Let's Go Fly a Kite
Author: Bryan Oesterreich | Published: September 8th, 2010
An annual festival at Jockey’s Ridge celebrates the vision and invention that Francis Rogallo first tested there in 1948.
Each year, thousands of people from all over the country will descend on Nags Head as spectators and participants in a very special event — the Francis Rogallo Kite Festival. The Wright brothers’ story is well known. But there’s another equally interesting story grounded in Kitty Hawk — that of Francis and Gertrude Rogallo. The Rogallos invented a flexible wing, and anyone who has enjoyed hang gliding, popular since the 1970s, owes a debt of gratitude to their invention.
In the late 1940s, Francis was an engineer for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. While stationed at the NACA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, he came up with the idea for a simple, practical aircraft for sport and recreation. Pursuing the idea on his own time, Francis (along with his wife Gertrude) used curtains from their home to construct a flexible wing based on models he had tested in a homemade wind tunnel (the wind came from an industrial-size floor fan). On August 15, 1948, the Rogallos came to Jockey’s Ridge and successfully flew the cloth wing, christening it the Flexi-Kite.
There is always a crowd waiting on top of Jockey's Ridge, the highest sand dune on the east coast, watching the sunrise or the sunset, and often deciding on if the breeze is right to fly a kite, or ride the thermal currents with the aid of a hang glider: Above and below.
The Rogallos were granted a U.S. patent for their flexible wing in 1951, and Francis continued to research and develop his idea, eventually attracting the attention of NASA and the United States space program. In the 1960s, the Rogallo wing developed into an inexpensive, foot-launchable glider whose popularity spread rapidly.
Thanks to the creative inspiration of Francis Rogallo, the hng glider is a constant companion to the monstrosity that is Jockey's Ridge: Above and below.
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This article provided courtesy of our sister site: Beaufort County Now
Each year, thousands of people from all over the country will descend on Nags Head as spectators and participants in a very special event — the Francis Rogallo Kite Festival. The Wright brothers’ story is well known. But there’s another equally interesting story grounded in Kitty Hawk — that of Francis and Gertrude Rogallo. The Rogallos invented a flexible wing, and anyone who has enjoyed hang gliding, popular since the 1970s, owes a debt of gratitude to their invention.
In the late 1940s, Francis was an engineer for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. While stationed at the NACA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, he came up with the idea for a simple, practical aircraft for sport and recreation. Pursuing the idea on his own time, Francis (along with his wife Gertrude) used curtains from their home to construct a flexible wing based on models he had tested in a homemade wind tunnel (the wind came from an industrial-size floor fan). On August 15, 1948, the Rogallos came to Jockey’s Ridge and successfully flew the cloth wing, christening it the Flexi-Kite.
There is always a crowd waiting on top of Jockey's Ridge, the highest sand dune on the east coast, watching the sunrise or the sunset, and often deciding on if the breeze is right to fly a kite, or ride the thermal currents with the aid of a hang glider: Above and below.
The Rogallos were granted a U.S. patent for their flexible wing in 1951, and Francis continued to research and develop his idea, eventually attracting the attention of NASA and the United States space program. In the 1960s, the Rogallo wing developed into an inexpensive, foot-launchable glider whose popularity spread rapidly.
Thanks to the creative inspiration of Francis Rogallo, the hng glider is a constant companion to the monstrosity that is Jockey's Ridge: Above and below.
This article provided courtesy of our sister site: Beaufort County Now
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