Talk:Powered hang glider

Talk
The information in this article has been gathered through several years of interactions with many experienced FLPHG builders and pilots of various nationalities and skill level and, by direct contribution by some of these pilots.

Updating, grammatical and technical editing is highly encouraged in order to improve the quality and accuracy of this article. In case that an event, technique, concept, etc. needs to be clarified, it is hoped that this "discussion" section becomes a welcoming and useful forum to all interested editors.

Gerry F. BatteryIncluded 07:05, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

How is the article to handle that PG classic and PG coming are by mechanics and by FAI properly a proper subset of hang gliders, though string controlled mostly?
The article now seems to side-step the issue, yet the title of the article has "hang glider." Perhaps there could be a way to state quickly that powered hang gliders include powered paragliders, but that a separate article is facing powered paragliders. What say you? Joefaust (talk) 03:56, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Weight regarding progress
A Beeson patent published in 1887 for the world to know involved related mechanics affects pendulum mass-shift control of hung-mass gliders and powered craft; also, the 1908 Breslau hung pilot behind cable-stayed triangle control frame in a hang glider furthered in simple hardware the mechanics instructed in the 1887 Beeson patent. Later Spratt used the similar mechanics involved for control. Proper weight for aviation's and hang gliding's having the Beeson and the Breslau and the Spratt control system is key. The control wing gyrocopter Benson control comes in here too. Dickenson arrived at a point where his results incorporated that which was already gifted to hang gliding and aviation by at least 1929's George A. Spratt and the earlier 1887 Beeson and 1908 Breslau. Joefaust (talk) 03:56, 19 June 2010 (UTC) Engineers knew this matter. Also the efficiencies that were reached by Charles Richard in the wing involved ....foldability, shape, artistic line, aerodynamics, dacron, scallopped sail, battens, etc. were already achived by the Paresev 1B; so such reality ought not be forgotten or displaced by anyone. Unawareness by a Dickenson tinkerer should not be rewarded with global innovation credit. Care to face this matter is needed because there is a strong worker who has been pushing a story of hang gliding that would overlook so very much just to get Dickenson big noted; such point-of-view goes against Wiki directives. A-frame for hang gliders, trikes, and ultralights is an article that may lead to a balanced weight. Joefaust (talk) 17:27, 31 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree that progress is the key when figuring the history of hang gliders. However, Spratt's triangular frame invention had no relevance beyond his village and had no effect, influence or PROGRESS on the sport of hang gliding. In comparison, John Dickenson's adaptation of the already existing Rogallo wing to a water ski kite had frame had enormous a world-wide impact on the sport. The point that I am making is that one must differenciate between giving the credit of invention and that of its successful application. I have no problem giving recognition to each. Beware of loosing neutrality.BatteryIncluded (talk) 15:58, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
 * It seems to be very difficult to prove that published and seen mechanics of 1887 and of 1908 and of that embedded in so many early powered aircraft like Santos-Dumont simply has no effect on the world of minds that form further aircraft. Once mechanical principles and functions are so out into the literature and craft among those skilled in the arts, then invention has occured. Later use by amateurs cannot stand as proof of non-effect for that which was already in the stream for skilled people. Spratt was not first on the control system involved. Breslau gliding club was not first either. There are signs in Pilcher, Walker, and Langley, and Wenham that Beeson was not first instructor for the involved control system. But Beeson's instruction was published strongly and available to others via the U.S. Patent system. Joefaust (talk) 04:11, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Distance correction
The strait of Bosporus is more than 700 meters wide, so the glide ratio should be corrected: >10! But I don't know how high over the sea that tower is. OlavN 19:31, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Hello OlavN. The Galata Tower is 66 m (183 ft). A map shows the opposite shore is about 500 meters away. Please verify distance at this point of the straight. (I find it difficult to believe any rudimentary glider could have such glide ratio, especially without thermals. Cheers BatteryIncluded 20:18, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Article Redaction
''I paste below the valuable feedback given on this article as requested by me. BatteryIncluded (talk) 04:26, 28 March 2008 (UTC)''

Thanks, BatteryIncluded (talk) 15:46, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Ruhrfisch comments:' An interesting article, nicely illustrated and obviously has had a lot of work done on it. It needs some work to get ready for WP:FAC and to pass that and become FA. here are some suggestions:

