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Tony Prentice

pioneer hang glider designer, builder, pilot

School group photo: 
http://www.friendsreunited.co.uk/archbishop-temples-form-n3-1960-1961/Memory/7b86c352-bdff-47d8-9ecd-2c48aa04388e 
Age 13, first on left on third row.    At that age he designed, built, and flew his first hang glider; his inspiration roots were fully independent of Rogallo influence.

Related story on SplitWing and its designer/builder/pilot Tony Prentice:

TP01  Location:- Darenth sand pit.
Keel push from Derek launches me off the side of the sand pit.

TP02  Location:- Brasted
Slope soaring

TP04  Location:- Darenth sand pit
Overhead

TP07  Location:-Darenth sand pit
Working the shallow slope

TP08 Location:- Brasted
Novice pilot trying out a ground loop - no damage done to pilot or glider

TP10  Location:- Darenth sand pit
Into flight

TP15  Location:-Darenth sand pit
Launch with assisted keel push

TP20  Location:- Darenth sand pit
Pre-flight checks

TP21 Location:- Brasted
Too much push out by novice flyer but wing still flying at very high AoA.

TP22   Location:- Brasted
Preparing to launch

TP24  Location: Brasted
Skimming down the slope

Tony is mentioned in the following post of May 16, 2013, in reply to a problem in hang gliding history:

Sorry, GH, not even the first of "modern" hang gliders. Way off. Your hug to JD is so tight that you seem not to be able to take in anything but your untenable thesis. Boy smashes glass bottle and runs away; an org looks at the broken glass and declares: there is broken glass and publishes such; others look at the published statement about the broken glass and derives statements: "broken glass is there." Seeding boy says, "Don't blame me, I had nothing to do with that third-party statement." GH, the record is there; you broke the glass and now have a habit of running away from the matter. Consider taking responsibility; become a hero and use your powers to 'fess up to the orgs, support the counterexamples, and just let the raw good story of JD fly. With your pointed leadership and a hoped-for enlightened JD, perhaps a strong wave of correction can be made. FAI-CIVL may even lose its entire life, if it does not see through what you have brought to test the FAI; FAI hiding its head on the matter will be a sad story. But FAI could become better and stronger if it faces the challenge your actions have initiated. Will you form a new initiative, a new campaign, to bring on a better FAI and hang gliding history sector in orgs in our community? Hope so.

Sorry, GH, 
The root source of the untrue slide statement in the video was from the results of your bully tactics in Australia.
 The slide will be changed by the publisher soon. Cost: About five persons and some 10 man hours. But the damage will cost others even more time. Community costs of poor journalism is high. 

And in your note above, you continue to state an untenable. 
The tinkered ski kite glider of JD simply was not the first of modern hang gliders; you continue such false statements in your tunnel vision. The seed of the hang gliders of today does not rest in JD (he was part of a flow that had already been seeded); and not one of your over ten untenable claims for JD hold…each is a false claim. The cost to correct your seeded false statements is tremendous; your campaign tired HGFA and your campaign seeded the result of awards that hold untenable historical statements. You seem to refuse to incorporate historical facts while trying to melt your untenables into an avalanche of facts in hopes that such non-sequitors and association will "win" the applause of the untenables. Well, you do win the infamy of hoaxer regarding the untenable claims for your fav JD. He was certainly not the first in the modern renaissance of hang gliding to use well the Rogallo-NASA-Ryan-USArmy-Marine-inspired four boomer with A-frame; others showed the full tech before JD started his tinkering. All the tech and show was in public domain, shown internationally and even foot-launched before JD started. Those earlier were seeds in the visions and minds of thousands. JD did his project and became part of the later good flow; there is no problem with that good flow. The problem is the set of untenables that you bullied into HGFA and subsequent resultants of FAI, USHPA, and a French low-scruity flow. You do not well utilize professional-level invention logic. 

You do not put into timelines the facts that counter your untenables. 
JD has become partners with you on the awful flat face to hang gliding that has resulted from your bullied set of untenables that will wreak havoc on the creative face of hang gliding history for a very long time until a groundswell from the ranks counters you and boycotts FAI until real leadership occurs in FAI for historical accuracy; until then your awful untenable seed set has won infamy for you and JD; enjoy the minutes of infamy while you can, as the final legacy … hopefully will be a robust showing of your record and the low scrutiny of org rubber stampers. Yes, the video student error came from the untenable seed you placed into our hang gliding community; such types of errors will be published many times over. If you care about the hang gliding community as a whole, please consider working with the HGFA and FAI-CIVL to correct matters. And consider correcting all your statements on the Internet that have counterexamples. Consider one-by-one retracting the ten or more untenables of your first article on JD; and then go from there and correct other false claims you made during your raw bully-push campaign. Keep facts that show a good story; and there is yet a good story for JD, but you have deeply muddied his story with your multitude of untenable interpretive claims for him. The cost that others are going through to bring out corrections is considerable; there is a good side to the effort, though, as simply more hang gliding history gets exposed. Now is the time to get even more history out solid: "tear down that Wall" and become a corrector, GH.

