[Bob Kuczewski]

Jim and Rick both referred to dynamic soaring earlier in this topic:

Jim wrote:

I have a theory about how a Vulture attains additional thrust without flapping. What a vulture might be doing is,... he is flapping without flapping. the rocking motion creates a downward thrust from the descending wing which, at the same time, creates an increase in efficiency in that wing due to a temporarily more efficient angle of attack with the relative wind flow , resulting in increased lift on that side that drives that wing back upward as the opposite wing is in a descending dive mode that builds up stored energy to be converted to lift as it now takes its turn at a more efficient angle of attack....kind of like dynamic soaring in a way.....

Rick added:

I recently found some very good dynamic soaring explanations on Wikipedia and in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVN-oF6tPLc

Here's an animated GIF version from Wikipedia:

Dynamic_Soaring_Animated_Diagram.gif (380.9 KiB) Viewed 1370 times

[Craig Muhonen]

Looking at the geometry of the bow-sprit hang gliders always reminded me of the Wright Flyer, you could see everything about the aircraft.
It looked awkward on the ground and it had more wires to hook up, but once in the air it was a thing of beauty, of course it had more drag but it didn't seem to mind.
Instead of going to new high tech materials and designs,
What if the geometry could be slightly changed/tuned, by tightening or loosening the rigging using special servo type couplings. the battens could change shape too, and a set of tailfeathers could deploy from the pod, all this done from the pilots helmet and inputs from the chip in his/her brain or twist grips. The wing shapes itself and no energy is needed in weight shift side to side, and oscillation is cut down to a minimum.
Most existing king post Hang Gliders could be retrofitted with this so far uninvited "wing warping technology", and they too could shape the wing with their brain, and put the tailfeathers down for landing.
They will be a bit heavier and more drag but oh well, the original Hang Gliders are by far the best, no need to give them up.

Do we have the technology to take a bowsprit, king post glider, and turn it into one of these things? Let's ask AI. and while we're at it let's ask it how to build our wind powered video machine.

The future is the Albatross.