The lead needs to be a summary of the whole article and not contain anything that is not also in the text. I try to mention every sction heading in the lead in some way, even if it is only a word or phrase. See WP:LEAD While this is very well illustrated, there are some image issues that will need to be addressed for FAC: Per the WP:MOS, all images should be set as thumb size to allow reader preferences to set the image size. Some of the images are so close together that there are white spaces - it might be better to prune some and/or consider right / left image placement. Looking at a few images on Commons, there is sparse licensing and source information - who made these images? It is generally a good idea to have a model article to follow for ideas, structure, etc. There are several aircraft FAs (Boeing 747, several warplanes) that may offer ideas. Much of the article is unsourced - to get to FA there will need to be at least one reference per paragraph and a ref for any quote, statistic or extraordinary claim. See WP:CITE For example here are two sentences: The reaction of most pilots would be to say that powered microlights (ultralights) developed from hang gliding in the late 1970s, but it was not that simple. In fact, microlights are a rebirth, a return to the love of low-speed flight which the earliest aviators felt so keenly, but which was subsequently lost in the quest for military superiority.[5] - unless you can cite specific pilots who have this reaction, or have quotes that cite this love of low-speed flight, etc. this is problematic. There is a reference here, i.e. [5], but it is an uncited statement about the history of flight. Without references from reliable sources, it can be hard to tell what is not original research The article needs to meet WP:NPOV and maintain a neutral point of view. Much of the quote above shows POV. It also needs to be written so as to avoid "peacock words" - see WP:PEACOCK. Although it does a decent job of avoiding jargon in most places, it has to do so throughout the article, see WP:JARGON. See also WP:PRC on providing context. It may benefit from being split into several subarticles, see WP:Summary style Hope this helps - while there is a lot of information here, it needs a lot work and polish to get to FA. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 02:00, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

(Peer review added on Saturday 22 March 2008, 15:46 UTC)

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Motorized-deltaplane
The Motorized Deltaplane construction is not mentioned in the article. See http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to-motorized-deltaplane/

Doesnt look foot launched to me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.199.60.71 (talk) 14:30, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Title and body possible mismatch
The title is "Powered hang glider" while the body of the article seems with a non-neutral POV favoring the force of "footlaunch" whereas a neutral point of view would see "foot launch" as a proper subset of "hang glider" as there the mechanics of hang glider does not require footlauch; the FAI does not have a neutral point of view as the FAI supplies its own definitions to fit its sporting competition purposes which is a very limited non-neutral point of view. Hang gliders are aircraft that have pilots and payloads hanging from the airframe; hang gliders can have limp or various degrees of stiffness to the wing; thus conventional paragliders and non-conventional paragliders are members of "hang gliders." String-controlled hang gliders hold limp and non-limp wings in their set; frame-controlled hang gliders also exist, like when the hung pilot or payload presses some part of the airframe of the wing structures to effect control. Maybe editors can find a way to attain a NPOV as regards the foot-launch POV and the frame-control-only POV. Such POVs are not necessary; work can be done to gain a NPOV. The POV present now is too narrow and neglects the PG and the stiffenened PG and the non-footlaunched hang glders, if the title is to remain the guide for the article. It would be a loss to let the broad potential of the article's title be unfulfilled. Perhaps someone could start refined split articles; one of which might be: "Footlaunched powered compression-membered frame-controlled hang gliders." Joefaust (talk) 04:32, 19 June 2010 (UTC)


 * There is another possible mismatch and possible opportunity. The Timeline for electric foot-launch "glider" might include non-hang-glider mention, while the title of article is on hang glider. Maybe another article could handle electric gliders which such could include non-hang glider gliders.  That Timeline mentions paraglder; this affect the above comment on paragliders and coming stiffened compression-membered altered paragliders.  Joefaust (talk) 05:09, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

WP:NOTMANUAL
This article had a large amount of how-to text that has been tagged as such for seven months. Much of it was also uncited and looks like WP:OR, as indicated by the note at the very top of this talk page. I have cleaned this up. - Ahunt (talk) 00:23, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Article rewrite
This article seems to go about the Rogallo-type foot-launched hang-gliders, so the following section aswell as any other information about Cloth-wing ultralight aircraft should be moved to Ultralight aircraft.

