WEBVTT - How Hang Gliding Works 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.600 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:13.840 dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, 0:00:13.920 --> 0:00:17.960 and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry Roland, 0:00:18.000 --> 0:00:21.200 and as I said, there's me Josh Clark, which makes 0:00:21.239 --> 0:00:26.360 this Stuff you Should Know a sore In addition, wow 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:34.800 soaring soaring Okay, the sore toe edition. I don't know 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:37.199 what that means either. It doesn't mean anything. It's just 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:40.160 kind of a sore toe is kind of the opposite 0:00:40.159 --> 0:00:44.400 of soaring, you know, really drags you down to earth 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:47.440 because you think, like now I have to go to 0:00:47.479 --> 0:00:51.200 like a urgent care center and get this toe checked 0:00:51.200 --> 0:00:54.800 out and probably take some pills that make me throw up. 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:58.320 And it's just not like soaring high above the earth 0:00:58.560 --> 0:01:01.120 on a hand glider, I imagine. And I've never hand glided, 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:04.200 of you, um no, but I've had a sword too, 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:10.320 so so you know, so do you have any desire 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:13.440 to hang glide after this? Because I gotta tell you, man, 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:15.800 I got kind of jazzed about the idea of trying 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:23.119 it from researching this article. Not really, no, so like 0:01:23.319 --> 0:01:26.440 if you were somewhere on vacation and they had like 0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:29.080 hand gliding lessons as part of the place you were staying. 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:31.559 Would you like go over and try it, you think, 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:35.320 or you just absolutely aren't enthused by it at all. Yeah, 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:37.520 it kind of depends, I guess on my mood and 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:39.880 what else is going on. I mean, I could see that. 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:42.680 I think that's fair. I wouldn't I wouldn't like seek 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:47.360 it out though. But if I was literally within fifty 0:01:47.400 --> 0:01:50.440 ft of someone doing this right, and somebody picked you 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:52.920 up and put you into the hardest and I might 0:01:52.960 --> 0:01:55.720 do it. But and I'm not afraid of it or anything. 0:01:55.760 --> 0:01:58.360 It's just I don't know, I don't really care. Yeah, No, 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:00.520 I get that sense that you're not afraid of it. 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:04.440 I am terrified of heights, as you know. Um, but 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:06.840 this still sounds pretty appealing to me. Actually, I think 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:08.720 I might try it. I mean I used to do 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:12.160 repelling and stuff like that. So oh yeah, with your 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:17.560 dad right down Stone Mountain, they'll let you do that. 0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:22.079 I thought they might. So hand gliding is what we're 0:02:22.080 --> 0:02:25.240 talking about, Chuck. And it turns out this article, this 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:28.560 is an old school, old school how stuff works article, 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:35.080 which were really weird in a lot of different ways. Um, 0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:38.720 But once we kind of dug in. We've we found that, 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:41.640 like the topic is actually a little more interesting than 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:45.280 the house Stuff Works article would lead someone to believe, Yeah, 0:02:46.840 --> 0:02:50.960 it's a little dry, just his head bone dry, and 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:53.000 this is a Freud and Rich joint. He knows what 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:55.160 he's doing. He's got a PhD after his name. But 0:02:56.000 --> 0:03:00.720 I think it was the culture of the age, you know, Like, 0:03:00.760 --> 0:03:03.320 for example, in the article, he talks about a personal 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:07.480 experience hang gliding. You know exactly what I'm gonna say, 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:10.400 don't you. I don't know. I don't actually, so he 0:03:10.480 --> 0:03:13.160 said that the place that he was taking this hand 0:03:13.200 --> 0:03:17.240 gliding lesson is called Jockey's Ridge and it's a public park. 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:22.840 So he writes that, as you know, before they took 0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:25.680 off the hand gliding instructor check to make sure that 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:28.519 our intended flight path was clear of obstacles and people 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:31.160 because it was a public park. That's like such a 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:34.079 two thousand one era how stuff works thing to mention 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:36.760 in an article. You know, yeah, I kind of found 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:40.200 myself skimming that part once I started reading it. There's 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:42.400 some good info in it, but yeah, the whole personal 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:45.440 experience thing, it just doesn't it doesn't click with me. 