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By Lazypilot
#402459
Postings on other topics indicates that many, but not all, pilots would appreciate either reduced lateral bar forces or faster response times or both.

If I'm not mistaken the first Roll Augmentation device was the tall keel pocket. This was invented by whom I don't know at a time when designers were first reducing sail billow in an effort to improve performance of flex wing gliders. If you know who did it first please let us know.

When more augmentation was needed the cross-bar was disconnected from the keel so that the two components were free to move relative to each other. I recall that this was first referred to as a "floating cross-bar", but later on someone pointed out that it was the keel that was "floating". I suppose that one term or the other will get the point across, so call it what you will.

Both of these developments were low-tech, lightweight, and inexpensive to incorporate into a glider's construction, and they worked.

I personally have no need for my glider to be eligible for Class 1 competition, which stipulates that roll control must result from weight-shift alone.

For some time now I've wondered how an augmentation device that converts lateral bar forces directly into warping of the sail or wing twisting might look like.

So I've opened this new topic in the hope that a good discussion of the subject will take place.

Although my primary interest is in developing a whole new glider, a means of improving roll on our current designs is a more practical thing to pursue.

Hopefully we can come up with a system that, like the aforementioned ones, would be simple, lightweight, inexpensive and most importantly reliable.

The goal, in my opinion, is a glider that doesn't require what we now call a Variable Geometry system. Ideally a VG would only be used to modify a gliders flight profile to allow a steeper angle of descent for approach to landing, although it could also be used for other reasons, such as adding or reducing stuff like camber and reflex and what have you. But I resent having to decide whether I get a flat glide or being able to maneuver. I want both at the same!

An idea that I've thought about but haven't tried is a keel built so that parts of it could rotate, causing the trailing edge or the leading edges or both to be displaced one side up and the other down.

In describing this to friends the subject of adverse yaw comes up, and while it is a matter of concern I believe it can be accommodated as it is now, by having the just right amount of anhedral. However, it has been demonstrated that a vertical fin can be used with only minimal added weight and expense. My Sensor has one that takes probably only a minute to rig and weighs a few ounces, and some gliders have them for towing operations.

Making a vertical fin that also can be used as an active rudder shouldn't require a lot of engineering. But using it as a control may be problematic as the glider would need dihedral to convert the skid induced by a rudder into a rolling moment.

But a rudder might be used as a "servo tab" like thing to help with the pilot's workload, by using the force it generates to move something else, such as rotating a keel. Something to think about...

It's been a long time since the floating keel/X-bar and the VG were originated. It just doesn't seem to me to be a difficult task to create something that would make high performance flex wings more entertaining to play with. But flight testing can be hazardous to one's health, and I suspect that that is one good reason why we don't see developments being tried.

For testing purposes it might be a good idea to build a horizontal tail surface or canard to at least help a pilot feel confident with trying out a new device. Making it so that the new device can be disabled until a safe place to try it is reached would also be a good thing.

There's a "law of unintended consequences". It's not at all difficult to fail to see where one action could affect another, so it behooves one to approach any glider modification with caution. Bill Murray suggested "Baby Steps", and it's a good suggestion. Or was that Richard Dreyfus?
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By mario
#402463
Ha, you brought back memories of the Seagull V!

Is there any pilot that wouldn’t want more and easier roll control? This subject almost keeps me up at night. I’ll probably get obsessed with it now..., thanks. I have dealt with this issue by flying the smallest topless glider I could find, which I love, but it would be awesome to fly a larger glider with the same or ideally better roll authority and even better performance without the weight of an Atos. I wonder what the next step in the flexwing evolution will be, besides a looser VG setting to improve roll.

