Francis Rogallo
Encyclopedia
Francis Melvin Rogallo was an American aeronautical
Aeronautics
Aeronautics is the science involved with the study, design, and manufacturing of airflight-capable machines, or the techniques of operating aircraft and rocketry within the atmosphere...

 engineer
Engineer
An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...

 inventor
Invention
An invention is a novel composition, device, or process. An invention may be derived from a pre-existing model or idea, or it could be independently conceived, in which case it may be a radical breakthrough. In addition, there is cultural invention, which is an innovative set of useful social...

 born in Sanger, California
Sanger, California
Sanger is a city in Fresno County, California, United States. The population was 24,270 at the 2010 census, up from 18,731 at the 2000 census. Sanger is located east-southeast of Fresno, at an elevation of 371 feet .- Geography :...

, U.S.A.; he is credited with the invention of the Rogallo wing
Rogallo wing
The Rogallo wing is a flexible type of airfoil. In 1948, Gertrude Rogallo, and her husband Francis Rogallo, a NASA engineer, invented a self-inflating flexible wing they called the Parawing, also known after them as the "Rogallo Wing" and flexible wing...

, or "flexible wing", a precursor to the modern hang glider
Hang gliding
Hang gliding is an air sport in which a pilot flies a light and unmotorized foot-launchable aircraft called a hang glider ....

 and paraglider. His patents ranged over mechanical utility patents and ornamental design patents for wing controls
Aircraft flight control systems
A conventional fixed-wing aircraft flight control system consists of flight control surfaces, the respective cockpit controls, connecting linkages, and the necessary operating mechanisms to control an aircraft's direction in flight...

, airfoil
Airfoil
An airfoil or aerofoil is the shape of a wing or blade or sail as seen in cross-section....

s, target kite, flexible wing, and advanced configurations for flexible wing vehicles.

Career

He earned an aeronautical engineering degree at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

 in 1935. Since 1936, Francis Rogallo worked for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA
NACA
- Organizations :* National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the forerunner of the U.S. federal agency NASA* National Association for Campus Activities, an organization for programmers of university and college activities...

) as an aeronautics project engineer at the wind tunnel
Wind tunnel
A wind tunnel is a research tool used in aerodynamic research to study the effects of air moving past solid objects.-Theory of operation:Wind tunnels were first proposed as a means of studying vehicles in free flight...

s. During 1948, he and his wife Gertrude Rogallo
Gertrude Rogallo
Gertrude Rogallo was one of the co-inventors of the flexible wing. These wings are now known as Rogallo wings. She and her husband, Francis Rogallo, invented the wing and obtained two US patents on different versions of it in the early 1950s. Rogallo wings are commonly used today in kites, hang...

, invented and patented a self-inflating flexible kite
Kite
A kite is a tethered aircraft. The necessary lift that makes the kite wing fly is generated when air flows over and under the kite's wing, producing low pressure above the wing and high pressure below it. This deflection also generates horizontal drag along the direction of the wind...

. They called this kite the "flexible wing". Rogallo had originally invented the wing with the idea to create an aircraft which would be simple enough and inexpensive enough that anyone could have one. The wing was flown by Francis Rogallo as a model glider with small payloads hung beneath the wing (thus model hang glider) and as a kite.

The Rogallo wing
Rogallo wing
The Rogallo wing is a flexible type of airfoil. In 1948, Gertrude Rogallo, and her husband Francis Rogallo, a NASA engineer, invented a self-inflating flexible wing they called the Parawing, also known after them as the "Rogallo Wing" and flexible wing...

 is one of the simplest airfoils ever created; a wing using the airfoil could be used to carry payloads, undercarriage devices, pilot-control assemblies, etc. For the next six years, the Rogallos tried ceaselessly to attract both government and industry interest in their flexible wing, and they licensed a manufacturer in Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...

 to sell a kite based on it. When the DuPont
DuPont
E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company , commonly referred to as DuPont, is an American chemical company that was founded in July 1802 as a gunpowder mill by Eleuthère Irénée du Pont. DuPont was the world's third largest chemical company based on market capitalization and ninth based on revenue in 2009...

 company announced the development of Mylar in 1952, Rogallo immediately saw how superior it would be for his kite, and the five-dollar toy 'Flexikite' became one of the first products to use the plastic material. The Rogallos found themselves traveling to kiting events around the Northeast to fly and promote the toy, which found moderate success.

