US Hawks Hang Gliding Association

Fifty years ago today, November 5th 1971, I began construction of my hang glider design which I called the Colver Skysail. A photo of my son Matt flying it appeared on the cover of Popular Science magazine but I don't know who took the photo so I can't give credit. It may have been prolific HG photographer, Bill Allen. Other photos are of initial construction in my driveway 1971.

This rigid wing had the general shape of many of today's hang gliders so I've often wondered what would have taken place if I had made it a flex-wing instead of a rigid wing?

Frank Colver

This is a frame from "Big Blue Sky":



The base tube in this photo seems to be much higher than in the flight photo above. Was the base tube adjustable, or was this just an earlier version?

Good question. Probably a different version. I went through more control bar variations than any other part of the glider, even ending up with parallel bars as the last configuration.

Frank

Frank Colver wrote:Fifty years ago today, November 5th 1971, I began construction of my hang glider design which I called the Colver Skysail.

You were at least 7 years ahead of me Frank. I made my first hang gliding flights in the fall of 1978.

Frank Colver wrote:I went through more control bar variations than any other part of the glider ...

That reminds me of my senior group project in college. I built a hang glider model for our group to study in a wind tunnel (late 1982 or early 1983). The wind tunnel available had the fan blades at the back of the tunnel, so it pulled the air through the test section which produced cleaner air flow over the model. The only downside to that arrangement was that anything that might break off the model would end up in the fan blades - a VERY expensive catastrophe!

In order to minimize any chance of failure, I welded all the joints of the frame of my hang glider model. It turned out great except for one problem ... it was VERY difficult to make any changes to the airframe to test different variations. The only thing that was relatively easy to change was the control bar, so that's what we experimented with for the project. That was far less ambitious than we had originally hoped, but it did earn us a passing grade. At that point in our grueling studies, we were happy enough to pass and graduate.