Section:

Don Mitchell Surprisingly, what really launched the powered ultralight aviation movement in the USA was not the Rogallo flexible wing but a whole series of rigid-wing motorized hang gliders.[6] The Icarus V flying wing appeared with its tip rudders and swept-back style wing was used as a base for some powered experiments. Differently, a rigid biplane designed also by teenager Taras Kiceniuk, Jr--the Icarus II-- was a foundation for a modification in Larry Mauro's UFM Easy Riser[7] which biplane started to sell in large numbers; Larry Mauro would power his tail-less biplane; one version was solar powered called the Solar Riser. Hang gliding record holder Don Mitchell [8] fitted his BF-10 [9] with a motor, though he still used the pilot's legs as undercarriage, an arrangement which persisted until his B-10 Mitchell Wing [10] appeared. Then there was the Manta Fledge IIB, the Pterodactyl series, and the Quicksilver created in 1972 by Bob Lovejoy. However, foot-launched powered hang gliding as we know it today had been unsuccessful prior to 1976 because three basic elements were unrefined: Most hang gliders had poor performance.[11] Small engine technology was underpowered and unreliable. Piloting skills and experience were limited. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.182.152.93 (talk) 09:06, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Safety advantages of ducted fans
I can appreciate the need for citations. However, surely some claims are self evident. I can state with a degree of certainty that if I were to try to cut someones hand off, it would hurt them. I can't imagine that this would need citation, or that anyone would bother to write about it (I.e. there is unlikely to be a reference available to confirm this).

By the same token, it seems self evident that enclosing any rapidly rotating object has safety benefits. In the case of a propeller (unless you were to walk into the face of it head/arm first or be sucked into it), enclosing it would prevent any persons (while on the ground) or birds (while airborne) nearby from being damaged by the propeller or any continuous linear (e.g. power lines) or planar (e.g. the ground) objects (I.e. those which don't come to a point) from damaging it.

There may be other factors which I haven't thought of that make a ducted fan less safe than a propeller - they may even make it less safe overall on balance - but it still doesn't change the fact that there are *some* "Obvious safety benefits."

If I'm mistaken in this assertion, feel free to discuss it, but don't just delete it, or the statement in the article (!?) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.229.172.13 (talk) 04:08, 9 December 2011 (UTC)


 * There are also some very obvious safety deficiencies which aren't mentioned. For instance ducted fans tend to be smaller in diameter, due to the need to keep the weight down and thus can tend to move a large volume of air though a smaller fan and shroud area, which tends to increase the intake suction and thus the chances of FOD damage and resulting fan failure. As per WP:V statements need to have proper refs that discuss the issues so that a balanced article can result. Claiming technical subjects' claims are "obvious" is not a substitute for proper references. If it is so obvious then lots of people will have written about it and if they haven't then chances are that it is not only "not obvious", but may also be incorrect. If refs cannot be found then the statement, which has been challenged, should removed until a ref can be found. In the mean time, while it is discussed here, I have re-tagged it as requiring a ref. You can also note that your edit summary reverting my removal of the challenged text which says "stop being pedantic/unconstructive" is a personal attack and you have received a warning not to engage in that sort of behaviour on your user talk page. - Ahunt (talk) 11:44, 9 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I see you have reworded the statement and removed the "ref needed" tag again. The problem remains that the entire section of "advantages and disadvantages" is all unreferenced and will be soon removed as such. In general Wikipedia takes a dim view of these sorts of comparison sections and articles, because they all amount to original research. Without refs they tend to be very biased one way or the other, with is why OR is not permitted on Wikipedia and why refs are required. If refs were not required then Wikipedia would be just a blog or forum where people argued over who is right. References for this sort of thing are fundamental to making this an encyclopedia. For a further view on this from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales refer to this item, in which he says "I really want to encourage a much stronger culture which says: it is better to have no information, than to have information like this, with no sources. Any editor who removes such things, and refuses to allow it back without an actual and appropriate source, should be the recipient of a barnstar." - Ahunt (talk) 12:22, 9 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I was in the process of typing a response - you beat me to the punch ( :$ ):


 * Fair enough; as I said, there may be other factors which I haven't thought; the solution is to add these to the list of pros &/or cons, reinstate the request for citation and rephrase the claim not, to simply delete the offending factor. Since this particular factor is based on 'tendencies,' I'd agree that it would need references. But I maintain that it is not practical to provide reference for everything. For instance, in this very article, a claim is made that there are 2 harness configurations: prone and supine. There is no citation for this, because it is (more or less) obvious. Any other configuration would unnecessarily expose the pilot to drag &/or restrict his/her view. Similarly, there is no citation for a powered harness needing to "have engine controls" or that "there is great potential for injury" while hang gliding. If these and other statements were to have/require references, the list of references would be larger than the article itself & there basically wouldn't be any articles, because it would take so long to find all the references! Having spent many hours sourcing my technical reports, I have learnt what is necessary & what is excessive.


