#Rogallo Wing

[lonestarflight]

"The deployment of the Mercury paraglider proposed by North American after Phase I of the Paraglider Development Program."

"Space Task Group (STG) issued a Statement of Work for a Design Study of a Manned Spacecraft Paraglide Landing System. The purpose of the study was to define and evaluate problem areas and to establish the design parameters of a system to provide spacecraft maneuverability and controlled energy descent and landing by aerodynamic lift. McDonnell was already at work on a modified Mercury spacecraft; the proposed paraglide study was to be carried on concurrently to allow the paraglide landing system to be incorporated as an integral subsystem. STG Director Robert R. Gilruth requested that contracts for the design study be negotiated with three companies which already had experience with the paraglide concept: Goodyear Aircraft Corporation, Akron, Ohio; North American Aviation, Inc., Space and Information Systems Division, Downey, California; and Ryan Aeronautical Company, San Diego, California.

Wind tunnel model.

Each contract would be funded to a maximum of $100,000 for a study to be completed within two and one-half months from the date the contract was awarded. Gilruth expected one of these companies subsequently to be selected to develop and manufacture a paraglide system based on the approved design concept. In less than three weeks, contracts had been awarded to all three companies. Before the end of June, the design study formally became Phase I of the Paraglider Development Program."

Date: May 17, 1961

North American Aviation, Inc., Space and Information Systems Division, "Paraglider Development Program, Phase I: Final Report," SID 61-226, Aug. 15, 1961, p. 18. Link

NASA ID: EL-2002-00335

[gemini-enthusiast]

*pours you a tall glass of Tang* talk to us about Advanced Gemini, MOL, and the circumlunar proposal

One of my absolute favorite Gemini spinoffs is the concept for winged Gemini, found here. It was a concept to modify the Gemini vehicle to have a winged ablative surface for landing and it would jettison the wings prior to landing and land via parachute just like regular Gemini. It could not dock via the nose because it was covered by a heat shield. So like it was an early concept for a winged reentry vehicle and had thermal protection redundancies but also like it was kind of the same as ASSET except with dudes in there so like there wasn't really much of a point for it other than, as they say, aura farming.

I also love the Gemini rogallo wing because it makes the spacecraft look like a theme park ride. It's incredible. I actually got to see several artifacts related to the rogallo wing at the Udvar-Hazy center in Virginia and was almost more excited to see that than I was to see the Space Shuttle. Almost. I also got to see the bizarre contraption that Gemini astronauts used to train for rogallo landings, seen in the first part of this video being flown by Grissom.

The thing about winged Gemini and a lot of those winged concepts like the dyna-soar is that they found their way into future space plane projects. Things like the X-37B wouldn't exist if we hadn't tried it with programs like ASSET first. We learn and take information from every step along the way, and Gemini was so beautifully engineering-focused that a lot of what we learned we still use. And problems from the Gemini spacecraft are even still seen on spacecraft today. Starliner's problems with thrusters in their "doghouses" was an issue going back to Gemini III - both Grissom and Young talk about it in their respective books. The RCS problems mirrored issues on Gemini VIII, albeit less dramatically.

If you want to hear me talk about MOL for a little over five minutes, I did a short Youtube video on the Gemini II capsule and the MOL program. Gemini was the first man-rated capsule to fly twice! The capsule is actually now on display at the museum I volunteer at, and there's a number of pictures online of Bob Crippen (who was an MOL astronaut before it got canceled and he got transferred to Shuttle who I actually got to see in person a few weeks ago. Lovely fella!) visiting the capsule at the museum. The Gemini II capsule flew the only mission ever launched for the MOL, and survived reentry even with a hatch cut in the heat shield. I think the entire program of using Gemini for MOL is a testament to the quality of Gemini engineering and how versatile of a spacecraft it really was. MOL also had the first African-American astronaut! Unfortunately, he was killed in a plane crash before he could fly, but that was one leap forward that the MOL program made well before NASA did.

