jindoguy(at)gmail.com
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 Posted: Mon Apr 24, 2006 8:48 pm Post subject: One last humourous blast about Nicos |
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In 1974, ultralights didn't exist as a recognized class of aircraft, and
hang gliders were darn scarce. Hang gliders in Kansas were very rare indeed.
I had just finished my first homebuilt aircraft, a Seagull III, and had
taught myself to fly it. My wife and I were driving back home from Wichita
when we were passed by a Datsun 510 with a long roll of plastic on the roof.
I didn't give it much thought until I found the Datsun pulled over to the
side of the road. I stopped and found a young couple like ourselves,
introduced myself and was told, why, yes, indeed it was a hang glider on the
roof. I told him about the Seagull, how I had bought the tubing kit last
year, built all the other parts and rigged it, and had finally been able to
afford a sail for it just a few months ago. I invited them to stop by on
their way south.
When Stan arrived I suggested we set up our gliders and check them out. Ah,
the days of no ribs, battens, or zippers in sails, bags or harnesses. We
were both set up in five minutes. I showed him some of the finer points of
the Seagull, especially all the parts I had made from block since I couldn't
get the extrusions called out in the plans.
Stan was especially puzzled by the nico press sleeves on the wires.
"How'd you get them all nice and smooth like that?"
I explained how I had been lucky and found just the right tool in the tool
crib at work and they had signed it out to me so I could do the wires.
"There's a tool for that? I just used vice grips."
We had begun to work our way over to his glider. Sure enough, the vice grips
left big tool marks on the nico sleeves. On the sides of the nicos at that.
My eye was caught by the printing on the aluminum tubing, 5052-0, in bright
red letters. The swing seat was a piece of 2 X 6 with ropes nailed on.
"Have you flown this, yet?", I asked.
"Oh, yeah, I couldn't wait to get out to a hill, so we just towed it behind
the car." "I've got pictures."
Documentary evidence of the whole design iteration process of getting his
glider to fly was contained in those twenty photos.
"It wouldn't balance right so my brother came up with the idea to cut these
slits in the sail and it worked great."
The picture showed two foot long gashes extending forward from the trailing
edge. The next showed the glider and pilot 30 to 40 feet in the air at a
surreal angle of attack.
"Yeah, it won't fly much below 35, we had to run like hell to take off."
I thought about my options, and began to tell him that I didn't think his
aircraft was airworthy, and why. In the end, I gave him my copy of Dan
Poynter's book "Hang Gliding" and let him go to draw his own conclusions.
The next time I saw him he was flying a factory built glider called a
"Pliable Moose". He had never flown the plastic sailed glider again after
that day in my back yard. We flew together for the next four years before I
left for Washington. The last summer before I moved, Stan, his friend, Don,
and I found we could get a dealership for a thing called a Soarmaster, if we
bought three. But that's another story altogether.
Folks, I swear this story is true in every detail except Stan's name.
--
Rick Girard
"Pining for a home on the Range"
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