I never flew a Fledge, but the idea of a modern versions does occupy my thoughts at night occasionally. Maybe it’s that beautiful poster hanging in my shop of Eric Raymond flying his Voyager over the snow capped Sierras that does it. Maybe it was watching Harry Martin fly all those years and picking up his light Fledge that he frequently looped. Imagine how much cleaner and lighter you could make one with today’s “normal” hang glider materials. I could see a fast version and a longer span one that would perform and be as easily controlled somewhere between a paraglider and an Atos. Flaps could be included so that, added with rudder drag, you could bring it into a pretty small field for a fun, but not too windy XC flying. I could join my paragliding friends that are killing it in the XC where I live. Not that I have any PG friends.... ;-) Being a bird lover and one that hopes to never tuck, I’d probably also want a horizontal tail of some sort. I’m very against canards though. Oops, I think I went off topic...

Sorry I didn’t help solve the issue.
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By red
#402464
Lazypilot,

You might want to do a Search on the Lever Link. It causes a flexwing to turn by physically billow-shifting the sail. This is one way to get the augmented roll control that you want. One post (of many), and worth a listen:

viewtopic.php?p=247171#p247171

Our own Ridgerunner here is one smart dude, and a good friend. He also developed the Phyn, something like the blade tail of a tadpole, for pod harnesses. Interesting stuff.
By Lazypilot
#402467
MAYBE i did it wrong, but I once tried moving the keel without moving my body to the side.

I tied a rope to the X-bar and LE junction and then ran it behind the X-bar and over the keel. I tied it off, with some slack, to the corner of the control bar.

I launched and once I was in the clear I grabbed the rope and put as much of my weight on it as I could. It had so little effect I gave up on thinking about lever links or any other means of forcing a lateral displacement of the keel.

Now that experiment may not have returned accurate results. But I can't think of anything I did wrong, if someone with an engineering background can explain my result I'm happy to hear it.

All I really know for sure is how much fun ridge soaring in a stiff breeze on a cloudy day could be, but isn't now.

Just imagine being able to roll quickly from 45 degrees left bank to 45 degrees right bank with one hand, and realizing that you've got real authority over roll.

Remember flying into a thermal and having one wing rise and advance, and you putting maximum effort into lowering that wing and all the while the glider keeps turning the wrong way, so you give up and just go with it and maybe 270 back into it?

Wouldn't flying be so much more fun if that never (or only rarely, in extreme conditions) happened? I just know that there's something just around the corner that will rival or outperform any of the previous devices.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Regarding adverse yaw, I think that servo tabs might help with that.

When a servo tab is deflected downward it will generate lift and raise the trailing edge of a sail. It will also create drag, and so we would see less lift in the wing but higher drag, assuming the servo tab is properly shaped and sized. So we'd be kinda like the Pg's, adding drag to the wing we want to lower.
By blindrodie
#402468
Remember flying into a thermal and having one wing rise and advance, and you putting maximum effort into lowering that wing and all the while the glider keeps turning the wrong way, so you give up and just go with it and maybe 270 back into it?
So did you pull in as well!? Seems a number of times I've had to fight a U2 wing on a ridge, in a stiff breeze, at low altitude and only had to pull in sharply to get the roll going and being careful not to tip stall...

Apples-to-oranges?

8)
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By andylongvq
#402469
Lazypilot wrote: Thu Mar 01, 2018 8:14 am Just imagine being able to roll quickly from 45 degrees left bank to 45 degrees right bank with one hand, and realizing that you've got real authority over roll.
I don't have to imagine. Because I am able to do this with my Atos VQ. And with just 2 fingers, not my hand. Because... all I have to do is overcome the bungee tension that holds the spoiler control horn down flat and the airflow over the spoiler. Which can be done with just my thumb and index finger.
Lazypilot wrote: Thu Mar 01, 2018 8:14 am Remember flying into a thermal and having one wing rise and advance, and you putting maximum effort into lowering that wing and all the while the glider keeps turning the wrong way, so you give up and just go with it and maybe 270 back into it?
Yes, I do remember that. When I flew flex wings. But 10 years ago I had my first thermal flight on an Atos at Hull mountain, where I used to experience just what you mentioned. I was flying wings level looking for another climb when a big blast from a boomer core on my right wing started to roll me hard left. I corrected with a right turn for it but figured I was going to have to bail and do a 270 turn back into it.