Honestly I actually really love the MOL I wish there was more about it available online but when I tell you I literally combed through everything I could possibly find on the National Archives and military archives and I think there's a lot of stuff that just isn't digitized even though it's pretty much declassified by now. Even finding Titan III launch footage is hard. I think my museum probably has more in their archives, but I have to coordinate with a friend of mine to get in there and I just haven't had the time. We also don't really have the resources to digitize film right now so if it's not already on VHS or DVD it's staying put.

Also not related to Gemini but my favorite Tang (or yknow. Unnamed Citrus Beverage) fact is that John Young couldn't stand it because it made him fart in space. He complains about it in the mission transcripts for both Apollo 10 and Apollo 16. Man was rocketing himself to the Moon.

[the-technicolor-whiscash]

We're like right on the edge of losing power so I'm gonna use what time I have left to continue posting about space anyway I think rather than using Starliner we bring back the Gemini spacecraft but use the originally planed rogallo wing to land it on land. There is no way this could possibly go wrong.

[arcadiaberger]

Why NASA Abandoned the Gemini Rogallo Wing

[piratesexmachine420]

Finally (fully) back from vacation! Here's a list of the coolest (IMO) aircraft I saw in D.C. (in no particular order)

Space shuttle orbiter OV-103 Discovery

Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey, randomly flying over the national mall (in vertical/hover mode. No idea what the tail number was [if only I had binoculars...])

Concorde F-BVFA (not quite as cool as the other one [G-BOAG, at the Museum of Flight in Seattle] I've been to, 'cause you could go in that one, but nonetheless I could've walked around that aircraft for hours)

Various Horten Hos (Don't remember exactly which, Wikipedia lists 4 and I only noticed three. Definitely saw the 229 [parts of it, anyway])

Northrop N-1M

The 1903 Wright Flyer

Bell XV-15 N703NA (only surviving aircraft of its type)

Northrop M2-F3 (was unlabeled [and occupied the spot where X-1-1 should've been] fortunately the M2-F3 is extremely recognizable)

Gemini rogallo wing paraglider

Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet B1-a s/n 191301

Northrup P-61C Black Widow s/n 43-8330 (sue me, I'm a sucker for the P-61)

MacCready Gossamer Albatross

Stinson SR-10F Reliant NX-2311 (modified for nonstop airmail service)

Other thoughts:

This makes 2 out of 3 surviving fully-operational orbiters I've visited. Only Endeavour remains.

I also have yet to see Enterprise, and some of the more significant mockups and test articles (e.g. Pathfinder, Inspiration, etc.). One day, maybe...

Columbia (CM-107), Gemini IV, Gemini VII, and Freedom 7 (MR-3) were all very impressive.

Spacelab was equally impressive.

I could've spent a whole day looking at the lunar rock/regolith display alone.

I did not get to see X-15-1, X-1-1, a Lockheed U-2, SpaceShipOne, Skylab B, or the Apollo-Soyuz display. :( Here's hoping I'll be able to visit again...

The Sr-71 (s/n 61-7972) was also very impressive (as they always are) but IMO the M-21 (s/n 60-6940, only surviving aircraft of its type) at the Museum of Flight edges it out in coolness factor. Sorry, SR-71.

Basically every aircraft at the Udvar-Hazy center was so cool. I did get a little tired of the German WWII fighters and bombers though.

The MiG-21 (not totally sure about serial number) was also very uninspiring--not its fault, I just can't find in my heart to care about the MiG-21. Call me back when you're a MiG-25. (Or a MiG-105... *will almost certainly never go to Russia, sighs deeply*)

Shoutout to the SBD (s/n 10575) at the Chicago Midway airport. Did not expect to see that while searching for my concourse.

Anti-shoutout to the Trump-Vance campaign 737-800 I saw land at Reagan Natl. Apt. It was a little cool to see them wheel out the boarding stairs on the tarmac for them to deplane, but I have no love in my heart for that aircraft. Maybe once it resells to someone more... reputable.

