Home (contents) → Hang gliding → Hang gliding early 1980s part 1

Hang gliding early 1980s part 1

This page follows Hang gliding 1978 and 1979 part 2.

In 1980, having obtained an HND in computing and started work as a computer programmer for a large defence electronics company, I saved up enough money to buy my first car. Previously, my flying was restricted to (in the mid 1970s) my local hill (within walking distance) and by obtaining lifts from other hang glider pilots.

Cherokee

I took this photo with a 110-format camera taped to a downtube of my Birdman Cherokee in 1980. I digitized it by using a digital camera to photograph the print.

---

Bob England went on to create the Hiway Demon, after which he moved to the USA and created the Bennett Streak. I read that he was killed about the turn of the century flying a paraglider at Torrey Pines.

---

I worked with him at Hiway in their South Wales factory for a short time. We made an extra large Demon as I remember, for a heavy customer. Bob drew out the sail and I did all the machining. They then got me to test fly it on a trike. Think someone flew it before my flight, but remember it was getting late. They had a short strip outside their Tredegar factory. Anyway got pretty high and remember cruising around for ages.
Happy days.

— Roly the sailmaker in e-mail correspondence, May 2019

Hiway of Tredegar, south Wales, was by this time the largest hang glider manufacturer in Europe. (Their move from Brighton in Sussex in the 1970s was funded by government grants.) After Hiway co-founder Steve Hunt started his own powered ultralight manufacturing business, co-founder John Ievers brought in Miles Handley, Bob England, Bill Pain, and Keith Cockroft to drive further developments. They came up with the the Alien, a flex-wing, and the Explorer, a collapsible rigid. Both of them failed to reach production and Hiway Hang Gliders ceased trading in March 1983, at least in the form of a company with large premises and consequent ‘overhead’ costs.

Upon Hiway’s closure, La Mouette of France, led by Gerard Thevenot, immediately became Europe’s largest hang glider manufacturer.

(Sources: Stan Abbot article about Miles Handley in Wings magazine, December 1982 and report on Hiway’s demise in Wings, March 1983.)

---

The crosstube fairings (made by a different manufacturer as an add-on) were intended to reduce drag and possibly even provide a small amount of extra lift. However, I suspect their main effect was aesthetic.

Those sailcloth crosstube fairings contained short battens, one each side, to eliminate flutter. However, the little battens were not well secured and on one occasion at 3000 ft above the Devil’s Dyke (a few miles north of Brighton, England) a sound like ripping fabric caught my attention. (As you might imagine. Incidentally, the red container you might discern on the harness at chest level contains an emergency parachute.) As the sound continued and the glider continued to fly normally, I realised one of the crosstube fairing battens had come loose.

I bought my Cherokee pre-owned (as a computer programmer I couldn’t afford new) and I could barely control it. Had I forgotten how to fly? I discovered that the deflexors had been over-tightened. When I loosened off those turnbuckles, it flew like a dream. (Of course, by modern standards, it flew like a heap of junk.) I spent a day trimming it out on a low slope at Butser Hill (Hampshire) while people grass-skied below me.

Birdman’s idea of opening like an umbrella was a bridge too far, in my view. Rigging mine at Beachy Head, the wind caught it before I secured the crosstube centre box to the keel with wingnuts. The wind lifted the wing from the crosstube centre and broke the crosstubes (or crushed the ends maybe). I guess I was trying to ‘buy in’ to the umbrella idea, leaving the nose wires attached so the thing stood up on the control frame when I pushed the centre box back, spreading the wings at the same time. (It was a while ago and I don’t recall exactly.) What I do remember was the more than 40 GBP repair bill, but I upgraded to newly devised plug-in crosstube ends.

As I recall, each crosstube was ‘cut through’ about 18 inches short of the leading edge. (Each crosstube was made in two parts is what I mean.) A sliding sleeve joined the two parts with a spring-button thing, so it was completely secure. You left the centre box fully attached at all times, the wing nuts (butterfly nuts) being replaced by self locking nuts.

By this time, Roly had returned from the USA and was working for Solar Wings, based in Wiltshire.

Design note: The fixed exposed strut in the photo is an anti-dive strut. It plugs into the leading edge tube. (The two tubes are connected with a bungee and cable inside.) With the glider at rest on the ground, as here, the slack sail rests against the end of the tube. In contrast, in normal flight, during which the sail is inflated by the airflow, the wing tip rides clear of the strut. However, in an extreme nose-down pitch rotation, which could happen in severe turbulence where the airflow is parallel to the wing or even blowing down on it, the dive struts hold the wing tips up, where they act as up-elevators (they are behind the centre of mass) providing a countering nose-up pitch force.

See also Birdman and Solar Wings in Hang gliding 1978 and 1979 part 2.

---

Bill Pain continued with hang glider design after the Pelican. (Indeed, in 2010 he was in Australia flight testing another prototype.) His most successful hang glider was the Offpiste Discovery, which in 1995 pioneered a reversal of the trend towards greater weight, complexity, and cost in hang gliding. The Discovery is almost as quick to rig as a paraglider.

The bowsprit configuration looked set to become the norm, at least for high performance hang gliders, foremost among which in late 1979 and early 1980 was the Southdown Sailwings Sigma, built near Brighton on the Sussex coast of England. However, in the USA, a refinement of an older innovation had been developed, which was to reverse that trend.

