Homemade Hang Glider

This is a project I did in less than a week, for around 100$, it is a classic rogollo hang glider, based off the "bamboo butterfly" . This glider flies alright, I did build some things wrong, but it did fly (I am only 15). I am not responsible for any injury.

Parts:

1.50ft of 6061-t6 aluminum, between .03 or .06 thickness, and one inch diameter to 2 inch tubing. Mine was .05 thickness and 1 inch thick, mine I got were in 12ft lengths, try to get them in 25ft lengths.

2.Plastic drop cloth or tarp. I used a drop cloth 25ft by 20ft on this glider, but on my next one I will use a 30ft by 20ft tarp and sew it on.

3.Gorilla tape

4.string or wire(I used nylon kite string)

5.1/4 3inch bolts (get around 30)

6. eyebolts (get around 10)

7. T connectors

8. Rope and a harness, I used a kiting harness.

9. Bravery

Step 1: Wing

SLEEVING: I had a problem in which I had 12ft lengths of aluminum and I needed a 22ft keel, and I have no special tools, just hand tools. So what I did to connect the tubes is get a 1ft segment of 1 inch steel, put the aluminum in the steel tube and bolt it. I put 2 bolts on each side. (what I should've done to sleeve the pieces is just put a tube on top of the other and bolt it, but I didn't do that) The way I sleeved them worked alright, could've been better.

DIMENSIONS: The keel on mine was 22ft with sail going to 20ft so I had room to connect wiring. My leading edge lengths were 16ft, and my crossbar was 18ft. I put my crossbar at 14ft down from the nose on each leading edge and bolted it. Wingspan is 24.5ft. The nose angle is 85 degrees.

NOSE: I used a t shaped plate I found at the hardware store, and put one on the top and one on the bottom of the tubes so it was strong. I then bolted it in.

SAIL: Lay the frame on top of the sail, then cut it out 1ft away from the frame to give the glider billows. Then either sew on if you are using fabric, or tape on if you are using plastic. (put the plastic under the keel so you do not have to tape it as much)

Step 2: Bracing

Bracing: I did use turnbuckles to tighten the string, but you do not have to use them, just make sure the wire/string is tight. Put the eyebolts on the leading edge 2inches back from the crossbar, and for the keel put the eyebolts 3 inches from the end. You can put a tube sticking up and add bracing on top.

Step 3: Frame

For the bars sticking down from the crossbar they are 3ft long bolted on the crossbar. each tube facing down is 1ft away from the keel. I ran out of aluminum to get to the front of the glider, so I got 9ft segments and made a x out of it, and bolted it on the keel. At the joint between the x strut and the tubes hanging down put a 2ft tube in the corner.

Step 4: FLYING

I had a tiny hill to fly this off of, I still got flights of 40-50ft. You can fly without a harness but it is harder to fly because weight shift and it is harder to lift off. Walk, jog, run. You need a good 10mph wind to fly this thing. If you do not have wind you are only going to get small hops. The glider only flies at around 20mph, you also need a steep hill. I am going to rebuild another glider that has a larger wingspan and more bracing.

Comments

[DairoughD]

I love the enthusiasm, and definitely kudos on the willingness to try. Be careful, be safe, and godspeed to you.

[wingnutzster]

I applaud your effort but this is so flawed as a man-carrying flying machine, everything from your drilling method, fasteners, materials, lack of structural integrity and bracing, right down to the design, is flawed and unsafe. Without engineering or aerodynamic understanding, you've based your creation off the simplest aspects of the Ragallo kites but not considered the painful lessons learned through fatalities over time. Your system of weight shift is insufficient even for just short hops, the Ragallo wing has the ability to climb rapidly and sharply in a gust which is when flight loads become critical and where failures in design and construction will materialize and could very likely cause serious injury or death. You may not have intentions of flying at altitude but someone may follow your design and launch off a mountain or building and die....a simple disclaimer cannot absolve that and trust me you don't want that on your conscience. Rework the design, go back to the drawing board and work out the kinks, visit your local hang gliding club and school and get some instruction and a close up look at real gliders...Google is crawling with information on aerodynamics and aero structures - I can provide some very respected books that can give you a foundational understanding - research and work this out and then share your project as something that can be built and safely flown.

[thanehunt]

If someone follows a 4 step instructable and then jumps off a building or mountain, that falls firmly under "local man jumps off building with homemade glider after reading an instructable that 15 year old wrote" umbrella. You are not liable for talking about a project online. This is a common misconception. If you were, Instructables would not exist. Their liability overhead would be impossible to afford. I could also build a glider from an article written by a 30-year hang gliding veteran and still manage to hurt/kill myself with the result. The reaction will be the same: "local man jumps off building with homemade glider he build from instructions he found on the internet". I built these many times as a kid for little 30 - 50 foot flights and was fine. Very cool project. Stay safe, keep learning, and have fun.