I always forget that the early Wright bros. aircraft had their elevators in front of their wings--and indeed the rest of the aircraft. What was going on there.

Saw the Sonic Wind 1 rocket sled. It did not look pleasant.

Saw a prototype helicopter called the XHOE-1 (s/n 138652), which I'd never heard of, and was a truly baffling aircraft: a helo w/ blade-tip ramjets. What were Hiller smoking in the 1950s? I want some.

Neil Armstrong's A7L was sooooooo cool. (I personally would've been little more excited for an A7LB but you gotta respect the historic significance)

The Surveyor 3 TV camera was also soooooooooo cool. As I already said, if I was in charge of the National Air and Space Museum I would've dedicated the entire floor to the Surveyor 3 TV camera.

Cool engines I saw: XLR-99, F-1 (though I've seen some before, and on a Saturn V, no less), J58 (which I've also seen before, but it's still impressive), and an XLR-71 (Navaho rocket engine)

Saw a Corona re-entry capsule and a recovery hook, very neat

Also saw an S-IVB interstage (with LVDC!)

Unrelated to aerospace, but the Capitol Building is enormous. And racist. Enormously racist.

The White House, meanwhile, is about the size of a house. A big house, but a house. Go figure.

I could go on and on listing stuff, but I'll cap it off there. So much cool stuff... (Go look at the Smithsonian website if for whatever reason you're dying to know everything I may have seen.)

[anumberofhobbies]

In the early 1960’s Ryan Aeronautical, in collaboration with NASA, sought to develop applications for Francis Rogallo’s wing. Originally the idea was to achieve a method to recover expended rocket stages and space vehicles. The company also envisaged a wide variety of mainly military applications: recon drones, landing aid for fast fighters, unmanned cargo gliders and cargo aircraft. They even saw in the Rogallo wing a replacement for the chute, emergency ejection for aircraft included. To test its suitability, Ryan produced their experimental XV-8 which took off in 1961. Those were the times. What looks like a finless S-1(B) first stage of the Saturn I(B) on its way back to earth. Artwork: San Diego Air and Space Museum Archive.

While we're talking SDASM archives,

[alex99achapterthree]

Early in the GEMINI program in the sixties, this was the plan for returning to Earth, at least they wanted to test it to see if it worked.

The Rogallo wing (named for the inventor) was stowed in the recovery compartment in the nose of the Gemini. After the re-entry phase of the descent, the wing was released and the tubular ribs inflated with compressed gas. Steering was by means or letting out and pulling in the suspension lines as necessary, and skids were deployed from bays in the bottom of the spacecraft for touchdown.

This sub-scale test vehicle was as close as it ever got to use. It was towed into the air by a helicopter and controlled by a test pilot in the cockpit. The landing-gear bays were designed into the Gemini spacecraft and all the flight spacecraft had them, but rather than landing gear, they were used to house extra equipment and experiments instead of the skids.

Ultimately, complexity and cost killed the idea and a regular parachute was used instead.

[historical-spaceflight]

1961 - At the start of the Gemini program, it was considered to have the two-man capsule land on a runway, instead of the usual spashdown in the ocean. As proposed, a Rogallo wing would deploy after the capsule entered the atmosphere, allowing the capsule to safely land on wheels or skis in a controlled descent.

The Gemini Test Tow Vehicle (TTV)-1 Paraglider was a manned-test article, dropped from a helicopter at Edwards Air Force Base, used to test the controlled landing concept. The design was dropped in favor of the more traditional parachute landings, but offers an interesting insight into what could have been.

The TTV-1 capsule is on display at the Smithsonian Air & Space’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.

[edwhiteandblue]

August 7, 1964: North American Aviation pilot Charles Hetzel performs the first manned flight of the Gemini Test Tow Vehicle (TTV). 

