Home (contents) → Plastic models → UP is where it’s at

UP is where it’s at

1/24^th scale standard Rogallo hang gliders scratch built in April and May 2020

I made three vintage 1970s hang gliders to go with my Revell 1/24^th scale Volkswagen Samba bus. To be more accurate, I bought the Samba bus kit and the extra figures to go with the planned hang gliders. (While the hang gliders are models, they are not a plastic models. I put this page in that category for convenience.)

I based the fully rigged model on the Brock 82 ‘standard Rogallo’ made in 1973 by Ultralight Products of El Segundo, an industrial area bordering Los Angeles International Airport in California. The type was named after automotive designer Pete Brock, who founded Ultralight Products.

I made several mistakes including not getting the sail pattern right.

The fellow with the clip board check list reminds me of me when I ran inter-club hang gliding competitions some years ago. (Too many funny anecdotes there — and some not so funny anecdotes — to clutter this page with…)

---

This one’s sail is made of coloured paper. Tubes are aluminium and cables are thread. The nose plate is plastic card.

Although I used to design, build, and flight test hang gliders, I always contracted out the sail-making. Just using paper and glue to build little ones is a lesson in the need for accurate geometry and thinking ahead about how it is going to arrive at the finished three-dimensional shape. No wonder it took millions of dollars of space program effort combined with boat sail-making know-how to bring the concept of the flex-wing hang glider to practicality.

This work in progress contains some faults that I had to rectify later.

---

I used sellotape on the underside to join the panels, so this model is not suitable for hanging up or otherwise viewing from below it.

---

The red and yellow glider has a white paper sail painted in matt acrylic red and yellow. Tubes are aluminium, cables are thread, and the nose plates are plastic card.

The red and white hang glider, which I made first, is constructed from cocktail sticks, thread, Litespan (what a pain!) and the control frame is a length of the thinner alloy tube. I attached it to the frail roof bars permanently to impart more strength to that assembly.

“Hey guys, have you seen the old green tablecloth with the round white patterns? We need it for the picnic.”

I have not constructed any harnesses yet.

Related

Doing the Samba, my Revell 1/24^th scale Volkswagen Samba bus

Duck à l’orange: Airfix 1/76^th (OO) scale DUKW with scratch built hang gliders

Hang gliding (my flying)

Instructions for building and flying a paper Rogallo wing

External link

UP is where it’s at in Hang gliding 1974 part 1 of Hang Gliding History

Responses to UP is where it’s at

Chris Gonzales says:
August 4, 2020 at 22:49

Those models are great – they look surprisingly “scale”. My instructor had a VW Bus and I will always associate them with the early days. As far as clipboards go… they are usually a sign that someone is taking things too seriously – a dangerous omen!

Reply from Everard Cunion:
August 5, 2020 at 07:49

Thanks Chris. The guy with the clip-board reminds me of myself when I ran an inter-club competition for a few years (nearly 20 years ago now). I am a check-list type of person, but it did cause a bit of eye-rolling among some of the competitors. Maybe a bit of scrap paper pulled out of a pocket would have looked less officious…