NASA's space paraglider inventor

Francis Rogallo's invention will help bring space vehicles back to safety on the runway, instead of exploding in the oceans. This achievement really came into being and what does it mean for NASA's boom?

NASA landing gear

Keeping it the length of the arm above my head, Francis Rogallo's fingers are carefully grasping each wing of a diamond-shaped silver paraglider.

It was the end of Spring in 1959, and NASA's aerospace engineer was busy launching a glider model like a small parachute, just the way he had succeeded thousands of times before. that - small wings slowly burst out, a small load was lifted right in front of Mr. Rogallo's head.

The structure of the metal foil developed for the new glider hissed as it flew. Gravity soon balanced with the roller coaster's weight, the model flying slowly through NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton (Virginia, USA). The glider's flight was only blocked by the plaster wall in the room, it fell when it hit the ceiling into a pile on the floor.

Inventor and engineer Francis Rogallo (in the 1959 wind tunnel at NASA's Langley Research Center) and his wife Gertrude have been studying paragliding since the mid-1940s.

Rogallo engineer proved the hovering potential of the glider wings from before, but only today his audience admits, it is the most influential individual in the space race to evolve the storm. : World famous rocket engineer Wernher von Braun.

Mr. Von Braun immediately grasped the potential of using a flexible wing to restore the rocket's booster engine, and invited Rogallo engineer to Huntsville (Alabama) to show off his team.

That moment proved good because in that short time, Rogallo's wing - an innovative technology that was re-rewritten the spacecraft's re-entry and recovery history became the subject of scientific investigation and optimism - seen as a "pet" of the flourishing universe race.

An application for Rogallo's wing is "paragliding," which was developed under a contract with the North American Aviation Agency for NASA between 1960 and 1963, which will turn it into a deck. landing machine for Gemini and Apollo space shuttle programs, promising astronauts to gain autonomy when landing from space to a defined terrain.

Technically in the 1960s, they assumed that the Gemini shuttle's paraglider looked rather odd with the perception of the time, a spiritual product of the future. Visitors find the Udvar-Hazy Center under the US National Space and Space Museum (Chantilly, Virginia), which will find ancient ruins suspended from the ceiling in the exhibition area titled " Human space flight ".

Francis Rogallo, who was dubbed the "father of parachutes" developed a versatile winged paraglider that changed the way astronauts return to earth.

The Gemini paraglider's wing like a giant kite consists of an oversized wheel with wheel edges to increase the efficiency of skidding on the runway. 5 cables attach the wings to the body of the machine to allow astronauts to control the flight path.

The Smithsonian museum senior manager, Michael Neufeld emphasized: "The paraglider is an interesting solution for landing, but in the beginning its technical element was embarrassing to the engineers."

Historical fact has noted that this magical wing actually flew, making it possible for astronauts to return to earth. In December 1964, the paraglider successfully flew in most perfect space flights and landings.

However, history also states that all flights of two Gemini and Apollo space shuttles are parachuted, or the astronaut will fall into the sea and be rescued by ships later. So what happened to Francis Rogallo's paraglider?

NASA's biggest bonus

Basically, the paragliding model was born in the mid-1940s to make the flight easier, more practical, as well as bring more economic value to anyone, paragliding is the name. Call comes from the combination of "paragliding and parachuting".

Rogallo engineer once apples: "Why not? You drive to the countryside, parachute from the trunk and can fly away from the countryside".

Francis Rogallo engineer started the paragliding in 1974 when he was 62, right on the Outer Banks famous sand dunes, where the Wright brothers made their first flight.

To make the dream come true, Rogallo engineer with his wife Gertrude pursued this strange idea, experimenting with many designs in a small wind tunnel that the couple built in their homes.

In 1948, the Rogallo couple developed the first flying prototype: a flexible wing sewn by Mrs. Gertrude from the curtains in the kitchen. As a civil servant working for NACA (NASA's precursor agency), any ideas of Mr. Rogallo belong to the government, so he submitted his invention to his superior to hope they could Consider developing flight applications from the primitive design itself.

