Hang Glider Timeline EnterData

[HGH home] [Timeline introduced] [EnterData + ] 1900 through 1939
Early-to-1799 1800s 1900-1939 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s

1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909
1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919
1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929
1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939

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[Gratitude--affirm PG and HG roots ]

Hang Glider History Timeline EnterData +
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timeline@hanggliderhistory.com

Notes: Link prefix with "g" is a generalized Google search.
Prefix with a "w" is a leading Wikipedia file on topic.

Books and Art

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CHARLES H. LAMSON
Kites, gliders, hang gliders, aeroplanes would have option of having two, three, or more surfaces for flying purposes. Propulsion could be by the pull of gravity of a hanging pilot.

Complex: Wrights "hang" from upper wing, but don't hang on the lower wing of biplane aircraft. This hybrid aircraft is partly hang glider and partly non-hang glider. An aim toward powered flight brings on a complex.

???

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KITE
OR
FLYING MACHINE

VICTOR
TARCZAL

Just hang the hang glider pilot at the right hang point to get the glider flying machine.
Patent number: 701644
Filing date: May 13, 1901

Let there be metal and ribs of metal and still foldability...
Patent number: 724402 Filing date: Jul 5, 1902

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METAL KITE-FRAME JOHN H. STEIN

1902

Use that gravity force to slow the fall!

FLYING-MACHINE ORVILLE WRIGHT
and Wilbur Wright
Patent number: 821393
Filing date: Mar 23, 1903

1903

Jan Lavezzari's separated double-sails hang glider. Berck Beach, France. Feb/15/1904.
Octave Chanute DiscussHERE
MEANS FOR AERIAL FLIGHT OCTAVE CHANUTE

AEROPLANE John J. Montgomery

U. S. Patent number: 831173
Filing date: Apr 26, 1905
[ The "G" device is for feet to control things; do not confuse "G" with a buttock seat.]

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Carl Bates learned powered-plane flying skills. He built more glider this year and next.

FLYING TOY LYNN B. MATTESON

EnterData

http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/images/a0701ellehammer_350.jpg Must see!
Jakob Ellehammer's flight, September 12, 1906 Fully-battened biplane
More
http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/images/ellehammer_crew_350.jpg
Jakob Ellehammer, aeroplane and crew, 1906
http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/images/ellehammer_kitetest_500.jpg
Kite experiments to define the 'upper sail'
Fuselages to fit immediate needs were not the invention matter. http://www.usairnet.com/encyclopedia/Traian_Vuia.html Traian Vuia.
U.S. Patent #831,173 on September 18, 1906: John J. Montgomery

Charles Voisin, le Touquet, 1907, biplane hang glider: See:
[ Image: http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/images/voisin_01_350.jpg ] Visit: Voisin
Carl Bates established Bates Aeroworks. (aka: Bates Aeroplane Co. ???) For the next 10 years he would make engines for airplanes. He sold out the company to E. B. Heath Aerial Vehicle Company.

Click for the Wright patent. Control the equilibrium!
W. Simon supplied the fundamental global mechanicals of a most simple control system for kite hang gliders precluding anyone following from "inventing:" our A-frame or triangle control frame or control frame that is so much in use in so many way. His hung pilot behind the cable-stayed A-frame for pendulum weight-shift control was later used in hang gliding by many thousands of people who mined the public domain on this matter. In 1908 Erich Schrader noted that W. Simon's was protected by law. But in time such became public domain.
Matthew B. Sellers patent on quadraplane hang glider
Some these links will be NOT dated to this year, but project others with four planes:

KITE AND SIMILAR AERIAL MACHINE

Tweedale

FLYING MACHINE Lee et al.
U. S. Patent number: 989786
Filing date: Feb 15, 1910
Issue date: Apr 1911
Inventor: Lee et al.
- Pre-Wanner
- Pre-NASA
- Pre-Paresev 1B
- Pre-Palmer
- Pre-Ryan
- Pre-Burns
- Pre-Dickenson
- Pre-Moyes
- Pre-Bennett
- Pre-Rogallo
Weight shift coupled with wing ailerons: See article on letter to the editor.
Often, but not always, as users proved in their hang gliding flights and even powered flights of that decade.
Building up the aviation bag of tricks possibly useful for any designer: Warrick offers:

FLYING MACHINE
US Pat. 1022903 - Filed Sep 23, 1910
FLYING MA.CHINE. ... MACHINE ...
Brace the triangle down tubes and base bar with cables.

Have another triangle with wheels on it for landing.

Decide to drop the propeller. Let the pilot be hung below acting as a gravity engine.

Notice two uses of the 19th Century Pratt truss; we will see wheels on a hang glider triangle control bar stayed with cables having the vertical members in compression.
Gyroplane Patent number: 1040136 Filing date: Aug 3, 1911
Issue date: Oct 1912 Inventor: Brown
SAFETY ALIGHTING ATTACHMENT
FOR FLYING MACHINES
JEAN FRANCIS WEBB

Presaging rescue parachutes for hang gliders.