It was on October 4, 1957 when the Russian Sputnik began beeping its message from orbit that everything changed. The space race caught the imagination of the newly formed 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...

 and, Rogallo was in position to seize the opportunity. The Rogallos released their patent to the government, and with F. Rogallo's help at the wind tunnels, NASA began a series of experiments testing the Parawing, (NASA renamed the Rogallo wing the Parawing, and modern hang glider pilots often refer to it as the flexible Rogallo wing) at altitudes as high as 200,000 feet and as fast as Mach 3
Mach number
Mach number is the speed of an object moving through air, or any other fluid substance, divided by the speed of sound as it is in that substance for its particular physical conditions, including those of temperature and pressure...

  in order to evaluate them as alternative recovery system for the Gemini space capsule
Space capsule
A space capsule is an often manned spacecraft which has a simple shape for the main section, without any wings or other features to create lift during atmospheric reentry....

s and used rocket stage
Staged combustion cycle (rocket)
The staged combustion cycle, also called topping cycle or pre-burner cycle, is a thermodynamic cycle of bipropellant rocket engines. Some of the propellant is burned in a pre-burner and the resulting hot gas is used to power the engine's turbines and pumps...

s. By 1960 NASA had already made test flights of a framed Parawing powered aircraft called the 'flying Jeep' or Fleep and of a weight shift Parawing glider called Paresev
Paresev
The Paresev was an experimental NASA glider aircraft based upon the kite-parachute studies by NASA engineer Francis Rogallo....

 in a series of several shapes and sizes manned and unmanned. A key wing configuration applying Francis Rogallo's leadership that gave base to kited gliders with hung pilots using weight-shift control was designed by Charles Richards
Charles Richards (NASA engineer)
Designer engineer Charles Richard used data from NASA research over Francis Rogallo's mechanical inventions to produce a wing 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...

 and constructed by the Richards team in 1961-2; such wing became a template for recreational use or Rogallo's inventions ending up mechanically and ornamentally in Skiplane, ski-kites, and hang gliders of the 1960-1975.

But in 1967 projects focused on the Parasev were stopped by NASA in favor of using round parachutes. NASA was not in the business of applying Rogallo's family of airfoils to personal aircraft such as kites, hang gliders, and powered light aircraft; however what was already in the Paresev series of aircraft provided all the fundamental mechanics that could be simplified to lighter personal aircraft. That task of lightening and tweaking what the Paresev team had done with the Rogallo wing was taken up by independent designers around the world: Barry Palmer
Barry Hill Palmer
Barry Hill Palmer is an American aeronautical engineer , inventor, builder and pilot of the first hang glider based on the Rogallo wing or flexible wing...

 in 1961, Richard Miller, Thomas Purcell, and Australian Mike Burns were among the first to tap the technology for manned personal-craft glider/kite use.

As of 2003 Rogallo had new designs for kites. Gertrude died on January 28, 2008. Members of the United States Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association, are called "Rogallo" members. Tens of thousands of people have taken 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 ....

 lessons in Rogallo wing
Rogallo wing
The Rogallo wing is a flexible type of airfoil. In 1948, Gertrude Rogallo, and her husband Francis Rogallo, a NASA engineer, invented a self-inflating flexible wing they called the Parawing, also known after them as the "Rogallo Wing" and flexible wing...

 type hang gliders at Jockey's Ridge State Park, an enormous sand dune which is located five miles from the site of the first powered aircraft flight. Mr. Rogallo was frequently seen at the park flying his own hang glider in the 1970s and 1980s. Francis Rogallo died on September 1, 2009, in Southern Shores, NC, near Kitty Hawk
Kitty Hawk, North Carolina
Kitty Hawk is a town in Dare County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 3,000 at the 2000 census. It was established in the early 18th century as Chickahawk....

, the birthplace of aviation.

Patents

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