[wingspan33]

I started this thread, but haven't had the time to follow along as it's developed.

I did scan the top few posts on page two. Kai's post that speaks about the use of synthetic feathers is interesting, but birds (who know feathers intimately) molt (I believe) yearly. Old feathers go, new ones come in to take their place. It could be necessary to do the same with synthetic feathers. $ $ $ $ $

Also, natural feathers are VERY intricate mechanical devices. Trying to build/construct synthetic feathers, . . . ?

It may be eventually possible to "grow" a genetically modified biological (real!) feather that is much bigger than a smaller bird's feather, but sometimes weight vs strength alters (in a bad way) with a change in scale. And imagine the cost of just one of these biological "super feathers"?

I would also think that artificial feathers would infringe on the K.I.S.S. principle of design - and part of what I was looking for as far as ideas go.

But Man-O-Man are some intriguing ideas flowing here!

I would mention that keeping the NEW design ideas centered on what could be done with today's materials and technology is more likely to lead to improvements in design for next year's hang glider, or the year after that, . . .

Ideas that are impossible now (and for the foreseeable future) won't make Near Future hang gliders better.

Keep Thinking!

(I've got to find some time to post some of my ideas!)

[Rick Masters]

You guys aren't very smart. You aren't very skilled. You're not really very good pilots.
A pigeon makes better decisions faster and can fly circles around you. (Around me, too.)
What's wrong?
The generation of technology and materials we have been using for 45 years is about to become antiquated.
We are going to have to start thinking about starting over. We are going to have to begin redesigning everything.
A new day is about to arrive.
Imagine responsive wings, nearly alive, like a bird's wing - only hang glider sized!


Stanford researchers have developed a new material that can stretch to 100 times its original length by exposing it to an electric field, and even repair itself if punctured, making it potentially useful as an artificial muscle.
http://www.kurzweilai.net/super-stretchy-self-healing-material-could-lead-to-artificial-muscle?utm_source=KurzweilAI+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=9741202bd9-UA-946742-1&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6de721fb33-9741202bd9-282202041

[wingspan33]

Funny that you bring up artificial muscle. I've mentioned elsewhere that back in the late 1980s I wrote a dialog only "comic strip" for my then local HG club newsletter. The "strip" took place in the future. In one "episode" the main character (old timer HG pilot) describes how hang gliders didn't used to have synthetic muscles - to his young protegee. I've got a whole stack of those old newsletters somewhere. I should dig up that issue.

New materials are fantastic - but if a prototype cost $1 mill to develop, . . . the HG manufacturer involved would soon go bankrupt.

If only we had an unlimited NASA (in the late 1960s) type budget to work with!

New, yet affordable, materials on the other hand, . . .

[Bill Cummings]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txmKr69jGBk

Very Cool. Question:
Would this be a place I could post gravitational theories and ideas for flying that do not involve wings?
My ideas are not Anti-gravitatiional ideas. My ideas involve inversing gravity to attain flight.
Harnessing gravity in a controllable manner to attain flight in line with Natural law instead of against.
An assumption most make is that we have already identified all the natural laws of the universe.....yeah, right.

There is pottery from mexico that is 20,000 years old that show etchings of people in space suits and space craft visiting mexico long before it was Mexico.
Whatever species is depicted in those carvings or sketches were subject to the same laws of the universe as we are subject to.
I have two no-BS friends that have seen UFOs....
Both sightings describe an object hovering in the sky at very low altitude that made no noise whatsoever.
No noise?......How is that accomplished?
There was also no foreward movement to make use of aerodynamics. Both of these objects were observed in hover mode with no noise being emitted.
No loud rocket engines fighting Gravity. totally quiet.
I have a theory of inversing Gravity in the same manner as light is inversed and images are inversed via a prism or crystal.
Is this a place I can share such theories?
I do not believe we fully understand Gravity.
There are many Gravitational theories....all of them theories, nothing more.
There is the W-wave theory presented by Wagner research in oregon you may not be aware of.
http://gravityresearchfoundation.org/pd ... wagner.pdf

Then there is this experiment that many have tried to solve the mystery of. I have read several explanations and I am satisfied by the rods explanation presented in this video. I am only posting this as an example of a mystery that required solving when an odd effect was noticed and that we did not solve the mystery until the odd effect was noticed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ1-4DVLSZ0

So, in like manner, I have studied the sketchings on Pottery and noticed an effect that requires an explanation.
I have also listened to sightings from friends i trust to speak truthfully and I have noticed an effect that requires an explanatiion.
The effect is.... a large object that remains airborne without making any noise and without any forward airspeed.
If an explanation is finally arrived at will we be able to fly without wings?
I am looking at archaeological evidence that says yes we will.

would this be the proper thread to post experiments and ideas based on a hypothesis there are laws of nature yet to be discovered by which fight without wings, according to archaeological artifacts, has already been achieved by other residents in our universe?...

I have an intuitional hunch gravitational inversement is extremely simple. I have an intuitional hunch that once we finally understand ALL the laws that govern our universe we will sit back and laugh they are so simple.

[KaiMartin]

New materials are fantastic - but if a prototype cost $1 mill to develop, . . . the HG manufacturer involved would soon go bankrupt.