San Francisco Chronicle 1911 Feb 23 Drawing of strutted triangle control bar in a biplane hang glider; female pilot sitting on a sling. (Ken de Russy collection)
1911 glider flight by Wright brother. Tensional from upper wing, but compressional on lower wing: thus, this is a "hybrid" hang glider with controls.
FLYING-MACHINE ALFRED THEODOR ZEISE Flying machine
---human-powered hang glider:
Patent number: 1052199
Filing date: Dec 1, 1911
Issue date: Apr 1913
Inventor: ALFRED
THEODOR ZEISE
AEROPLANE Dorsette A. Davison, (Online has spelling error 'Davidson' while the patent has the correct spelling of "Davison". Also, the online filing has "Aesoplane" but the patent has "Aeroplane")
filed December 14, 1911:
U. S. Patent 1,038, 306

AERODROME JAMES TRAVIS U. S. Patent number: 997521 Filing date: Mar 7, 1911
[How much will human power play in the coming history of hang gliding? Ornithoptering and pedaling to propellers....and storage of human power...???]

1911

Carl Bates sold his airplane company to E. B. Heath Aerial Vehicle Company (Edward Bayard Heath). (Caution: Search more to clarify whether this action occurred in 1912 or 1913; there is a note that Ed Heath founded his company in 1913. [ ] )

Ed Heath: E. B. Heath Aerial Vehicle Company: ... company sold airplanes with or without engines in kits ... an idea that would affect the minds of hang glider companies in later eras. The series of Parasols with monoplane high wing had the pilot tensionally (albeit with rigid tension structure) hung beneath the high wings. Later named Heath Airplane Company.
See A-framing in parasol aircraft: http://www.aviation-history.com/heath/files/Heath7.jpg
See the flow of common A-frame arts in 1928 aviation: http://www.aviation-history.com/heath/Heath_Parasol.htm Carl Bates started out in hang gliding and then sold his company to Ed Heath.

June 25, 1914, L'Aero journal notes on an airplane that uses a wing control that interests us. Louis de Monge modified a "De Perdussin" airplane. What does this have to do with hang gliding?

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The descriptions in a patent are often more important than the limiting drawings; claims can be very extensive. In the following patent, some hang glider designers (free-flight dynamic free-falling anchor--the hang glider pilot-- kites ) may derive important insights for foldability of the whole of a hang glider or a part of a hang glider by studying a patent. Marcus P. Exline indicates some novel means to have a foldable wing. M. P. EXLINE U. S. Patent: 1166750 Filing date: Apr 9, 1915

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Perhaps building upon Hargrave's success and Bell's tets, etc., Lang prepares further foundations for the eventual Jalbert discoveries for paragliding and other aircraft systems:

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ANDREW LANG GRAHAM or A. L. GRAHAM
U. S. Patent number: 1223163 Filing date: Dec 14, 1916

Toy gliders guide human minds. The airplanes and glider of Germany and U.S. keep gliders on the market for children. Aeromodelling will continue to grow and prepare the world for increased use of gliders. Toy stores would never again be without toy gliders for youth.
TOY AEROPLANE OB GLIDER
MATHEW B. MCINNIS
U. S. Patent number: 1400224
Filing date: Nov 7, 1919
28 June 1919 Treaty of Versailles was signed. Effects on sport gliding in Germany would be important to the history of hang gliding sport. Discuss HERE.

Popular Science cover featured artwork of a tri-plane hang glider. The article title: " 'Glider' Coasting Is Newest Outdoor Sport" (Page 21). So, sport of hang gliding continues its modern growth.
Gyrocopter (toward gyro hang glider?) See gyroplane 1911. http://www.google.com/patents?id=JBc_AAAAEBAJ&dq
Patent number: 1361222
Filing date: Jan 23, 1920
Issue date: Dec 7, 1920
Inventor: EMILE BERLINER
Assignee: GYRO

1920 circa

Gottlob Espenlaub's first hang gliding competition at Wasserkuppe, Germany, 1921.gGE1 ..study as he deposits key control frame art for anyone to use..., even his hang glider's "A-frame" strutted, or based-W frame. Or cabled with kingpost or cantilevered---ways well worn in aviation already!

wiki:

1921

Gottlob Espenlaub 1922 delta hang glider: [wiki10]. During the Wasserkuppe 1921 hang gliding competition, he met Alexander Lippisch and both begun a collaboration on drafts and models of gliders and hanging gliders.
A. B. WILDER
U. S. Patent 1,490,356
Filing date: Dec 21, 1922

1922

http://www.akaflieg.tugraz.at/History/kef-l.html
Feeding the mind toward the triangle control bar beneath the wing. Take off the engine and replace the engine with a hung tethered falling pilot mass and leave the landing gear...and presto: http://www.google.com/patents?id=o25GAAAAEBAJ

Born: Donald K. Slayton ...destined to be a Paresev hanging glider pilot.
Born March 1, 1924. See the Paresev flight log (incomplete, but as complete as the the NASA history dept. can give to date). He was one of eight pioneering test pilots who flew the framed Rogallo wing designed by Charles Richard, which wing became a template for a class og hang gliders called the Standard Rogallo--which class was fed by many avenues of design flow around the world.

