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#387999
Here is my short page about the Sky Sports Sirocco. Sky Sports was a prominent east coast HG manufacturer in the 1970s. Long gone, so I figured this topic belongs beside the camp fire, where we sit and look at the pictures in Ground Skimmer and Glider Rider...

https://everardcunion.wordpress.com/mid ... rocco/#top

It draws on information and photos provided by Chris Gonzales, who also sent some info on other Sky Sports wings.

With any luck, I will obtain enough material to turn it into a page about Sky Sports, the manufacturer, rather than just the Sirocco. There was something uniquely spectacular about the three-dimensional shape of some Sky Sports hang gliders that, in my opinion, has rarely if ever been equalled. The Sirocco II and the Kestrel 1 particularly.
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By waveview
#388026
The old wings went much better than one might expect by today's standards. The light weight (often just 40 lbs), thin diameter tubing and no drag inducing dive recoverery sticks or trailing edge dive strings to worry about.

I have occasionally thought how much better my open crossbar wing of today might fly if I removed all the dive recovery wires and sticks from the wing and took it up the hill in smooth air?
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By HGXC
#388066
Owned a Bobcat, Kestrel and a Sirocco! They were cool and certainly better then my Manflight :rofl:

Dennis
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By HGXC
#388072
NMERider wrote:
HGXC wrote:.... my Manflight :rofl: ...
The one with the twin king posts? Gotta love Mike Markowski! :rofl: :rofl:
You should have seen the eye bolts for the side wires :thumbsup:

Great glider to crash ...took a beating :mrgreen:

Dennis
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By drachenjoe
#388117
Found some details about the Lark2, Bobcat2, Kestrel and Merlin. ( the complete outfitting&source book for Hanggliding, 1977 ).

Coming soon here :
http://www.delta-club-82.com/bible/f157 ... ts-usa.htm

Cheers, Manfred
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By mrflyn4fun
#388365
Wow! Someone besides me actually heard of Mike Markowski and Manflight!! My first wing (which I never mountain flew) was a Manflight 17" standard, yes with double kingpost!
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By HGXC
#388366
mrflyn4fun wrote:Wow! Someone besides me actually heard of Mike Markowski and Manflight!! My first wing (which I never mountain flew) was a Manflight 17" standard, yes with double kingpost!

They only made a few and then they ran out of aluminum :mrgreen:

Did you have the apex sail option that was zippered to the under suffices? That was the first double sufficed glider :rofl:

Dennis
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By mrflyn4fun
#388411
Nope, I guess I had the "beginner" model. But, as I recall, Markowski had another couple of models plus a rigid wing.
#406526
I woke up thinking about my good friend Harry Roolaart last night. Harry died in 2017 and was an extremely talented artist and older brother to my best friend Ton (Anton) when I lived in Charlotte. We had some traveling escapades for sure and have lived to tell the tails (or maybe not).
I dug out a very old photo album and the photos are stuck to the pages. Harry had done me a great service and painted one of my Hang Gliders (A Sky Sports Sirocco 1) in the style of famous artist Roger Dean (google him). The idea was for a Hydraulic fly when looked at from the air. A mix of futuristic aviation with a little gothic mixed in. The painting was done with an airbrush using flow master inks in Harrys backyard. It had a lot of detail of the hydraulic tubes and a winged hood around the creatures eyes not shown in these photos.
These two photos are of a Flight I made off of Crowders mountain near Kings Mountain NC. In these early days the road was not paved to the top and we had the glider on top of my dads old Ford Mustang. Ton was with me as we set up on a small crop of rocks and as the photo shows a small crowd had gathered to watch.
This was the first ever flight from the mountain. No one had ever flown from here before but there was one field way out that I had seen on a scouting trip on earlier days. I thought I could make it with the new double surface glider but I knew in my mind that it was a long way. I was guessing a over 12 to 1 glide with nothing but trees until the edge of the pasture.
It was a zero wind, one step launch off of the cliff face that had, as I remember, about a hundred ft of vertical before the first trees. I don’t have any photos of the landing but I remember it was a one turn and flair.
These were really exciting times and thanks to my good Friend Harry I think I am going to take a hard look at our shelves full of albums I have and see what other excitement I can dug up.

The Third Photo is of Gemini Twins that I mounted. These were swinging 24 inch model airplane props. As I recall this was shot near Biscayne Bay in Miami.
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By LeeM
#406574
drachenjoe wrote: Mon May 30, 2016 7:28 am Found some details about the Lark2, Bobcat2, Kestrel and Merlin. ( the complete outfitting&source book for Hanggliding, 1977 ).

Coming soon here :
http://www.delta-club-82.com/bible/f157 ... ts-usa.htm

Cheers, Manfred
That’s a picture of me flying the Bobcat II from Mt Kearsarge in NH in the mid ‘70s! It was my first glider. I bought it in May 1976 for $689 (still have the bill of sail). It had 240 SF of sail and large single deflexor on each leading edge. I bid it farewell in 1978 after a tree “landing” from Kearsarge, couldn’t penetrate the headwind to make it to the small LZ. The bikini harness had a "quick release" cord which was standard in those days.
Lee Minardi #15914