[beauff13]

^ ^ ^ ^ ^Well said^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ....You can't protect foolish people from themselves. There are those who seem to feel it necessary to figuratively wrap everyone in bubble wrap, and they attempt to accomplish this by passing laws to force compliance. No amount of laws and regulations will stop stupid people from doing stupid things. That's not to say I think we should all throw caution to the wind. It's definitely a good idea to practice due diligence. It's highly unlikely any lawsuit would get very far, ...or as you said, "Instuctibles would not exist". ...Definitely a cool project, and pretty darm well executed for a 15 year old kid.

[gliderxseinther]

I don’t think people understand what it was meant for, I’m now a glider pilot and a skydiver. It was a thing I did as a kid to have fun off the local hills. Did it work? Absolutely. Did it work fantastic? Absolutely not😂

[ejthesecond3]

It's just funny to me that they think this is like a "you should do this it's safe and ok to do all the time" project instead of what it is: something to build because you're bored and "fly" a few feet. That's it. Lol.

Edit: what would you do to improve this design if I were to build it? Would it be possible to somehow make it collapsible without taking it fully apart? Like a locking joint or a pin?

[gliderxseinther]

So when I had built it years ago I had to carry it through the woods to the bunny hills. I made that design in this instructables capable of collapsing for movement. For a 15 year old I did a damn good job. What’d I do different? The way I set my cabling up was really bad. Would definitely do it the correct way now. I’d also get 2inch diameter aluminum instead of 1. (One inch pipe is all I could find for this particular glider). Another thing was my CG was too far forward and one of billows was a different height so I always flew towards the left no matter how much I tried to control it.

[kh_led66]

This is super cool! if it is possible could you also please share a video of it?

[infoathumcabs]

You can fly it at Ahmedabad(INDIA). There is a huge kite festival here in every year January.

[EthanK47]

Fantasic job!
I used to do the same thing when I was a kid growing up in Alaska. I ordered plans from Popular Science at first for a thing called the Soaring Hawk Hang Glider. It had parallel bars and was made mostly out of clothes poles/ clothes hanging dowels. The blue prints said "never fly higher than you would care to fall." Later, I made more hang gliders out of scap aluminum. It was a high point in my life. Please read about hang glider safety though.

[AnnabelleP5]

Hello, a friend and I are trying to build a hang glider this summer with a similar design! We were wondering, where did you get your aluminum tubing? All the places we've looked are pretty expensive.

[wingnutzster]

For aeronautical applications using non-aircraft grade aluminium is suicide. T6 and similar tubing and extrusions can be purchased by order through your local; non-ferrous supplier but more readily through aviation suppliers like Aircraft Spruce. Don't assume you can change more than 100 years of development and discovery in aeronautics to shortcut the process because you will be lucky not to end up dead. You can pick up 2nd hand Gliders, even classic and vintage types for a lot less than the costs of severe injury. I design full-size aircraft and have built different aircraft in all the major construction categories, wood, welded frame, composite, metal and studied aircraft engineering.

[gliderxseinther]

@AnnabelleP5, Metal warehouses are normally expensive aluminum, you could check scrapyards and old dumps, but if you cant find anything I would suggest using bamboo, and if you do use bamboo, I would be welcome to hand you plans of a bamboo version of my glider.

[Blinken99]

VVery good , finaly somone that do it
I will try this my self,but with pvc i think,have you tried, what about a proppeller
Very Good

[wingnutzster]

This is why this instructable is irresponsible and dangerous

[CHOPPERGIRL'sA]

You definitely need to modify or upgrade it to weight shift with a steering bar and harness and central attachment strong point to be able to swing your whole body to steer it. Swinging your legs is no where near enough; your legs do not have a lot of weight. A lot of people died finding that out the hard way. Visit http://ushawks.org/forum/search.php?search_id=active_topics there is a hang gliding community there that can help you. Happy flying. :) Choppergirl http://air-war.org

[gliderxseinther]

I originally used a harness on the glider the first few days I tested it, I connected a kite boarding harness to it and it worked decently, problem was where I had made the connection at was too far aft. I went to holding on with my armpits after so I could find the Goldilocks zone for the center of gravity.

[Jadem52]

Soo cool, but I don't think I would trust something i built.

[JON-A-TRON]

I'll see your running with scissors and raise you a homemade hang glider. This is so cool. Well done!

[nkatic]

kudos for enthusiasm young man, bravo, you have true diy spirit..maybe you could insert some drawings of assembly with specs