Initially, NACA engineers were not impressed. But NACA also generously allowed the Gertrude-Rogallo couple to develop their own inventions on their own, and the two were awarded the "Flexible Kite" patent in 1951. From the beginning, his wife Rogallo's husband saw extraordinary abilities, including kites big enough to carry one person.

In 1949, Mr. Rogallo once said : "Imagine seeing suspense, parachuting from the top of the mountain and can glide down the valley below."

But sadly, the Rogallo invention hardly received any attention from professional aviation agencies. The design of two grandparents is considered a toy for children or a passion for flying. Until the Russians succeeded with Sputnik, the whole world was "shocked". Suddenly, the United States showed an interest in flexible paragliding .

The military, the Navy as well as NACA all jumped in. The invention of Rogallo was once looked down upon by his colleagues, and eventually they had to look back seriously. The Rogallo family accepts allowing the government to have full use of its patents.

After that, the two grandparents were granted US $ 35,000 by the US government for their tireless efforts, which is also the largest bonus awarded by NASA at that time. NASA's manned space program quickly turns into an ambitious and imaginative idea when it comes to flexible wings.

Instead of astronauts parachuting into the sea, a paraglider will be stored on the ship's cabin and will be used in the process of logging into the earth, which allows astronauts (they are test pilots the most talented at the time) would fly in a controlled mechanism to the field at the field.

President Kennedy's ambition

The idea was that many proponents including project manager Gemini were Mr. James A. Hamberlin, but developing a paraglider for Gemini was not so easy. Gemini is the bridge between Mercury and Apollo, and President Kennedy's 1961 goal is to bring people to the moon and bring home successfully "by the end of the decade" that set a strict deadline for every part. of the program.

The invention of Rogallo engineers led to the simplest form of personal aviation: paragliding.

Although gliding is an aerodynamic challenge, ironically it is also the backup umbrella of the first program that failed. Early testing is often very expensive, and before the paraglider can be tested, the backup recovery system must be proven.

Repeated skydiving failed, wasting precious time, and by mid-1962, paragliding was delayed for the third flight of the Gemini shuttle, and added some delay at the end. that year. Until April 1964, the entire flight chain was proven, and the evidence was partial.

A flight proved the paraglider deployment sequence, the wing was then thrown away and the ship's compartment was restored by parachute. But the second flight pulled the paraglider up to a defined height and the parachute flew to help the astronaut land on the runway.

The challenge of the whole operation process for the entire flight: from deployment to sliding flight, and also to the landing stage, proved the cumbersome complexity, but Michael Neufeld points out: "Money It is not a big problem for paragliding if compared to a large project like Gemini, the biggest challenge here is the tight time ".

The paragliding development program has lagged from the beginning. The engineers of the North American Aviation Authority (NAA) won a relatively small paragliding contract based on perfect development during the summer of 1961, but soon they awarded the contract. worth billions of dollars for the Apollo program. The most talented engineers of Gemini program moved to Apollo, aiming at the glider of Rogallo engineer.

At the time of the Apollo program there was a major shift: Mr. James A.hamberlin - who proposed paragliding - had lost the director of Gemini, and although NAA would end their contract with 3 successful flights, but it was too late. NASA's space flight will land in the sea with skydiving until it develops into a space shuttle.

While the Gemini paraglider failed in the manned space program, the simple and inexpensive dream of Rogallo engineers was finally acknowledged. Paragliding and flexible wing designs were enough to attract fame during the early 1960s and also attracted the imagination of amateur and professional aviation engineers around the world.

Based on photographs in glider magazines, pilots used bamboo and plastic materials to make wing blades. By the time Neil Armstrong stepped down to the Moon, the modern skating sport was rampaging around the earth.

When NASA's budget for flexible wings became exhausted, then Francis Rogallo also retired young (1970), moving to Kitty Hawk (North Carolina) and continuing to pursue research. own.