But surprise, surprise. Immediately the right wing stopped rising and began to drop, while at the same time beginning to yaw to the right. And in no time I was banked up to the right, coring the boomer that had tried to spit me out. I'll never forget that moment. It was a watershed experience for me. It's when I realized that having those simple control surfaces laying on top of the Atos sail were like having an ice ax for prying your way into thermals.

And that first ice ax experience was on an old Atos B, which has pathetically slow roll in comparison to my Atos VQ. As a result, aside from 4 bunny hill, short flights on a Falcon, I haven't flown a flex wing since.

- Andy
By Lazypilot
#402474
All so true, Andy.

But you'll soon hear from the flexwing fearful: "Oh the weight! Oh the expense! Oh the carbon!" Get ready...

RM
Am I soon enough?
I'd like an Atos. However, I can't afford a rigid right now. I have a Sensor 610F size 136, I hook in around 165. So what would work best for me, and I'm sure many others also, is a new roll augmentation system of some kind that could be added to an existing flexie without too much weight or cost. While Atos sales might take a hit, such an invention would help a lot of Po'boys out.

I did get one really nice flight on a B model Atos, I think he said it had been fitted with a "C" sail, but not sure.

It was fun but in an effort to speed up the roll rate I would bottom out the spoiler linkage and then weight-shift. I know better now, but it was a new experience and I was all excited. To my credit I caught on to what I was doing and the last half hour or so I enjoyed the very light bar forces. Due to a health issue I landed the glider on wheels, but I've observed that these gliders are fairly easy to land.

Re-living that flight has me thinking about how a set of spoilers similar to the Atos type could be installed on a flex wing. I'm visualizing the way the Predator flexie has those lines running from the VG to an attach point on the upper surface batten pocket. That helps me to see how a guy could run lines for spoiler actuation. I think the spoiler could be made so that after the glider is tensioned and ribs installed it would have hinged tabs with strong magnets on them that would secure the spoiler to the sail. Small holes in the sail would allow some carbon rods on the leading edge of the spoiler to go into the sail, where they go into a funnel shaped piece of plastic attached to the line that runs from an attach point on the cross-bar up to the upper surface, then back down to a fairlead on the crossbar, then back up to the sail and...so on. An elastic keeps it up by the little hole in the sail, and the fingers on the leading edge of the spoiler would enter the funnel-shaped plastic thingy which helps make sure of proper installation. The outboard wing area past the end of the cross bar could maybe use the leading edge as an anchor for the actuating line. Lots of fun stuff to ponder, love that food for thought.

Each spoiler would have several of these "fingers" that go into the plastic thingy attached to the line. When the pilot moves sliders on the base tube the line is tensioned and pulls those "fingers" down, raising the spoiler.

After reading that I'm not so sure of having enough leverage to do the job. But the basic idea might be sound...

Probably the easiest and safest idea to try is servo tabs that can be suspended between over length battens on the mid-span or outboard trailing edge. They wouldn't necessarily have to be sewn on to the sail, they could pivot on an arrow shaft that spans between two extended battens and counter weighted to be mass balanced, and to some degree even aerodynamically balanced as well.

Actuation by a simple string running from a control horn on the servo tab's lower surface through the double surface to a string running from the tip of the leading edge to a fairlead on the side wire and then to a slider on the base tube. This string is normally slack and the servo tab just streamlines with the airflow.

Moving the slider tightens the string, and it pulls on the chordwise-running string and the servo tab is angled so it produces lift. This lifts up the trailing edge of the sail, reducing lift and drag, but the servo tab can be shaped and rigged so that it produces more drag than it would otherwise. That's something that would have to be tailored to each glider design.