The TTV’s were the full-scale test articles that assessed the glide and landing capabilities of the Gemini Paraglider concept, a proposal to land Gemini spacecraft on a runway using a Rogallo paraglider wing and skids. The TTV’s were towed into the air by helicopter and glided to the ground once the towline was cut. Hetzel’s landing attempt of TTV-1 was not successful but resulted in developments that eventually made future Apollo astronaut Jack Swigert’s 1965 flight of TTV-3 successful.

Read more about Gemini Paraglider here! 

[publicdomainbooksdevotee]

Absolutely love that Lupin III Part One put Goemon Ishikawa XIII on a Rogallo wing (rigid triangle frame with flexible sheeting) in 1971. The original-flavor Goemon Ishikawa flies on a kite in one story and the Rogallo wing I’m talking about is this guy:

See, this was the state of the fledgling sport of hang gliding in 1971:

It still wasn’t completely new, since earlier the Rogallo wing had been tried as a parachute kind of thing by NASA in the ’50s, and there were some powered aircraft made by Ryan Aeronautics, including the Flex Bee which was a bit visually similar to the Lupin III thing (not hugely, but more similar than anything else I know of):

But there was nothing that made it out of being experimental until the early ’70s. 

Basically what I’m saying is that this was very *mwah,* a harmonious mashup of Warring States Period folk hero and the 1971 present day of flight.

[mantrabay]

Sunday Morning Programme. 12

Sunday cockcrow nascent

aural essays reveal

laissez-faire raptures.

Enigmatic silken piece compost ushered in by

trenchant trademark tremulous shoo in.

Doe-eyed instrumentalist’s strident brass ensemble, wakey wakey for the pier gazing loiterer whose blasé sashay amble’s out of kilter.

Maverick antennae on a radio safari, hawking hourglass heritage lodestone.

Closet Peter Pan’s astride transistor, literati goggle eyed and glued.

Silhouettes of wistful mint leaf tract navigating hoarse throat shellback allegory. Earnest weekend welcome mat to madcap jester, laureate, bohemian.

Religiously the listener’s transported from a humble tepee sanctum

to alluring levee inundation area, far flung folly edifice, nomad siren hymn sheet to mount Half Dome.

Long wave bounder in my dreams I limb skip oe’r fiction world simulcast entanglement,

snoop beneath rogallo-wing parachute in a Middle East plot,

“twin peaks” would be awestruck by this labyrinthine concourse.

One can flit invisibly round medieval black market cobblestone arcades,

ghost novelist ethereal penchant for a pinch and pilfer retro-fit infringement.

Melting pot cinnamon dispenser, whiff stick fix antidote to kettledrum ennui

the blight of urban jungle setting and rural folklore.

Otherworld contortion with a shard of drama for magic carpet flight of fancy broadcast

Lineage derived from ancient epochs now assumed but for an inkling, icons I become with card shark sly booths legerdemain.

Maybe I’m that fictile clueless hiker, destitute, indigent,

meanderer in nation state colossus whose fiendish tongue’s a wry sudoku baffle

or that moth-infested pillar wreck the thirty year rule.

With a little latitude I’d shadow plot my reverie landing on some poet’s scented flower or just as likely eavesdrop on the mocha sipping Monet, coffee cup aloft,

cast among the butterflies,

harvesting a feast on barren canvass.

Going back in time to famous childhoods

Reverting to an earlier Renaissance I’m some regal mother’s celebrated offspring,

a fragile baby cradled by maternal instincts..

Imagine for a moment me the swimmer,

wallower in oceans Maya blue,

driven by the prospect

of Olympic medal glory,

fuelled by live wire rushes,

or the influential virtuoso sculpting drafts so lyrical they lift the Sony user into orbit.

But alas this Xanadu diversion has a brusque untimely rendezvous with kingpin schedule,

as that trumpet blast alarm morphs and mutes into some vapour strewn amorphous mead.

Of late I harbour thoughts of being an olive branch across the ether that hypnotises

dull remit with lustrous anecdotal caper,

teleporting lives to fourth dimensions.

