Hang gliding is an air sport employing a foot-launchable aircraft. Typically, a modern hang glider is constructed of an aluminium alloy or composite-framed fabric wing. The pilot is ensconced in a harness suspended from the airframe, and exercises control by shifting body weight in opposition to a control frame.
Engineer Otto Lilienthal, one of the forefathers of aviation. Germany, 1895.
United States Gemini's Paresev glider in flight with tow cable.
'Standard Rogallo' hang glider. 1975.
High performance hang glider launch, 2006.
The Rogallo wing is a flexible type of wing. In 1948, Francis Rogallo, a NASA engineer, and his wife Gertrude Rogallo, invented a self-inflating flexible wing they called the Parawing, also known after them as the "Rogallo Wing" and flexible wing. NASA considered Rogallo's flexible wing as an alternative recovery system for the Mercury and Gemini space capsules, and for possible use in other spacecraft landings, but the idea was dropped from Gemini in 1964 in favor of conventional parachutes.
NASA Paresev, a Rogallo flexible wing tested by NASA for spacecraft landing research.
Gemini Rogallo wing during tests at Edwards Air Force Base in August 1964.
Rogallo wing considered as a candidate recovery system for the Apollo spacecraft
Gertrude and Francis Rogallo's original patented flexible wing