If sail tension is so high that the servo tab can't twist it you'd get the opposite control from that intended, in other words you'd have an aileron of sorts. One way to deal with that might be the ribs supporting the tabs be hinged some distance forward of the trailing edge. They would flex in response to the servo tab. As I picture it now, that actually may be the best way to do it. I see the servo tab pulled into a nose-up attitude, the hinged portion of the sail bending upwards and reducing lift, and perhaps a tab mounted on the underside of the hinged area that extends forward so it points down and adds drag by disrupting the airflow under the sail. It would also add aerodynamic balance to help the servo tab lift the hinged area upwards. Two birds with one tab, I like it.

No doubt that developing this will prove to be harder than it looks from here. The glider could be mounted on a boat trailer and towed up to speed and the invention tested to certify that it isn't going to de-stabilize the glider in an unsafe way. That should give our fearful test pilot enough nerve to actually fly the damn thing.

Some modern flex wings have an Atos-like tail. I think a tail powerful enough to stabilize the glider in pitch and yaw could be built that wouldn't weigh any more than all those sprogs and washout struts it would be replacing. Back in those not-so-good days we had a gallows humor that washout struts were there to make sure the outboard leading edge got twisted off if you went inverted. Sadly, it had some basis in fact. I luckily was sick and didn't go flying on the day a friend lost his life in that very scenario. I suppose that anyone that's been flying for over 40 years has had to deal with it, I know that many reading this have. Thoughts and images of that nature serve to remind us to be careful while doing dangerous stuff.

Leading edges were beefed-up and made heavier in response to such accidents. If we didn't have sprogs and such trying to break the LE's they could maybe be made lighter. Torsional strength in a wing structure comes at a price in both weight and $$. A wing with minimal or no sweep back wouldn't need torsional rigidity, because washout or in wouldn't affect pitch stability like it does with sweep. Such a wing would normally result in a lighter, but statically nose heavy glider. So the tail is added and restores static balance. A win-win for us. Lemmee see that picture of the Aolus again...
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By andylongvq
#402476
Lazypilot wrote: Thu Mar 01, 2018 5:13 pm I'd like an Atos. However, I can't afford a rigid right now. I have a Sensor 610F size 136, I hook in around 165. So what would work best for me, and I'm sure many others also, is a new roll augmentation system of some kind that could be added to an existing flexie without too much weight or cost.
Ya, rigids certainly are expensive. Nice to hear you've gotten a ride on an Atos. Should have suspected that you fly a Sensor, what with all your interesting aerodynamic ideas. 8)

My last 3 flex wings were Sensors. My last one was Bob's topless Sensor #6. Still a prototype of sorts. Really liked that glider. And man was it fast. I had very little trouble going 60 mph on that glider.

Ever talked to Bob about your supplemental spoilers on the outer wing upper surfaces of your 610F? That guy's a smart and inventive fellow. I once asked him what he thought about my idea of de-coupling the flaps from the VG. Ie, have another line with a cleat on the other side of the basetube so I could apply the VG and the flaps independently. He laughed and said, "You're on your own with that one."

Keep going with your roll supplementation ideas. Would love to see a photo and video of a 136 Sensor with Atos type spoilers on the outer 3rd of each wing!

Cheers,

- Andy
By Lazypilot
#402485
"I once asked him what he thought about my idea of de-coupling the flaps from the VG. Ie, have another line with a cleat on the other side of the basetube so I could apply the VG and the flaps independently. He laughed and said, "You're on your own with that one."

I do get to talk with Bob occasionally, and have been to his Dome in Santa Barbara a few times to pick up a glider or three.

With the VG relaxed and flaps down, the glider maintains its great sink rate, that without the flaps would have increased. I have tested this in the glass-off condition where by flying efficiently I could maintain about 50' over launch, and I got the same performance with VG on or off. On another flight in very similar conditions I left the flaps disconnected and did the same test. Without flaps the relaxed VG setting yielded a higher sink rate than with VG tense.