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:50.480 You know, so, um, hang gliding, should we should we 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:52.320 do a little history. I think we should do a 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:54.200 little bit of history because, like I said, it's kind 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:56.640 of interesting. Yeah, and this is one that you would 0:03:56.640 --> 0:03:59.720 not Um. I was a little bit surprised to know 0:03:59.840 --> 0:04:03.520 that NASA had anything to do with hang gliding, because 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:06.840 it seems like obviously those two things would be opposite 0:04:06.840 --> 0:04:13.320 of one another, sort of like tow toe gliding sort 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:18.160 toe and storing. Yeah, it's like an s A T question, 0:04:18.640 --> 0:04:21.920 it is. But there was an engineer for NASA named 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:25.320 Francis Rogelo, so you kind have had an idea in 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:30.880 the nineteen forties to use his Rogallo wing, uh, which 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:32.560 was I guess sort of a crude hang glider to 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:37.800 return space help return spacecraft to Earth. Yeah, instead of 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:40.440 a mere parachute, which is what I guess had been 0:04:40.520 --> 0:04:43.080 used for a little while. Yeah. Like you know those 0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:46.520 famous images of like the Gemini capsules coming back to 0:04:46.640 --> 0:04:48.960 Earth and splashing down the ocean and they have like 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:52.720 a drag shoot you know that they're from Originally they're like, 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:54.960 what if we try this other thing? That's that will 0:04:55.000 --> 0:04:57.680 be one day. The predecessor of the hang glider and 0:04:57.720 --> 0:04:59.880 everyone said, what's the hang glider? And that person said, 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:04.360 just wait a little while. So Rigalo and his wife 0:05:04.360 --> 0:05:09.520 actually were amateur aviation enthusiasts, and that's they were just 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:12.200 kind of doing this on the side. But when he 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:14.920 started working at NASA, they he said, hey, I've got 0:05:14.920 --> 0:05:19.920 this idea. And it didn't pan out. But the the 0:05:19.920 --> 0:05:23.240 the pictures of these tests that made it into magazines 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:28.200 captured the imagination of some people around the world all 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:31.600 at once. Different people who weren't in communication with one 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:34.960 another saw these pictures and thought, you know what, I 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:37.440 could do something with that. I could turn something like 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:43.719 that into like a personal, non motorized flight machine. And 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:46.479 they did. Yeah, But he was not the first person 0:05:46.520 --> 0:05:49.200 to ever do stuff like this, because everyone, i think 0:05:49.240 --> 0:05:56.239 has seen images of weirdos in the nineteenth century jumping 0:05:56.279 --> 0:05:59.839 off of buildings with all manner of winged suits and 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:03.440 things like that, and one such guy, and that's just 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:07.720 the humans obsession with like literally flying themselves, like not 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:10.279 in a plane. There's also that it takes a certain 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:12.039 type though, if you think about it, like even today, 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:14.800 like somebody who says, wow, I'd really like to fly, 0:06:15.279 --> 0:06:17.040 and someone who says wow, I'd really like to fly, 0:06:17.320 --> 0:06:19.679 so I'm gonna spend ten years creating my own personal 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:24.160 flying machine. Those are two different people, yeah, for sure, 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:29.960 like the right brothers versus uh, this guy right exactly 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:31.880 that you've never heard of because he didn't do anything 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:35.960 otto lilienthal is that is that a good way to 0:06:36.000 --> 0:06:38.320 pronounce that? Oh yeah, not this guy. This guy did 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:43.280 a lot. Yeah. Oh yeah, you're talking about the crackpots. Uh. Yeah. 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:46.960 He was a German engineer, obviously from that name, and 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:50.240 he was crazy about this stuff. And he literally did 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:55.680 over two thousand successful flights with these what they called 0:06:55.680 --> 0:06:58.520 weight shift hand gliders, so hang gliders, where as you 0:06:58.560 --> 0:07:01.279 will see, like the modern hang lider, you you shift 0:07:01.279 --> 0:07:03.279 your weight to steer the thing, and he was he 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:06.080 was doing that in a kind of a crude way. Yeah, 0:07:06.080 --> 0:07:09.240 he basically I mean like Leonardo da Vinci had like 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:11.320 some design for a hang glider. I don't know if 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:15.520 he's ever built, and the Chinese used to make criminals 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:18.760 hang glide for fun. But this is like the guy 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:21.320 who like actually went to the trouble of figuring out 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:25.640 how to make this right from his own designs, and 0:07:25.640 --> 0:07:29.480 and like you said, two thousand successful flights. Is I mean, 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:34.760 that's that's proven technology, you know, so I say, and 0:07:34.800 --> 0:07:37.600 I don't think it's just us, but Otto Lilienthal is 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:43.640 basically known as the father of hang gliding, the Opah. Yeah, 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:48.600 I guess OPA's grandfather. Yeah, but isn't that is that German? Yeah? Oh, 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:51.320 I thought that was Greek. Well I don't. It may 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:53.120 be Greek too, but I don't know. Opa is German 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:57.640 for uh. But you know, he did a good job. 