 * I've now altered the 'obvious' statement - hopefully this is now acceptable; if you feel the need to add a request for citation, then please do, but I maintain that some statements do not warrant a reference. In this case the reference would have to state that walking into cowling hurts less than walking into a moving propeller - I can't imagine that anyone would bother to write this in order for me to offer it as a reference & I'm not going to waste time trying to find such a reference.


 * PS, I'd like to point out that the 'ducted fan' article on Wikipedia has had a similar claim/list for the best part of a year without citations or being challenged.


 * PPS I reiterate my apology as to if any offence was caused, but it was intended as a general comment, not a targeted, personal attack.


 * P(PP)S While I agree with the Jimmy Wales' statement regarding that article, in that case a claim is made about a past event; stating this as being the case (without appropriate references) is merely a claim, not a statement of fact. Some things, which are universally the case, must be assumed, unless proved otherwise. For instance, I assume that you breath air in order to live - I would hold that assumption to be the case unless it was proved otherwise. If I was to assume that you might be an android or live in a controlled, heliox environment unless you provided me with proof to the contrary, it would start to become very difficult to maintain a dialogue! This may seem a bit ridiculous, but my point is that some things must be taken to be a given. In essence, I would challenge whether the 2 statements ("defining moment for Sergey" & "obvious safety benefit") are equivalent in this context.


 * Note also that I never disputed the need for citation of most of the other claims in the lists - there, there are genuinely disputable claims which would benefit from citation. I just feel that finding a reference to confirm that it isn't possible for something to pass through a cowling wouldn't be worth the trouble/would be impossible.


 * PPPPS While I agree that comparison sections can become biased, where I've found such cases, I've tended to simply add requests for citations/similar, as opposed to simply removing them. By leaving dispute material up, it allows people to consider what are basically opinions and if they know of/can think of/are thus motivated to find a source, they might add it. Removing the material would deny them the opportunity to do so. I accept that this might not be fully in line with WP policy and that it also offers people the opportunity to form secondary, erroneous opinions - I guess I'm hoping that people have enough intelligence to pay some to the tags (maybe a false, Utopian hope?). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.229.172.13 (talk) 13:59, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

All good points. The "citation needed" tags are not supposed to remain there forever, the article needs cleaning up in the near future to eliminate unreferenced text, and eepecialy the original research that makes up the advantages/disadvantages section, but if you want a week to find the refs then sure go ahead. I will hold off on cleaning it up for a week. As far as there being other articles also lacking refs, or having other deficiencies WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS applies there. Try as I might I can't fix the whole encyclopedia myself. - Ahunt (talk) 18:52, 9 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Okay a week has now passed with no improvements to this section of the article. As I indicated this seems to be all WP:OR, so it is time to clean-up the unsourced and tagged text. Any part of this can be restored with proper refs cited. - Ahunt (talk) 13:18, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

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King Post mounted emotor.
Somebody has wrongly stated that ALL powered hang gliders have a harness motor. Here is a link to a king post mounted electric motor with collapsible prop clearly powering a hang glider in a non-pusher configuration.

King Post mounted electric motor with collapsible prop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq_lvCdRRe4 202.86.32.122 (talk) 01:27, 28 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Where exactly does the article say this? I'm having difficulty finding it. Funnyfarmofdoom (talk to me) 01:37, 28 March 2024 (UTC)
 * First paragraph says all powered hang gliders have a hang motor. I keep correcting it but you keep deleting my work. 202.86.32.122 (talk) 01:46, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Ok I've tried 3 times to correct the first paragraph to read: "A foot-launched powered hang glider (FLPHG) can be a Hang Glider with a motor and propeller attached to the King Post or a Pod harness assembly known as a powered harness, nanolight, or hangmotor. These can be a motor or an electric motor. An ordinary hang glider is used for its wing and control frame, and the pilot can foot-launch from a hill or from flat ground, needing a length of about a football field to get airborne, or much less if there is an oncoming breeze and no obstacles."

Each time some fool has deleted it and called me a vandal. I even gave a link proving my claim. Some idiot called it spam.

King Post mounted electric motor with collapsible prop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq_lvCdRRe4

Had enough. Shove this ridiculous joke of a dictionary where the sun doesn't shine you ignorant know nothing twats. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.86.32.122 (talk) 01:57, 28 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Regardless of your intentions, contributions must still meet the Wikipedia style guidelines. This includes not putting external links in the article body, and 'talking' in the article Q  T C 02:00, 28 March 2024 (UTC)