So I like those flaps! On Brand X gliders in marginal lift I would be tempted to carry more VG than I should, so I could minimize sink rate, but my flapped Sensor gets it up and keeps it up, VG or no.

But stuff the bar for a steeper glide slope and the glider shakes and bucks, as the flaps induce a negative pitching moment at low AoA, and try to pitch the nose down. But the dive recovery thingies kick in, and so there's a high frequency shaking and banging as the two fight it out. I soon learned to carry at least 1/4 VG in the event I needed to dive her on in.

I too considered having a separate control, but I think that with the reduced twist of full VG the flaps might result in a dive, if you let the AoA get low with flaps deployed. They definitely increase drag when I pull in, helpful at times.

Thanks for the encouraging words. Some folks think I'm barking up a non-existent tree, so it boosts my morale when I hear nice words.
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By atag1
#402492
Stupid idea following:

(simpler version)
Put a pulley at the junction where the side wire attaches to the leading edge, and then wind the (much longer) side wire through the pulley and attach to the keel (maybe where the rear flying wires attach to the keel for maximal torque). Thus, when you initiate a turn by tugging at the base tube, you directly tug the keel to create more billow on the inside wing.

(less simpler version)
As far as implementing, I would actually leave the side wires as-is, and implement this the same way VG is implemented- adding strong spectra-like cord that runs along side the steel side wires, but where the side wires directly connect to the leading edge (these act as fail-safes in case the spectra fails), the spectra goes through a pulley (or rather a block-n-tackle) connected to the same spot, and continues on to be connected to the keel. If you use a block and tackle, you can add arbitrary mechanical advantage, enough so that the keel attachment point for the spectra can be inside the sail.

Thoughts?

Anthony
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By atag1
#402494
Picture of what I'm talking about in previous post:
sidewire_pulley.png
sidewire_pulley.png (16.38 KiB) Viewed 1491 times
Anthony
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By brian scharp
#402495
Lazypilot wrote:I launched and once I was in the clear I grabbed the rope and put as much of my weight on it as I could. It had so little effect I gave up on thinking about lever links or any other means of forcing a lateral displacement of the keel.

Now that experiment may not have returned accurate results. But I can't think of anything I did wrong, if someone with an engineering background can explain my result I'm happy to hear it.

Not enough force, apparently you need a mechanical advantage.
http://jmrware.com/articles/2008/leverl ... rLink.html
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By magentabluesky
#402497
Steve,

Be Happy. The gliders we now have are so much better than thirty years ago.

If you need Roll Control Augmentation, the solution is more food intake, Bulk Up.

Swept Tapered Wings need twist to be efficient and stable too. But focus on the word efficient.

Digest the The Culver Twist Formula

The insight is: there is an optimum twist profile for every angle attack for efficiency. This has to do with spanwise flow. Higher angle attacks produce greater spanwise flow. On Swept Tapered Wings, the upper surface flows toward the root and the lower surface flows to the tips. Boy, the advantage goes to the flex wing with vg, varying optimum twist with the given angle attack.

Now visualize what is happening with the Aolus verses the Flapped Sensors with regard to the spanwise flow. There needs to be a hole (space) for the converging air on the upper surface at the root and likewise something to fill the space of divergent air on the lower surface at the root. Otherwise high pressure is the result on the upper surface and low pressure on the under surface (at the root), exactly opposite of what is desired. The Flapped Sensors are closer to the optimum Culver Twist, more efficient.

This is why the Horton brothers placed the canopy forward on the upper surface and the pod rearward on the under surface, creating a void behind the canopy and filling the air void on the under surface.

If you figure out a great Roll Control Augmentation, designers are just going to increase the span toward the optimum aspect ratio of 15/1.