+1
Furthermore, the vast majority of "new materials" exhibit some attributes, which are complete show stoppers for the use they initially seem ideal for. A good example is aerogel. Some specimens of aerogel manage to be lighter than air (because its internal gaps are usually filled with air, a block of aero gel does not float to the ceiling). However, aerogels are extremely brittle. Most of them are sensitive to moisture - they soak water like a sponge. And when you try to dry it the traditional way, the aerogel spowly collapses into a heap of dust. On top of that, it proved prohibitively difficult to produce blocks of aerogel in the size needed to build a HG wing.

Carbon fiber shows how some seemingly minor issues can limit its application in real life gliders. Carbon fiber reinforced polymers have been around for about as long as hang gliding itself. The material is resilient in many ways with some key properties on the very good side of the spectrum. Still, it was not until about 2000 that carbon fiber began to be used in regular gliders.

---<)kaimartin(>---

[Rick Masters]

wingspan33 wrote:
New materials are fantastic - but if a prototype cost $1 mill to develop, . . . the HG manufacturer involved would soon go bankrupt.

Don't worry. Somebody will figure out how to kill faster with it. The military will finance it. We'll catch the trickle down. It always works that way.

[wingspan33]

Why does this -

You guys aren't very smart. You aren't very skilled. You're not really very good pilots.
A pigeon makes better decisions faster and can fly circles around you. . .

Remind me of this -

. . . I have no respect for hang glider pilots at all, all of you. I view you with utter contempt mixed
with utter disgust. You, as a group, bring shame on humanity, and that ain't easy to do . . . Flying hang gliders
isn't hard, you're not special, 99% of you aren't even half decent pilots. Cheers, Graeme

Rick, I think your password's been hacked!

[KaiMartin]

Also, natural feathers are VERY intricate mechanical devices. Trying to build/construct synthetic feathers, . . . ?

I propose to adapt the general geometric idea of bird feathers. This does not include their microscopic structure.

And imagine the cost of just one of these biological "super feathers"?

I outlined how the idea of bird feathers may be realized with materials readily available from the home improvement shop.

Ideas that are impossible now (and for the foreseeable future) won't make Near Future hang gliders better.

IMHO, current hang glider design is close to some kind of local optimum. Any small change automatically comes with drawbacks which make the wing worse when seen as a whole. That's why there was hardly any change for the last two decades. However, there are long standing issues with the current designs -- barely sufficient roll control, no direct yaw control, aerobatics confined to positive g, difficult to land, transport on the ground. Don't tell my that current hang gliders do fine in these disciplines. Pick any and either sail planes or para gliders outperform hang gliders by far. (Note, the "or" in the previous sentence)

If a new design is to tackle any of these issues, it must change some key ingredients of the hang glider concept. For the ideas I outlined on page two this change is to rely on pilot input for pitch stability.

---<)kaimartin(>---

[wingspan33]

One of my ideas for future HG design is to have flexible vertical posts at each batten station. A cord would connect at the mid point of each post. The lower surface battens would also be flexible in the area of the high camber point (of the upper batten). Pulling symmetrically on the cord would create a better slow speed profile to the airfoil. The asymmetrical setting may aid in weight shift turning.

With some of these ideas, actual testing would be required to see what indeed does happen when one device or another is put into place.

I don't see much of a negative associated with this idea (except a tiny weight penalty).

[reluctantsparrow]

The electro magnetic induction video was fun to watch, but I have a hunch the UFOs that bave been observed by myself and others and the crafts seen etched on ancient pottery work by some other principle.
the only UFO sighting I have witnessed personally could have been something our own military or space program already had going on. It wasnt much of a sighting, but 5 other hang pilots saw it right along with me.
We had just had a good day at Dog mtn. soarable all day long with an overcast at about 4 grand that was solid with no holes. We had retired to the Jorgensons property across the valley to build a bonfire and drink beer.
Larry J. was the first to see it....he said...What is that light over there?
We all turned to look and there was a light in the sky where a light should not have been. It looked like a bright planet but there was a solid overcast of cloud....nope...not a planet or star.
So the six of us kept watching. I got bored actually and turned away so I missed the best part but I was facing Larry when it happened and the reactions on his face....His eyes flared wide in excitement and he said, woah! that thing just sent three super bright flashes of light straight at us!
I quickly turned around but the flashes had stopped. I only saw the bright light still just sitting there about 2,500 AGL.
But I DID turn just in time to see that bright object suddenly shoot straight up at incredible speed and disappear into the clouds above us.. Rose straight up about 1,500 feet in roughly 1.5 seconds and disappeared from our field of vision in the clouds above us.
such sighting should really open our minds to re-think everything we think we know about our universe.
The experiment Bill C posted does not mean that is the only way gravity can be redirected.
If I saw a Hot air balloon before I ever saw an airplane I might jump to the conclusion that, yes, man can fly, but only by making a hot air balloon and that would be an assumption on my part AND totally WRONG.
I love this forum where all ideas are welcomed. The earth is not flat after all as most assumed.
I gather together evidence of air travel that leave us clueless as to how such things are done and realize I do not know too much after all. Like Morpheous once said....FREE Your MIND !