There’s always hope



Photograph n piece mantrabay copyright protected

Thanks for reading and viewing this story as always

[lonestarflight]

"Gemini spacecraft landing gear for land landing with the paraglider."

"Manned Spacecraft Center directed North American to design and develop an emergency parachute recovery system for both the half-scale and full-scale flight test vehicles required by Phase II-A of the Paraglider Development Program and authorized North American to subcontract the emergency recovery system to Northrop Corporation's Radioplane Division, Van Nuys, California. North American awarded the $225,000 subcontract to Radioplane on March 16. This was one of two major subcontracts led by North American for Phase II-A. The other, for $227,000, went to Goodyear to study materials and test fabrics for inflatable structures."

Date March 8, 1962

Message, Bailey to NAA-SID, Mar. 8, 1962; memo, Robert L Kline to H L Watkins, Subj: Renegotiation Board Information for Contract NAS 9-167, Aug. 17, 1963; Change Notice No. 1, NAS 0-167, Mar. 8, 1962; NAA letter 62MA3530, Subj: Contract NAS 9-167, Paraglider Development Program, Phase II-A, Monthly Progress Letter No. 4, Mar. 29, 1962. link

NASA ID: link

[gemini-enthusiast]

Gemini boilerplate rogallo wing test flight, Gemini program

[the-technicolor-whiscash]

My mom brought up spacecraft landings (comparing Apollo splashdowns to Dragon splashdowns) and unlocked a 15 minute tangent about the Gemini rogallo wing

[seapeesound]

okay I really want to talk about this. Project Gemini could have given us so many spaceplanes. like . they gave it a control layout like a plane. they gave it ejection seats instead of a launch escape tower. they planned to give it a paraglider wing and landing gear and have it land on a runway!

but the fucking time and budget constraints and bullshit made them abandon the cool ass wing and do the boring splashdown instead. wewe could've had spaceplane style reentry as a precedent! we could've had winged Gemini! look at what we lost when they dropped the rogallo wing

Anyways. the Gemini spacecraft is still my beloved blorbo from the space program i just think she had so much potential that never got implemented and as a result aall future nasa manned space missions with the exception of the shuttle program were slightly less exciting.

WAIT THATS SO COOL

[techsciresearch123]

Parachute Market Trends, Size, Growth & Forecast Report till 2030

The Global Parachute Market is rising due to the rise in the tourism and aerial activities like skydiving, bungee jumping, etc and the innovations in the parachute industry for military purposes is driving the Global Parachute Market.

According to TechSci Research report, “Parachute Market- Global Industry Size, Share, Trends, Competition, Opportunity, and Forecast, 2018-2030”, The Global Parachute Market is growing due to the  popularity of extreme sports like skydiving and bungee jumping among those who enjoy adventure. Similarly, the nations worldwide are expanding their military capabilities and military exercises are also increasing the global market penetration of the parachute. One of the key factors driving the market is the increasing use of parachutes in the military and defense industries for troop distribution, transportation, and training. Parachutes are also used for ballistic purposes in microlights, light aircraft, and hang gliders. This, along with the increasing use of drogue chutes in aircraft to provide control and a stable landing on wet and icy runways, is propelling market growth. In addition, major players in the market are making significant investments in research and development (R&D) activities to produce improved product variants that will meet the needs of the end users. In order to boost their overall sales and profitability, these players are also concentrating on mergers and acquisitions. Additionally, the adoption of airplane recovery parachute systems and the prevalence of modern technology in parachute systems are expected to contribute to the expansion of the worldwide parachute market during the forecast years.

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Zodiac Aerospace S.a.

Mills Manufacturing Corporation

Aerodyne Research LLC 

BAE Systems PLC

Spekon GmbH

Airborne Systems North America, Inc.

CIMSA Ingenieria De Sistemas SA

FXC Corporation

Ballenger International LLC

Rostec State Corp

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