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Rogallo ( unsparred ) parawing

Rogallo parawing as a Kite
==========================

A friend and I had a go at making a Rogallo parawing at the weekend. We took
the design from a photocopy of an extensive article on this topic. 
Unfortunately the article was incomplete, contained no info to identify the
journal/book from which it came, and ( you guessed it :) the kite don't
fly !

So, does anyone out there know anything about getting Rogallo parawings 
working as kites ? Or of sources for information on this subject ? I got the
original photocopy courtesy of Dan Leigh, who had got them from a Danish
guy ( hence the cryptic comments written on the plans in Danish ! ). Many 
references are cited to previous work on this subject ( but 'reference 8' is
not an enlightening phrase ! ).

I've tried gophering a number of NASA sites ( Rogallo did his research for
NASA ), but haven't turned up anything promising.

For anyone with the David Pelham book 'Kites', the thing we're dealing with
is like fig 3 on page 82, rather than fig 5 on page 83, i.e. there's no 
tail ( yet ! ), and no rigid keel ( just shroud lines ). The edge of the sail
is pulled in all around ( except the trailing edge ), giving the nose a 
bulbous appearance and the leading 'edges' a blunt curved profile. The sail
is just a single sheet ( i.e. not inflated at all ), there are about 24
shroud lines, 12 up the 'keel', six each on the leading edges.

The behaviour is that it will climb in a stiff breeze to an angle of about
45deg., before the nose starts to collapse, at which point it loops off 
left or right and down to earth.

Am I wrong in thinking that this design has been successfully flown as a 
kite ? 

Mark de Roussier
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