ld, and lake it times the of the wind. CONVENIENT tensile frame can be cartc,p~>ed and

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H EMPORIUM, Inc BOX 249 H lSLlP, N Y l Tm

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AUGUST 1977

Once

21/2 weeks

In 1976 and 1977, CIRRUS has compiled a competition In. cessful (almost it is the most sweeping glider around tt,e Consider that, in many the CIRRUS won out of its class, or scored the most points of ing glider, In its own class, it is practically NO Then why don't we constantly promote the CIRRUS contest ship? to be an The CIRRUS was primarily handling, high but docile hang glider. for the fun flyer, pilot who seeks the smooth soaring flight For the men or women who fly the quiet sl<ies for the sheer enjoyment of it The CIRRUS is that kind of machine. It can carry you above the earth, or enable you to cruise thru task and onto the bullseye. For it is without question most sought-after forming intermediate glider ever. CIRRUS!

700 Comanche NE NM 87107