Also in the USA in 1980, Bill Lemen flew a hang glider at Torrey Pines, San Diego, for 12 hours and 12 minutes. Such stunts were no longer regarded as official records.

---

See Don Liddard’s photos on flickr.

---

During the winter of 1979 to 1980 I returned to designing and building experimental hang gliders, with this canard wing. However, as with my earlier creations, I found it was not as good as the state of the art. I believe that Skyhook had a similar experience with their earlier canard hang glider.

The canard configuration (which places the tailplane ahead of the main wing) prevents the main wing from stalling. Unfortunately, its disadvantages outweigh that safety feature, at least in hang gliding.

Eric Raymond developed the Arrow, a conventional glider with three-axis controls, but made out of hang glider materials and fittings, for Ultralight Products.

Lightnings, Comet clones and pod people

The Ultralight Products Comet of 1980, designed by Roy Haggard, was the first really successful double-surface flex-wing hang glider, where a battened undersurface (not visible from this aspect) encloses the crosstubes. Prior to the Comet, no flex-wing could compete with the popular Fledgling 2 rigid wing. Modern flexwing hang gliders fly better than the Comet, but they look similar.

Roy Haggard, Pete Brock, Mike Quinn, and Gene Blythe were principal contributors to this minor revolution. (Source: Roy Haggard letter in Hang Gliding July 1993.) “The Comet was the first glider in which the cross spar was restrained aft with a cable that allowed the sail force to position the cross spar vertically.” That did two things:

• It nested the cross spar neatly between the upper and lower surfaces to provide an uncompromised airfoil section.
• It greatly improved the pitch stability by allowing the entire root section airfoil to reflex at low angles of attack. (The center of the cross spar would move down nearly a foot and rest on the keel.)

---

Ironically, the first successful British double-surface flexwing hang glider, the Southdown Sailwaings Lightning, while possibly inspired by the UP Comet, was not a Comet clone, as the following photos illustrate.

Note the rearward raked king post and integral fin. The sail planform is also markedly different from that of the Comet and the Lightning had no stand-up keel pocket. When its designer Ian Grayland brought the prototype to Mill Hill, near Shoreham in Sussex, I was so astonished at its retrograde appearance (narrow nose angle, short span, broad chord and crosstubes instead of a bowsprit — although those crosstubes were hidden inside the double surface sail) I said, “What’s the idea behind this then?”

“Less drag.”

On a Sunday in December 1980, soaring conditions prevailed at the Devil’s Dyke, a north-facing ridge north of Brighton on the Sussex coast, and a race was held. Johnny Carr won it flying a Fledge 2 rigid wing, but the Lightning was close behind, followed by a Solar Wings Typhoon, another Lightning, a Hiway Demon, then two of the highest performing single surface wings, a Moyes Mega 2 and a Gryphon (made either by Miles Wings or Waspair). Only the Comet was missing from the race, but other flying days had proven it to be about equal to the Lightning, Typhoon, and Demon. (Source: The Great Clone Race by Tony Fuell, Wings magazine, January 1981.)

The incoming wind was strong and quartering the rather gradual ridge face, creating a minimum of rather trashy and turbulent lift. Here, Haddon’s Comet displayed a clear-cut advantage. Its turn radius was tighter, and the Virginia pilot was able to scratch and pass the Fledge…

— From Comet Vs Fledge — a Shoot-Out, describing world champions Rex Miller and Tom Haddon flying a one-on-one race at Ellenville, by James Hall in Glider Rider, November 1980

Roly tells me that he still (in 2019) has this Lightning stored in his shed.

---

The Moyes Mega was one of the last single surface flex-wings (with exposed cross-tubes) to be competitive after the release of the Ultralight Products Comet.

Wills Wing did not, at first, jump on the double surface (enclosed cross-tubes) bandwagon. Instead, they refined the single surface hang glider, which resulted in the Harrier of 1980. It reputedly handled better than the Comet while having almost as flat a glide when flown fast (to get from one thermal to the next). Nevertheless, in November 1980 Wills Wing started development on an enclosed cross-tube design, which they did not release until more than a year later.

Internal links

Hang gliding early 1980s part 2

Skyhook Sailwings, a short history of the early hang glider and powered ultralight manufacturer based in the north of England

External link

Photo by Don Liddard of a Hiway Demon being assembled at Hiway Hang Gliders Ltd, Sirhowy Hill, Tredegar, Gwent, Wales, in April 1982

Bill Pain’s response to Hang gliding early 1980s

[I copied this from the actual feedback, which, because I split the original page, ended up on the wrong page.]

Bill Pain says:
July 5, 2010 at 10:16 am

Hi Everard. Stumbled accross your web site. Thoroughly enjoyed. Could not help noticing the pic of me flying the Pelican. I have nothing from that era and would love a copy. It was a lovely glider to fly incidently.
I am still working on hang glider designs as well as flying sail planes. Living in Australia now. All the best Bill.

everardcunion says:
July 5, 2010 at 7:19 pm

Hi Bill,

The Pelican sure was a good-looking wing. Glad to hear that you are still designing the things.

I will send you a bigger copy of the photo (without my copyright mark on it).

Cheers,
Everard