THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, September 5, 1995 TAG: 9509050033
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JAMES SCHULTZ, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: KITTY HAWK LENGTH: Long : 124 lines
Francis Rogallo makes his flight selection from four small squares of decades-old material arranged on the kitchen table.
Carefully holding his choice, a membrane-thin, silvery creation, Rogallo gently launches it from the vicinity of the refrigerator toward the living room.
The miniature craft floats nearly a third of the way across, seeming a kind of ghostly manta ray, or perhaps a child's version of an advanced Stealth fighter. The improbable glider drops with barely a whisper to the carpet behind a sofa, gently delivering its cargo, a graying ping-pong ball attached with strings to the glider's glossy aluminum-coated surface.
The model's deceptive size belies its importance. This small, nearly 40-year-old ``parawing'' is directly responsible for the modern sport of hang gliding - as well as for late-century improvements to the ancient art of kite flying.
``Francis and Gertrude Rogallo are considered the parents of modern hang gliding,'' said Mark West, president of the California-based Hang Gliders Manufacturers Association. ``Most of our gliders are based on a variation of the Rogallo design.''
Rogallo, a former aeronautical engineer at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, and wife Gertrude were kite enthusiasts who, in the 1930s and '40s, spent weekends and vacations flying their own fabric-and-wood inventions at their Nags Head beach home.
In Virginia, the pair would design and then test homemade kites in their basement, in makeshift wind tunnels made from cardboard and table fans.
Experiments with variations on triangular-shaped ``delta'' wings eventually led to modest sales by the couple of so-called flexible kites, made available to hobbyists in the 1950s.
``The delta-shaped wing revolutionized kites,'' Gertrude Rogallo said. ``That gave a boost to kite flying. It wasn't like the old barn-door kites. It brought adults into kite flying.''
The work had a serious purpose as well: the proposed use of parawings to aid in the splashdown and recovery of the Gemini and Apollo space capsules during the heyday of the space race in the 1960s.
While such an application never materialized because of technical difficulties, kite designers eventually would incorporate parawing-like shapes into their own blueprints.
The principles behind parawings also would be used to create later generations of parachutes, some present-day models of which allow skydivers to pick precise landing zones like the 50-yard-line of a packed football stadium.
In the case of hang gliding, roughly two decades would pass between the time the Rogallos' patented their parawing design, in 1948, and the sport's 1960s takeoff in California and Australia.
Today, visitors to Outer Banks beaches routinely see kites of all shapes and sizes wheeling across summer skies. Watchers can also eyeball hang gliders leaping from the tall sand dunes of Jockey's Ridge, off U.S. 158. Novice or veteran, the fliers ride shore thermals just as native birds do.
``It's just like floating in your dreams. It's just an incredible sense of freedom and of accomplishment,'' said Bruce Weaver, manager of Kitty Hawk Kites' hang-gliding school. ``This is the closest you can be to being a bird. You get an awful lot of satisfaction from it.''
Both kites and hang gliders have benefited in the past quarter-century from the steady advance of technology. While the parawing started out as a one-of-a-kind invention, over the years tinkerers have made slow but steady improvements to structures and performance.
Stronger, lighter space-age materials - new aluminum alloys and so-called composites like graphite epoxies - combined with computer power enable designers to build better wings, struts and harness assemblies. In 1995, hang gliders can easily traverse 100 miles in a single flight, according to West.
``As far as we knew, there was not ever in history or in nature a completely flexible wing,'' said Francis Rogallo. ``Anytime anybody invents something, all kinds of things come along, in terms of size, shape, materials and applications.''
Nationally, some 9,500 people are members of the U.S. Hang Gliding Association, based in Colorado Springs, Colo. While expensive - new gliding gear and accessories can run between $3,000 and $6,000 - advocates claim the sport is one of the safest pursuits there is.
According to gliding association figures compiled in 1992, and based on death and accident rates per 100,000 participants, motorists and flight attendants are more likely to suffer injury than are hang gliders.
``These materials are pretested to withstand punishment,'' said Weaver of Kitty Hawk Kites. ``It's just like any other sport: People have to figure out what's going on. It's incredibly safe compared to what it used to be.''
Life and limb are not at risk when it comes to kite flying. But kites have benefited from some of the same advances in technology.
``Kites aren't dowel rods and newspapers anymore,'' said Phil Broder, a kite-flying enthusiast and eco-tourism manager for Kitty Hawk Kites. ``They're high-tech fabrics and spars. Kites look like anything these days.''
So do kite fliers, Broder is quick to add. Kite flying is perhaps the most egalitarian of all hobby/sports, he says - relatively inexpensive and open to anyone regardless of age, gender, body shape or height.
While there's been a sizable increase in award competitions, Broder says there is also a proliferation of nonsport festivals that showcase the latest innovations in materials, structures and handling. You don't have to be a die-hard to enjoy putting a kite into the air.
``It doesn't matter where you live - on the beach, in the city or in the country,'' he said. ``There's always somewhere you can go to fly a kite.''
On a day in mid-August when Hurricane Felix lurked off the North Carolina coast, Broder sat outside on the steps of a building opposite Jockey's Ridge. Winds gusting at more than 25 miles per hour tore at several colorful kites fluttering and dipping over the dune ridge.
``Look at those kites out there,'' Broder said. ``I bet the person flying one doesn't have a thought in his head about the hurricane. Kite flying can be very therapeutic.''
Now in their 80s and retired, Francis and Gertrude Rogallo remain fond of kites. They, their four children and assorted other relations still fly them at the family's Nags Head beach house.
But the couple is especially cheered by the sight of hang gliders - baby parawings grown big - swooping and soaring, allowing humans to slip, however briefly, into a life of flight.
``Hang gliding is all over the world,'' Gertrude Rogallo said. ``It's satisfying to know that people are getting pleasure from this.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photos]
VICKI CRONIS
Staff photos
Jeanne Kiralfy, left, glides down Jockey's Ridge as instructor
Fabian Filohougski yells instructions. Below, Francis Rogallo
launches his nearly 40-year-old ``parawing'' model in his living
room.
by CNB