Michael
By peterkoistinen
#402498
andylongvq wrote: Thu Mar 01, 2018 10:06 am
Lazypilot wrote: Thu Mar 01, 2018 8:14 am Just imagine being able to roll quickly from 45 degrees left bank to 45 degrees right bank with one hand, and realizing that you've got real authority over roll.
I don't have to imagine. Because I am able to do this with my Atos VQ. And with just 2 fingers, not my hand. Because... all I have to do is overcome the bungee tension that holds the spoiler control horn down flat and the airflow over the spoiler. Which can be done with just my thumb and index finger.
Lazypilot wrote: Thu Mar 01, 2018 8:14 am Remember flying into a thermal and having one wing rise and advance, and you putting maximum effort into lowering that wing and all the while the glider keeps turning the wrong way, so you give up and just go with it and maybe 270 back into it?
Yes, I do remember that. When I flew flex wings. But 10 years ago I had my first thermal flight on an Atos at Hull mountain, where I used to experience just what you mentioned. I was flying wings level looking for another climb when a big blast from a boomer core on my right wing started to roll me hard left. I corrected with a right turn for it but figured I was going to have to bail and do a 270 turn back into it.

But surprise, surprise. Immediately the right wing stopped rising and began to drop, while at the same time beginning to yaw to the right. And in no time I was banked up to the right, coring the boomer that had tried to spit me out. I'll never forget that moment. It was a watershed experience for me. It's when I realized that having those simple control surfaces laying on top of the Atos sail were like having an ice ax for prying your way into thermals.

And that first ice ax experience was on an old Atos B, which has pathetically slow roll in comparison to my Atos VQ. As a result, aside from 4 bunny hill, short flights on a Falcon, I haven't flown a flex wing since.

- Andy
Hi Andy,

I agree about the VQ and ease of control. "wing warping", which is essentially what happens when using weight shift roll control , was used by the Wright Brothers - over 100 years ago. Then someone (Glenn Curtis?) invented moveable control surfaces for roll, and winged aviation has never looked back . Gee I wonder why?

I'm curious which bungee holds the spoiler control horn down? The only bungee I can think of is a little (1 inch) loop of bungee attached to the spoiler that hooks onto the horn. But this only serves to attach the spoiler to the horn. It does nothing to keep the spoiler down on the wing.

What am I missing?

Pete
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By mario
#402503
[quote=magentabluesky post_id=402497 time=1520032437
If you need Roll Control Augmentation, the solution is more food intake, Bulk Up.

Swept Tapered Wings need twist to be efficient and
The insight is: there is an optimum twist profile for every angle attack for efficiency. This has to do with spanwise flow. Higher angle attacks produce greater spanwise flow. On Swept Tapered Wings, the upper surface flows toward the root and the lower surface flows to the tips. Boy, the advantage goes to the flex wing with vg, varying optimum twist with the given angle attack.

Now visualize what is happening with the Aolus verses the Flapped Sensors with regard to the spanwise flow. There needs to be a hole (space) for the converging air on the upper surface at the root and likewise something to fill the space of divergent air on the lower surface at the root. Otherwise high pressure is the result on the upper surface and low pressure on the under surface (at the root), exactly opposite of what is desired. The Flapped Sensors are closer to the optimum Culver Twist, more efficient.

If you figure out a great Roll Control Augmentation, designers are just going to increase the span toward the optimum aspect ratio of 15/1.

Michael
[/quote]

Great comments Michael!
VG or variable twist is a very cool plastic solution for getting closer to the optimum twist. This is why there is sometimes an argument as to the right amount of VG to use when trying to get the best sink rate.
He’s also correct about the Aolus tail. My brother, who designed the Aolus, explained that to me years ago and while it was convenient for setting up, it is not efficient as explained. I’ve always wanted to remake the Aolus with the tail properly detached to see how it would work. Might as well add the spoilerons, span, flaps and adjustable tail at the same time. Ha!
Mario
By Lazypilot
#402505
I think I've got a touch of the "paralysis by analysis" syndrome. There's so many ways to approach this problem.

