Home
Flightsail
Popular Mechanics, January issue of 1963. Hence, activity was at least in 1962 for the target tech of concern.
Who, what, where, when, why? Anyone?
CARE is suggested strongly in distinguishing the first Flightsail from later versions that were quite different. It is of high interest that the first Flightsail followed closely the Fleep wing. And the date of make and show are telling for sport hang gliding use of the Rogallo-NASA-Ryan-inspired four boomer.
I want to be careful about possible confusion with Tom Rurcell (deceased) and his doings, if such is different. Tom had in 1970-circa an advanced homebuilt amphian. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_Dyn ... htsail_VII I talked to Tom on the phone before he died. Francis Rogallo's first solo flight apparently was in a Purcell Flightsail. STORY. The author has a serious error in his article about Dickenson; Dickenson never did the cliff flying that the author noted. Only Palmer did such flying, but not a cliff, but a hill. The article was published in 1998; somehow the author got wrong information. Rather Dickenson from Sept 1963, late in the game, did towed ski kiting; that error of rash inclusion for "both" in "they both took flight by jumping from cliffs like birds" gave erroneous note; sorry, JD, you do not get that one either. The article: How To Fly Without A Plane
A WOULD-BE AVIATOR WHO COULDN’T GET A PILOT’S LICENSE INVENTED HANG-GLIDING INSTEAD
Robert Zimmerman, Spring 1998 | Volume 13, Issue 4 ////????of what organ??? Invention & Technology. Fact checking on such cliff jumping was poor. No such foot launching for Dickenson in 1963-7; GH tries to have JD have a hop in some parking lot jump before leaving kiting. AND a second large error in the paragraph is the stark neglect to chronicle Mike Burns who would fit between Purcell and Dickenson. And the author apparently did not have the more important James Hobson story that was splashed nationally in USA on TV and in E.A.A. Sport Aviation magazine in 1962. Palmer and Hobson were the early foot launchers; Australians did not foot launch until 1969 in Bill Moyes with snow skies, and someone later finally with shoes only with the sliding skis. Palmer and Hobson. But Purcell was in the mix with the Flightsail.
Tom Purcell in 1961 saw the Fleep images in
Popular Mechanics, November issue of 1961. 270 pages. Vol. 116, No. 5 ISSN 0032-4558 If Tom had the sport kite-glider that was featured in the January issue of 1963, then it feels like Tom is the Flight Dynamics, Inc. center that we seek.
Or other companies of similar name might have existed.
I do not know yet if the Morisville, NC, corporation is the target company or not.
The target company apparently had a Rogallo-NASA-Ryan-inspired kite-glider for sport use where the apparent main use was as an over-water pontooned kite-glider. But aim is to know more.
Later one would see a similar device in Australia with Mike Burns in Aerostructures with his Rogallo-NASA- Ryan inspired four-boomer Ski Plane (or ? SkiPlane) of early 1963 forward (some modelling in 1962). No foot launching by Mike Burns.
:arrow:
"Purcell studied engineering at North Carolina State University. In 1961 Purcell, using photographs of Rogallo’s design from a magazine article, constructed a sixteen-foot-wide glider with an aluminum frame that he tested by towing it behind an automobile at the Raleigh-Durham Airport. Purcell called Rogallo one day, and the two engineers agreed to meet. When Purcell arrived at NASA, he was surprised to find himself surrounded by engineers who were asking numerous questions about his FlightSail glider. Purcell had figured out how to do something that NASA had not—achieve stability in a towed glider. He continued to work on his glider. He replaced the wheels with floats for towing it behind aspeed boat. He flew the pontoon glider for the first time at Lake Waccamaw on July 26,1962. It worked so well that he never went back to land-based liftoffs again. This was the first water-based use of the Rogallo wing"
Well, Palmer and Hobson ... foot launchers. Purcell towing over land and water. Paresev: towing high with astronauts. AND ONLY LATER: Burns. And then later still Dickenson for towing over water in ski kites. All were Rogallo-NASA-Ryan-inspired projects. Hobson had the A-frame like earlier John Worth and others earlier like in 1908. Unfortunately GH forty 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, tear down that phony "inventor" wall! Sooner than later; and help clean up the mess you made in FAI, HGFA, and USHPA.
