Attention LIFT visitor:  This page of will grow; that is, what you see this day will probably be less than what you see when you visit this item again some other day.   This is an experimental type of article made possible by the Internet.     The article is an enhanced production from page 1-3 in  Hang Glider Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 1,  published by Joe Faust on January 12, 1979,  ISSN 0146-3772, USPS Pub. No. 077-210 (formerly Hang Glider Weekly, vol. 5,  Nos. 11 and 12; the issue had cover photographs of the Quadruplane (sic, alt. Quadraplane) presented for advancing hang gliding by Larry Hall and Evan Hall.  The "Preface" was printed and is shared again now along with Larry Hall's full text as also published.   

What kinds of changes over time will be seen in this enhanced experiment?   Linking will grow. Bolding and highlighting will occur.  Illustration linking will occur. Linked commentary will grow. Comments form readers will be linked from this item. Comments beyond the original text will be placed in square brackets: "[comments]" Projects stemming from the Quadraplane project will be linked.  The original Quadraplane parts are in some hangar. 

Cover photo included left to right: Art Anderson, Terry Lobochefsky, Jed Hall, Larry Hall, Don Beuch, Klaus Hill. Photo by Evan Hall.  [Klaus Hill of Morgan, Utah, d. 1979. Ref1  Ref2  Ref3 ]

Preface letter from Larry Hall:

Dear Joe, Here is an article on the Quadruplane. The introduction is by Richard Miller and the rest by myself.  The pictures were take by Evan Hall at the Point of the Mountain near Salt Lake City.  (Typeset of same article, courtesy of Soaring Magazine, Jan. issue; halftones herein by Hang Glider Magazine of Santa Monica, Calif.)
 

[Richard Miller gave the following preface:]
For anyone interested in gliding and soaring flight, the early 1970s were a special time. The most obvious, or at least most visible reason for this was the high-performance fiberglass sailplane, for by that time all the innovations and developments that had been refined in the previous decades, most notably laminar-flow airfoils and monocoque construction, came together in aircraft of superb performance and stunning beauty.  Anyone who had participated in the long development that had begun a half century earlier on the Wasserkuppe [Notice page 3 photo of evolutes of the Horten flying wing; notice then the Conduit Condor of Richard Miller at the big Otto Meet and his Thistledown footlaunch sailplane in the PhotoFly photo of Low & Slow No. 12 centerfold; and compare Frank Colver's Skysail hang glider also in the PhotoFly; in many ways 2009 hang gliding is reaching to find what was known ...] , or who was able to appreciate the magnitude of the problems that had been overcome in those fifty years, could look at the end product with a sense of great satisfaction.

But there was a shadow to this bright picture.  The fiberglass sailplane was both complex and expensive to manufacture, and working alone only the most exceptional individuals, of whom there were less than a handful, could muster the energy, the knowledge, and the capital required to produce such an aircraft, so the jb was transferred increasingly to factory workers.  To the degree this happened, the homebuilder, the individual with the desire to realize his own dream, found himself less able to design and build his own personal flying machine. 

The ultralight movement, the beginnings of which were the other noteworthy event of the early 1970s [Movements to ultralights actually were fact from 1800s forward; Miller is expressing his own immediate experience of a giant movement that had roots in distant past decades. Proof of concept for triangle control bar with aft hung pilot for battened sailed hang glider occurred in the first decade of 1900s; flying wing advance in Horten Brothers and others occurred early in the 1900s; Volmer Jensen and the Popular Mechanics supported hang glider fad gave a hang gliding movement on top of the sport's roots in such as Otto Lilienthal. JpF. Ref1   Ref2  Ref3  Ref4 Ref5  Ref6 Ref7  The two world wars slowed some foot launch hang gliding, but did not stop the movement or sport specifically initiated at least by Otto Lilienthal and given impetus by many others in each decade following him.] changed all that.

 [...More to come ...*]

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Striplin FLAC (standing for Foot Launched Air Cycle). Two Soarmaster engines.

Lazair, Mitchell Wing, FLAC, Easy Riser, Fledgling or Fledge by Klaus Hill    ... mfg by Manta Products, Hummer,

Evolute ... Super Floater   mfg by US Aviation

Klaus Hill was a German sailplane

Pterodactyl designer Jack McCornack