Building a Hang Glider

Intro: Building a Hang Glider

 After looking back on my instructable i have realized how stupid my idea was. I have been over designing. I am going to leave the instructable up, but do not take anything in this particular design too seriously. Look at them mearly as ideas.

  I wish to start off this instructable by saying that this is not a tutorial on making a hang glider. Instead i have made it to show what i have been doing to make one and to hopefully inspire you and to help me to get some ideas from you as to how i can change my design to make it more efficent, less costly and easier to but together. ( I will post a instructable once i have made a hang glider i am pleased with. )

I also want to say that hang gliding can be dangerous to those who do not know what they are doing. If you decide to build this or any moving machine really, work with caution. 

   Gereral ideas in my design:
- A large piece of plastic sheeting is placed over a frame made of heat treated bamboo succured by sewing it over on itself over the 2 poles making the leading edge.
- The bamboo is succured by a fiber glass structure on each attachment that is fixed to only one of the poles in the attachment. The other pole can slide out of the attachment to allow it to be transported on the top of a car.
- The leading edge is kept in shape by a bunch on dog food bags put together, shaped and glued to strengthen it. 13 small tubes are glued onto this said structure to help secure the bamboo ribs. (The ribs will fit into the small tubes and the other end of the bamboo ribs are placed into small pockets sewn into the trailing edge of the sail.)

Picture #1 is from http://www.northwing.com/freedom-hang-glider.htm
and #2 is from http://www.start-flying.com/new%20site/Hang%20intro.htm

STEP 1: The Frame

   The frame is made of heat treated bamboo. The whole thing has a wing span of ~8.5m. The 2 poles making up the leading edge are ~4m. long and go off at an equal angle from the "wing keel". The wing keel is ~3m. long and is attached perpendicualy to a very long pole meeting the 2 leading edge poles about half way down. The ribs are shaped like an airfoil with a flat tailing edge like a up aileron to help keep the whole thing stable.
   The poles making up the frame are attached by fiberglass; made in such a way as to let one pole in the attachment detach from the attachment while the other pole is fixed to the attachment. (The pole that is detachable from the joint is sanded down to alow it to slide out of the fiberglass joint more easily. Screws are placed into the attachment to help hold the lose pole.)

STEP 2: The Sail

   The sail is made of a plastic tarp/sheeting. (I prefer white/clear sheet.) It is stretched tightly over the frame and permanently attaches to the leading edge poles and the wing keel. The attachment over the leading edge follows from the tip all the way down to the tip of the wing. The edges are first covered in a layer of duct tape to prevent the sail from ripping. Then the edge is folded under the leading edge pole and is sewed to the part of the sail directly above it. (which is also layered in duct tape.) In other words the sail is sewed to make a tube that the leading edge pole can slide through. The attachment to the wing keel consists of another strip of plastic tarp. This piece is also sewed to the direct middle of the sail and fits tightly around the wind keel pole. (once again you use duct tape.) The very tip of the sail is attached just by a hell of a lot of duct tape (unless i can get any other suggestions. Or maybe fiberglass.)

STEP 3: The Ends of the Leading Edge

   At the ends of the leading edge are 2 carbon fiber rods. (I plan to use some of my uncles old hunting arrows. They are cheap and strong.) One sticks out of the leading edge at about a 100 degree angle. The other acts as a brace and attaches to the end of the previous stick and to the leading edge pole about a foot down from the previous's sticks attachment to the edge. These poles could be attached to the sail by the folding over method i explained twice before. 

STEP 4: A-Frame

   The second to last piece is a isosceles triangle that attaches to the wings C.O.G. (Center Of Gravity) This acts as the steering mechanism and controls pitch, yawn and roll. This is also made of heat treated bamboo and is about 3 feet wide and 4 feet tall. The top of the frame where the two equal length poles meet is attached to the  wing keel about 2 feet up from the frame's C.O.G. by a final fiberglass attachment. This piece must be firmly attached so the bottom two ends of the 3 foot pole are attached to the ends of the poles to the sides and to the front by high-tension wires.  

STEP 5: The Harness

   The harness is a rock climbing harness that is modified to fit on backwards and attaches to the persons C.O.G. and to the Gliders C.O.G. It allows you to hang parallel to the wing keel and to pull yourself forward and to push yourself back using the a-frame.

STEP 6: What I Need From You

    As you can probably tell, i do not know much about building flying machines. So, I need your help to build this glider. I am asking for suggestions and professorial advice regarding to how to make the hang glider
- Stronger
- Safer
- More controllable 
- More portable
- And more efficient

Thank You.