Brian Sharp : "Not enough force, apparently you need a mechanical advantage.
http://jmrware.com/articles/2008/leverl ... rLink.html"

I've seen stuff written about the Lever Link since the mid 80's, but have never seen any photos or video of it actually being used. It doesn't appear to be a difficult project, so I wonder why no one has tried it, or if they have where's the pics? As they say nowadays, if there's no video it didn't happen.

I started this topic about boosting roll authority for existing flex wings, and perhaps flexies still to come, but I'm also interested in a whole new glider, and with no "hanging". Just a 103 legal glider, just for me and my own peculiar tastes, which include 100% control of the gliders attitude. Not a positive G only aircraft. 40+ years of those is enough...maybe.

But back on this topic, I'm thinking of a fuselage with wheels, mounted under my Sensor. Sorta kinda like that "Easy Fly" thing that Wills are developing. But I'm envisioning one built for the higher performance gliders, with a good fairing in of the pilot to reduce the drag penalty of seated, or reclined, flying. The ideal configuration, for me and my peculiar taste, would be built so that it replaces the lower rigging of my Sensor.

My jealousy of the PGer's and their simple string operated AERODYNAMIC controls has me flying seated comfortably, well faired, and I have roll control by having installed a transverse batten UNDER the sail a short distance forward of the trailing edge at the root of the wing. It would be long enough to engage the second or 3rd batten each side of the keel.

To turn left I pull down on the RIGHT end of this batten. It is above the keel tube (or, "longitudinal beam"as Bob likes to call it) so it rocks on it, and pulling the right end down away from the sail it pushes up on the left side sail.

Now of course it could be mounted inside the sail, so the action described would also pull the right side down.

Now that is pretty damn simple and light. For a prone flyer a rigid tube could be mounted vertically so that as the pilot moves to the left he moves the tube, which is connected to an outer sleeve on the keel, which rotates and engages the transverse batten. The vertical tube could be made telescopic, and placed so it is right in line with the pilot's shoulders, so there would be minimal torque. The trick there is to make sure it can't hurt you in a whack situation.

Maybe a spreader bar attached to the outer sleeve in the hang loop system could provide the leverage. I dunno about that, but I'm pretty sure that the seated pilot could get enough leverage, using a batten long enough.

And speaking of whacks, I've had my fill of those in my 40+ years. I'm old and decrepit so having a fuselage and good large diameter castoring wheels sure sounds attractive to me. Playing "Superman" was a lot of fun, with the accent on "was". My neck hurts just thinking about it.

We need the "Old Man's Glider Company" to get busy and build this thing before I croak, I don't wanna hang glide but I do want to fly, and I'm about broke. So I gots to get this thing figgered out before too long.

Sorry about the rambling, been up all night fixing the Hobie Hawk.
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By red
#402509
Lazypilot wrote: Sat Mar 03, 2018 5:05 am And speaking of whacks, I've had my fill of those in my 40+ years. I'm old and decrepit so having a fuselage and good large diameter castoring wheels sure sounds attractive to me. Playing "Superman" was a lot of fun, with the accent on "was". My neck hurts just thinking about it.
We need the "Old Man's Glider Company" to get busy and build this thing before I croak, I don't wanna hang glide but I do want to fly, and I'm about broke. So I gots to get this thing figgered out before too long.
Lazypilot,

The backfin on a Seagull Escape Pod is rigid, so you won't hit the sail, if you got inverted. Bring your own glider. Scroll down:

http://www.lightsportaircraftpilot.com/ ... l-pod.html

I do not know if they are still in production, though.
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By magentabluesky
#402510
The "Old Man’s Glider Company" meets most Mondays and Tuesdays at Dockweiler. Don’t forget to sign your LA County Waiver. They fly really fun gliders like the Wills Wing Alpha 210 and the Condor 330, as close to a paraglider as you can get with bones.

It truly is amazing how agile the Condor 330 is with that much square footage and span, just add more billow. I could never have imagined a training glider to be that much fun to fly.

Be Happy!!