~Joe Faust

NMERider, very neat selection on that urban-bee video story! Thanks for posting its link. ~JoeF

 

The full robust story of what led to the boon in hang gliding in the 60s and 70s of former century will be a play of thousands of actors. 
Following some of the actors gives just PART of the robust story; the full story is HUGE and worth the effort to many to fly through it. The one-person sticky bias will surely miss the FULL story terribly. Because of GH's tunnel vision and love for one JD combined with his YELL and BULLY tactics, the Internet is stressed by ever having to counter the one-person JD set of tilted and oft deeply inaccurate statements. When the yell and push is so loud and forceful, where is there space to enjoy the rich full story? And when the single-person push headlines a deep-core creative aspect in an untenable capsule that gets picked up and morphed over and over again, the task of seeing the robust fuller story gets challenging. Having to counter false statements brings fruit of clarity and will forever be part of the history of getting the story out. Those who invest to correct are part of the blessing. It is hoped that many will continue to unfold the full hang gliding history while also correcting matters that will surely rise to be challenging. By the tension that has been brought by GH efforts, we both know more about one guy in our community than we would have; but we also have a pile of untenables that gain a life of their own that pull time and effort to correct. The one-person-sticky loud bias source has its credibility challenges. Differently, anyone missing the over ten large flows that brought on the boon or renaissance will short herself or himself of a great time and adventure. 

One can only mention one thing at a time, perhaps. When there are thousands of things in the Big Story, one at a time still occurs. Adventurers in the story of hang gliding history are invited to collect their own timeline of what interests them. Record facts. Record who and what and when. Record connections and audiences and influences. Let flow the over-ten large rivers of hang gliding activity that fed the mid-century renaissance, an event that was actually a continuation of many hang gliding influences. Watch out for tunnel visions in interpreters, so as not to miss the waves of merit from the thousands of actors who merit attention of blessing to our hang gliding history. Take your time. Have fun. Model. Run. Jump. Build. Inspect. Launch. Fly. Land. … and more. ~JpF

==============================edit an hour later: 
http://www.ushawks.org/forum/download/file.php?id=1977

Almost three years before the start of JD tinkering; Ryan matter, courtesy of San Diego Air and Space Museum: 
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3069/5765392667_5c6fa19c8c.jpg
http://www.ushawks.org/forum/download/file.php?id=1960
The clip text is from a document published and distributed to a vast distribution list: AD 297214
Reproduced by the Armed Services Technical Information Agency
Arlington Hall Station
Arlington 12, Virginia

U. S. Army Transportation Research Command
Fort Eustis, Virgina
TCREC Tecnical Report 62-3G
FLEXIBLE-WING CARGO GLIDERS
VOLUME II
tASK 9r38-01-017-72
Contract DA 44-177-TC-779
September 1962

Prepared by RYAN AEROSPACE
A Division of The
RYAN AERONAUTICAL COMPANY
San Diego, California

============The study was for four masses of payload, one of which was with a payload of 250 lb, others were heavier. In the document they pointed to full understanding of man-carrying and took direct effort to bring the experiments up to the safety level required for man-carrying. 
http://www.ushawks.org/forum/download/file.php?id=1958

Started earlier and pre-announced, and then published and broadcasted in September 1962 
http://www.ushawks.org/forum/download/file.php?id=1516
Nationally televised. And internationally shown via EAA in Sport Aviation. Foot-launched. Shared. Nine years later seeded the Self-Soar Association office. 
Fat year before JD tinkered!
 

Well, priority on build, show, and tell: 
Some, incomplete list of those using the public-domain arts: … some were even foot launchers!
Tony Prentice of age 13 (not NASA related; only kite and glider history inspired), 
John Worth, 
Cecil E. Craigo, 
Peter F. Girard , 
Barry Hill Palmer , 
Thomas Purcell in his first Flightsail towing over land and water.
and James Hobson 
Paresev team and crew and associates in project: towing and gliding high with astronauts; eight pilots total in that program , and others …(incomplete list of the priors)
AND ONLY LATER:
 Mike Burns. 
And then later still Dickenson for towing over water in ski kites. 

All in that short priority list except Prentice were Rogallo-NASA-Ryan-inspired projects. Hobson had the A-frame like earlier John Worth and others earlier like in 1908. Unfortunately GH forty-plus or so years later would push a false "inventor" claim and at least ten other false claims for the Dickenson project. But notice that in first decade of 1900s Gustave Whitehead taught hung pilot in seat behind downtubes and basebar in battened flex-wing hang glider! And in Breslau a very simple battened hang glider, the very cable-stayed A-frame control system we use today. 

GH, for the sake of a rich face for hang gliding and not a flat untenable face, please tear down that phony "inventor" wall and wash off the untenable claims! The unexamined provisional application and the over-generous historical fumble of FMR that you use to unfairly promote untenables do not bring validity to the untenable title you have foisted on JD for our hang gliding community. Sooner than later get on a helpful path for change; and help clean up the mess you made in FAI, HGFA, and USHPA, and our hang gliding history community. You can fly, yes you can…on this rework… without the hoax; help clean up the legacy before JD takes the Next Thermal; now is a good time just before the coming memorial for Hobson on Otto Lilienthal's birthday; good time to make an interior change and decision to get things sans the phony hoax. Even if you make the change, GH, it will take considerable effort and years to clear the historical airs. Infamy is probably less satisfying than merited honor; there is yet opportunity to merit hang glider history honor for yourself in a correcting of the JD "legacy" that has been tilted by you and presumably accepted by JD.

 

FLIGHT DYNAMICS, INC.
Instructions for building and flying
the Flightsail MK 1. Appl. author:
Thomas H. Purcell, Jr.
© Flight Dynamics, Inc.; 1 May62; A580421

Many morphs of control method. Many later morphs of machines.

FOR MUCH MORE, go to US Hawks forum in history section at topic "Flight Dynamics, Inc."  and follow Thomas H. Purcell, Jr. .
FlightSail, first version flew on Oct. 27, 1961. He was PIC.