Comments

[The Drummer Boy]

This is an awesome idea! you've inspired me to try this... I don't how how much u like this type of stuff, but here is a link to a ultralight form for a specific model.... also on that forum, under documents there are a-lot of resources on aerodynamic properties and stuff, they may help you out with some design features... But i think dchall8 is right, trial and error, tends to be much faster, and more beneficial. Best of luck

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Skypup-club/

[dchall8]

You're trying over-engineer it before you have it built. I'm going to suggest you stop and just build something and fly it. When I was in college a student built a hang glider to demonstrate the adverse yaw effect discovered by the Wright brothers. He built it and flew it...or tried to fly it. It had taken him six weeks to build and finally was far too heavy for him to lug up the hill. He tried to make that thing go for about 2 weeks and finally, one weekend he disassembled the original and, using the wood paneling on the side of his pickup truck, he built another one - in 2 days.

That learning curve is what I'm suggesting you will find in your project. Your first one will be heavy and won't fly well, but you will learn more than anyone here can teach you about design and about flying. Regardless of whether you spend 100 hours or 1,000 hours building the first one, your first design will have 50 things break while you are testing them out. You won't even know what questions to ask until you have crashed a couple times.

Speaking of crashing, you will. It is critically important that you protect yourself.
Preferably fly over sand. That is what the Wright's did until they got the hang of it.
Wear a helmet, goggles, gloves, sturdy shoes, and knee pads. Elbow pads are optional.
For the first week of flying, fly only 1 foot off the ground if you can control yourself. The temptation to fly higher will be very strong, but try to resist. Remember it is not the long fall that hurts, it is the sudden stop. Falling from 10 feet high is probably more than 10x worse than falling from 1 foot high. The speed will seem incredibly fast at first but you need to learn to control the craft at low altitude. Aerodynamics change at higher altitude (30 feet or so). At higher altitude what seems slower is actually slower. You will realize that the first time you come in to land from a higher altitude, so get very comfortable with that high speed.
At first limit your flights to a second or two. It will seem like eternity so that should not be hard.
Learn the theory of flaring to slow down and stop. Watch videos of birds doing it. Watch them over and over. Some parts of flying are counter-intuitive and this is one. If you don't practice anything else, practice flaring to land over and over. Landing and stopping are the part that hurts the most and you have to do it at least once per flight ;-)

[aar0nc0le]

Thank you. That was a real help.

[cyprian916]

well as far as being light and portable i suggest a frame made of PVC using pins and rings to hold it together in flight. lol im gonna build one sometime.

[aar0nc0le]

I considered PVC for a while but when i tried to experiment with it, the structure was just flimsy and flopped around. Bamboo is also light and is (in my opinion) just a better building material for this sort of thing.

[gliderxseinther]

I tried a pvc rogollo wing, worst mistake ever. Pvc bends too easy. For the leading edge it had 15ft long pvc pipes, and for the keel was 20ft. It bent to much and fell apart way to easy, work with bamboo. So if you wanted to work with bamboo and wanted to make a roggallo wing, the bamboo atleast needs a diameter of 2 inches or it will be to flimsy. I have made kite gliders with bamboo and had success. At the time I was 13 and I weighed 90 pounds so my kites wing area and wingspan didn't have to be huge. I have an instructable on that kite. To fly it you would have to go on a hill with lots of winds and updraft, then you would run against the wind and be lifted in the air for 2-3 seconds and only 3-10 ft off the ground. They were made under 100$ and only made of ductape and bamboo and tarps. If you want to make my kite, go to my instructable and if you need help comment.

[cyprian916]

ok then how bout a thin walled conduit.

[aar0nc0le]

Where i live, bamboo is a pest. It grows everywhere. Bamboo is also just as good as conduit if you properly heat treat it.

[cyprian916]

oh ok well for i would want something that couldn't possibly deteriorate.

[aar0nc0le]

Good point

[cyprian916]

lol definitely post pictures when it is finished.

[aar0nc0le]

Sorry its been so long guys, but i have news. Over the months of working with bamboo, i have developed awful rashes along my arms and neck. I have also been working with a few prototypes and found that due to the inconsistence of the bamboo diamter and weight, the glider is extreamly unbalenced. I think i will have to use aluminum tubeing.

[dchall8]

One more thing about your leading edge structure. I'm not sure how you make dog food bags into a curved structure, but I would suggest making rolls out of coroplast.  Coroplast is the corrugated plastic they make political signage out of, so at the end of TODAY there will be massive tonnage of it available outside the nation's polling places.  If you slit the corrugations lengthwise on one side, it will roll up into a nice tube.  For more information about coroplast, look at how they use it to build radio controlled aircraft. 

[aar0nc0le]

Thanks again. I was getting a little desperate for an idea on that.

[Kiteman]

Could you add photos of what you've done so far?

Or are you just listing the plans you've made so far?

[aar0nc0le]

These are mainly plans to make a hang glider. I do have a few pictures and designs but i am having trouble loading them. I will try again soon.