Born: Dr. Paul MacCready took the Next Thermal. Helios. Solar Challenger. Centurion ssaCentpc1 Paul B. MacCready, Jr. (September 25, 1925 - August 28, 2007) wPMcC1

Domina Jalbert receives pilot's license (626th to have such in USA) . He is destined to serve in war with huge dirigible kytoons and then shake the universe with ram-air airfoils to found the wing to be most popular for modern paragliding (in the sense of the term of 2007).
FOLDING KITE

Patent number: 1690362
Filing date: Apr 27, 1927

FOLDING KITE
CLARENCE NEIL DE WITT

Foldability of Rogallo-wing-using kites and gliders are very much thought about and solved prior to 1927 and after 1927, even before they realized that a Rogallo wing lived embedded in the framings!

Dr. George A. Spratt towed his single hang point glider on floats using a motorboat. 1929. [98][99]

Dr. George A. Spratt towed his single-hang-point glider on floats using a motorboat. 1929. [wiki 98][wiki 99]

wiki But notice that the triangle control bar is set to be part of the hang glider's wing control. The pilot/fuselage is freely hanging from the airframe; recall your first lesson in hang gliding where you let go of the airframe and let the wing/airframe fly in trim==you were meeting the legacy of George Spratt at that moment.
Read a Spratt patent ==> U.S. Patent 2623712 (click the first one on top, but explore the others as you have time and interest).

Notice that the triangle control frame is integrated firmly as part of the airframe with wing.
Notice that the fuselage is actually the combined masses of pilot, seat, tensional member that is pivoted and which is a holder of the pilot (think of harness and hang line which could even be stiffened as in Paresev 1B).
Notice that the pilot (part of fuselage) is tensionally hanging while being freely pivoting from a hang point during flight.

As the pilot--with all his other parts of his fuselage--initiates a push or pull fore or aft or left or right, then the relative attitude of the controlled wing with respect to the pendulumed fuselage results in a method of control for gliders, aircraft, kites, and hang gliders. This inventive gift forms a basis for the Paresev 1B hang glider, the SkiPlane, and modern hang gliders using the airframed triangle or U or based-W control parts. The fuselage is the pilot and the chosen payload (clothes, etc) hung tensionally leaving the control wing to rotate as needed for controlling flight by the hang glider pilot. Having this gift from Spratt or those before him, perhaps Gottlob Espenlaub and others, prevents others from being valid global invention claimants of the control system for aircraft and hang gliders. Look to Chanute for some feed toward the Spratt leadership. Click==> EnterData for that Chanute feed...+

Henri Mignet, Pou de Ciel, "Flying Flea" . Tests on HM2, HM 6, and HM9 : "pivoting wings". What does this have to do with hang gliding?

Soaring Society of America Its members and magazine files for published and unpublished matter forms a treasure for hang gliding.

HPA: "1933/5 Haessler & Villinger design MUFLI using external bracing for 5.5m wing. 1.5 prop with belt drive. Empty weight 34kg. Best flight 235m on 30.8.1935. Flights launched by tensioned cable, contained within nose. Later flights 427m on 17/11/1936 and 712m 4/7/1937 OVER 120 flights." http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/j_d_mcintyre/dates.htm See more there. w:HV-1 Mufli [ ] Did any in Mufli crew hang glide?

Dr. George A. Spratt died on November 24, 1934, from a heart attack; he had stopped his medical practice because of a heart ailment about 1895 or 1896 and began to dvote himself full time to the problem of human flight--about a 40-year reprieve doing something he loved doing about flying! His son George G. Spratt would continue in some controlwing works. Modern hang gliding uses the Chanute and Spratt controlwing technology as we lever the attitude of the wing even though we call it weight-shifting, we are generally the stable point pushing and pulling on the wing directly through the control frame.

GLIDER Sohn et al.
Patent number: 2067423
Filing date: Nov 7, 1935
Issue date: Jan 1937

1935

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"Helica" , Marcel Leyat constructs.... but Andre Jacquemin (mfg and pilot). Pivoting wings.

Bob Morse (clipping from Ken de Russy collection) "Flies 2,000 Feet In Hang-Type Glider Flying a home-built hang-glider of his own design, Bob Morese, of Los Angeles, Calif., claims to have made a flight of 2,000 feet during which the glider attained a heigh of more than 100 feet. The novel glider's frame is mounted on a single wheel and launching is accomplished by running downhill against the wind. Morse pilots his glider by movements of his body, to which the various flight control cables are strapped. "

1938