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Barry Hill Palmer
Barry Hill Palmer (born November 10, 1937) is an American aeronautical engineer (UC Berkeley, 1961), inventor, builder and pilot of the first hang glider based on the Rogallo wing or ''flexible wing''. Palmer also designed, built and flew the first weight-shift ultralight trike aircraft. Inventor of the first Flexible Wing hang glider In August 1961 Barry Palmer first saw a photo of the Rogallo wing mounted on the Fleep experimental aircraft published in the Aviation Week magazine and became interested in this flexible wing because of its light weight and simplicity. In October 1961 he completed construction and flew the first flexible wing hang glider; this took place near Latrobe, east of Sacramento, California. He used polyethylene sheet, aluminum tubing and no wires for construction as he did fear kinking during assembly and transport. Most flights were performed with just a set of inclined parallel bars that split his weight between his underarms and hands to experiment wi ...
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Rogallo Wing
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. History Rogallo had been interested in the flexible wing since 1945. He and his wife built and flew kites as a hobby. They could not find official backing for the wing, including at Rogallo's employer National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), so they carried out experiments in their own time. By the end of 1948 they had two working designs using a flexible wing — a kite they called "Flexi-Kite" and a gliding parachute they later referred to as a "paraglider". Rogallo an ...
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Newspaper
A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports, art, and science. They often include materials such as opinion columns, weather forecasts, reviews of local services, Obituary, obituaries, birth notices, crosswords, editorial cartoons, comic strips, and advice columns. Most newspapers are businesses, and they pay their expenses with a mixture of Subscription business model, subscription revenue, Newsagent's shop, newsstand sales, and advertising revenue. The journalism organizations that publish newspapers are themselves often Metonymy, metonymically called newspapers. Newspapers have traditionally been published Printing, in print (usually on cheap, low-grade paper called newsprint). However, today most newspapers are also Electronic publishing, published on webs ...
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American Aerospace Engineers
American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, people who self-identify their ancestry as "American" ** American English, the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States ** Native Americans in the United States, indigenous peoples of the United States * American, something of, from, or related to the Americas, also known as "America" ** Indigenous peoples of the Americas * American (word), for analysis and history of the meanings in various contexts Organizations * American Airlines, U.S.-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas * American Athletic Conference, an American college athletic conference * American Recordings (record label), a record label that was previously known as Def American * American University, in Washington, D.C. Sports teams S ...
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Hang Gliding
Hang gliding is an air sports, air sport or recreational activity in which a pilot flies a light, non-motorised, fixed-wing aircraft, fixed-wing heavier-than-air aircraft called a hang glider. Most modern hang gliders are made of an aluminium alloy or Composite material, composite frame covered with synthetic sailcloth to form a wing. Typically the pilot is in a harness suspended from the airframe, and controls the aircraft by shifting body weight in opposition to a control frame. Early hang gliders had a low lift-to-drag ratio, so pilots were restricted to gliding down small hills. By the 1980s this ratio significantly improved, and since then pilots have been able to Lift (soaring), soar for hours, gain thousands of meters of altitude in thermal updrafts, perform aerobatics, and glide cross-country for hundreds of kilometers. The Federation Aeronautique Internationale and national airspace governing organisations control some regulatory aspects of hang gliding. Obtaining the sa ...
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Aviation Inventors
Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' include fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air aircraft such as hot air balloons and airships. Aviation began in the 18th century with the development of the hot air balloon, an apparatus capable of atmospheric displacement through buoyancy. Clément Ader built the "Ader Éole" in France and made an uncontrolled, powered hop in 1890. This was the first powered aircraft, although it did not achieve controlled flight. Some of the most significant advancements in aviation technology came with the controlled gliding flying of Otto Lilienthal in 1896. A major leap followed with the construction of the ''Wright Flyer'', the first powered airplane by the Wright brothers in the early 1900s. Since that time, aviation has been technologically revolutionized by the introduction of the jet engine which enabled aviation ...
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A-frame For Hang Gliders, Trikes, And Ultralights
An A-frame is a basic structure designed to bear a load in a lightweight economical manner. The simplest form of an A-frame is two similarly sized beams, arranged in an angle of 45 degrees or less, attached at the top, like an uppercase letter 'A'. These materials are often wooden or steel beams attached at the top by rope, welding, gluing, or riveting. A-frames can be used as-is, as part of shears, or set up in a row along a longitudinal beam for added stability, as in a saw horse. More complex structures will often have crossmembers connecting the A-frames at different angles,"A-frame" (2009). ''Oxford English Dictionary'' Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0). Oxford University Press. forming a truss. Other structures that use A-frames * A-frame house * A-frame hydroponics system * A-frame contour measuring spirit level * A frame camping tent * A-frame complex, a motif in chemistry * Folding ladder * Double wishbone suspension (cars) * Some suspension bridges * Some swing bri ...
