Designer engineer Charles Richard used data from NASA

NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

 research over Francis Rogallo

Francis Rogallo

Francis Melvin Rogallo was an American aeronautical engineer inventor born in Sanger, California, U.S.A.; he is credited with the invention of the Rogallo wing, or "flexible wing", a precursor to the modern hang glider and paraglider...

's mechanical inventions to produce a wing

Wing

A wing is an appendage with a surface that produces lift for flight or propulsion through the atmosphere, or through another gaseous or liquid fluid...

 configuration for manned hung-pilot kite-gliders that was to be found copied only with slight ornamental variation in a decade of hang gliders. Richards was of the Flight Research Center's Vehicle and System Dynamics Branch. The four-beamed wing folded from the noseplate; one of the beams was the spreader beam that kept the flexible-wing's sweep. Those in the following decade copying the Charles Richard wing configuration expanded kiting

Kiting

Kiting may refer to:* Kiting on gossamer , by which some spiders and mites disperse.* Flying a kite* Kiting * Check kiting, a form of banking fraud* Domain kiting* Kitesurfing, a water sport...

, hang gliding

Hang gliding

Hang gliding is an air sport in which a pilot flies a light and unmotorized foot-launchable aircraft called a hang glider ....

, ultralight, and trike flight.

Timeline

• 1961 December : Charles Richard is given a directive from NASA's Paul Bikle
  Paul Bikle
  Paul F. Bikle Director of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration Dryden Flight Research Facility from 1959 until 1971, and author of more than 40 technical publications, has been associated with major aeronautical research programs including the supersonic X-15 rocket plane, and...
  
   to build quickly a cheap kite glider that could be used to give pilots practice in flying in free flight using simple weight-shifting that would change the attitude of the wing relative to the hung position of the pilot and payload.

• 1962 February 12 : Charles Richard and his team completed a first kite-glider that achieved obtaining an FAA registration. Many versions followed first flight tests.

• 2004 Charles Richard name was included in the space Stardust (spacecraft)
  Stardust (spacecraft)
  Stardust is a 300-kilogram robotic space probe launched by NASA on February 7, 1999 to study the asteroid 5535 Annefrank and collect samples from the coma of comet Wild 2. The primary mission was completed January 15, 2006, when the sample return capsule returned to Earth...
  
  chip. .

Clarification of terms

To follow the literature surrounding the constructions by Charles Richard and his team member engineers, a distinction of terms is useful, as use of some of the terms have changed over the decades later. Here are the terms that may confuse one studying the contributions of Charles Richard: kite, manned kite, glider, kite-glider, parawing, paraglider (as then used opposed to how the term is used in 2008), Rogallo wing, lobe, flexible wing, fully limp wing, inflatable wing, and hang glider (traditional expansive use vs specialized uses). The terms are sometimes confused in the pertinent related patents, public-relations announcements, memos related to NASA's progress, and communications between contractors and the public media.