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Hovercraft
A hovercraft (: hovercraft), also known as an air-cushion vehicle or ACV, is an amphibious craft capable of travelling over land, water, mud, ice, and various other surfaces. Hovercraft use blowers to produce a large volume of air below the Hull (watercraft), hull, or air cushion, that is slightly above atmospheric pressure. The pressure difference between the higher-pressure air below the hull and lower pressure ambient air above it produces lift, which causes the hull to float above the running surface. For stability reasons, the air is typically blown through slots or holes around the outside of a disk- or oval-shaped platform, giving most hovercraft a characteristic rounded-rectangle shape. The first practical design for hovercraft was derived from a British invention in the 1950s. They are now used throughout the world as specialised transports in disaster relief, coastguard, military and survey applications, as well as for sport or passenger service. Very large version ...
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Airframe
The mechanical structure of an aircraft is known as the airframe. This structure is typically considered to include the fuselage, undercarriage, empennage and wings, and excludes the propulsion system. Airframe design is a field of aerospace engineering that combines aerodynamics, materials technology and manufacturing methods with a focus on weight, strength and aerodynamic drag, as well as reliability and cost.Michael C. Y. Niu (1988). ''Airframe Structural Design''. Conmilit Press LTD. History Modern airframe history began in the United States during the Wright Flyer's maiden flight, showing the potential of fixed-wing designs in aircraft. In 1912 the Deperdussin Monocoque pioneered the light, strong and streamlined monocoque fuselage formed of thin plywood layers over a circular frame, achieving . First World War Many early developments were spurred by military needs during World War I. Well known aircraft from that era include the Dutch designer Anthony ...
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Snowmobile
A snowmobile, also known as a snowmachine (chiefly Alaskan), motor sled (chiefly Canadian), motor sledge, skimobile, snow scooter, or simply a sled is a motorized vehicle designed for winter travel and recreation on snow. Their engines normally drive a continuous track at the rear, while skis at the front provide directional control. The earliest snowmobiles were powered by readily available industrial four-stroke, air-cooled engines. These would quickly be replaced by lighter and more powerful two-stroke gasoline internal combustion engines and since the mid-2000s four-stroke engines had re-entered the market. The challenges of cross-country transportation in the winter led to the invention of an all-terrain vehicle specifically designed for travel across deep snow where other vehicles foundered. , the snowmobile market has been shared between the four large North American makers (Bombardier Recreational Products (BRP), Arctic Cat, Yamaha, and Polaris) and some specialized m ...
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Ultralight Trike
An ultralight trike or paratrike is a type of powered hang glider where flight control is by weight-shift control, weight-shift. These light-sport aircraft, aircraft have a fabric Rogallo wing, flex-wing from which is suspended a tricycle fuselage pod driven by a pusher Propeller (aeronautics), propeller. The pod accommodates either a solo pilot, or a pilot and a single passenger. Trikes grant affordable, accessible, and exciting flying, and have been popular since the 1980s. Trikes are classified as microlights in Europe, and as light-sport aircraft in the United States. The aircraft are also known by other names, including 2-axis microlights, flex-wing trikes, microlight trikes, deltatrikes or motorized deltaplanes. In the United States, they are formally recognized by the Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) as weight-shift-control aircraft. History The history of the trike is traced back to the invention of Francis Rogallo's flex ...
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Ultralight
Ultralight aviation (called microlight aviation in some countries) is the flying of lightweight, 1- or 2-seat fixed-wing aircraft. Some countries differentiate between weight-shift control and conventional three-axis control aircraft with ailerons, elevator and rudder, calling the former "microlight" and the latter "ultralight". During the late 1970s and early 1980s, mostly stimulated by the hang gliding movement, many people sought affordable powered flight. As a result, many aviation authorities set up definitions of lightweight, slow-flying aeroplanes that could be subject to minimum regulations. The resulting aeroplanes are commonly called "ultralight aircraft" or "microlights", although the weight and speed limits differ from country to country. In Europe, the sporting (FAI) definition limits the maximum stalling speed to and the maximum take-off weight to , or if a ballistic parachute is installed. The definition means that the aircraft has a slow landing speed and sh ...
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