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:02.200 Then the Rogue Rogallo machine or whatever they called it, 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:08.040 the Rogallo, the fantastic flying Rogallos came on the scene. Yeah, 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:11.880 but they apparently were not inspired by anything Lilienthal did. 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:14.280 His stuff really kind of fell to the wayside once 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:18.000 the Right Brothers started. You could see that a motorized flight, right, 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:20.800 Everybody's like, why would you want this thing when you 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:23.160 can just fly in a plane. And the Right Brothers 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:27.080 themselves experimented with hang gliders first and then um moved 0:08:27.080 --> 0:08:30.680 on to two planes from their hang gliders. But by 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:33.360 this time, like the idea of hang gliding was was 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:37.600 dead and from what I understand, unknown to the Rigalos, Yeah, 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:40.400 we should totally do a right brothers show at some point. 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:43.000 I can't believe we haven't. I know there's a lot 0:08:43.040 --> 0:08:47.080 out there. We will. Uh So flash forward some though 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:54.160 toe at the very hot party, the Auto Lilienthal anniversary 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:58.000 meet up in California. So he still had his people, 0:08:58.640 --> 0:09:02.679 you know, I would guess the sort of early um 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:08.360 extreme stunt enthusiasts who held people like Otto Lilienthal Is 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:11.840 in high regard, and people came from all over the 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:15.840 place too to hang out and hang glide, I guess, 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:19.240 And that's where I think it was. Everyone sort of 0:09:19.240 --> 0:09:22.320 points to that meet up that year is when the 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:25.400 reinvention of modern hang gliding came around, do you care 0:09:25.440 --> 0:09:27.800 to say? I think so? And part of this that 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:33.520 So you've got alto Lilienthal, You've got the rigolos who 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:36.160 may or may not have been influenced by Lilienthal. And 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:39.920 then you've got a guy named Bruce Dickinson. No it's not, 0:09:41.040 --> 0:09:46.520 he's the guy from John Dickinson and Australian Tom. No, 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:49.040 well this is Tom h Are there two of them? 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:54.280 Doug Dickinson? Was it Tom Dickinson? I mean that's what 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:56.840 this one article says. But okay, well I'm sure that 0:09:56.840 --> 0:10:00.199 one's right. But so Tom Dickinson. I think he was 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:02.400 one of the ones who was inspired by those photos 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:05.480 of the Rigala wing from NASA and built his own 0:10:05.640 --> 0:10:10.400 hand glider. And he created um like what you would 0:10:10.440 --> 0:10:13.440 call um what's it called when you're like on a 0:10:14.120 --> 0:10:18.680 your parasailing and you're being towed behind a boat parasailing. Okay, 0:10:18.720 --> 0:10:22.880 So he invented basically that which later, to confuse things, 0:10:23.520 --> 0:10:26.720 was reinvented in the eighties or rediscovered in the eighties 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:30.120 and became basically a separate but related sport to hang gliding. 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:36.199 But his designs for this paraglider early paraglider, was based 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:39.320 on the Rigala wing and basically improved it enough so 0:10:39.360 --> 0:10:41.520 that other people said, hey, you know what, you could 0:10:41.520 --> 0:10:44.640 turn this into what we call a foot launched hand glider. 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:49.439 And and by the early nineteen seventies it was under 0:10:50.400 --> 0:10:53.360 it was it was the design had been improved enough that, yeah, 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:56.439 you could have like an invitational meetup of the crackpots 0:10:56.480 --> 0:10:58.920 who are into this kind of thing back then, right, 0:10:59.000 --> 0:11:01.319 And then a couple of years after that, a couple 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:05.360 of brothers named Bob and Chris wills Uh started Manufacturing 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:09.880 actually formed a company called Will's Wing, and by all accounts, 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:13.560 those dudes really really grew the sport in the early 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:16.160 to mid seventies because it's a very I mean, I know, 0:11:16.240 --> 0:11:19.440 it's kind of been reborn now with these uh what 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:21.520 are they called, not solid wing or I guess you 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:24.720 could call him solid wing rigid Yeah, rigid wing. But 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:30.120 those early hand gliders, it's a very seventies sport, you know, 0:11:30.559 --> 0:11:33.000 and they're so pretty in the seventies way to like 0:11:33.040 --> 0:11:36.199 the colors they use. Yeah, for sure, love looking at 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:39.280 hand gliders looks like a catamaran sale up there, Yeah, 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:42.120 like a Hobie Cat or something. And you know, like 0:11:42.440 --> 0:11:45.000 every I'm sure there was an episode of Chips where 0:11:45.040 --> 0:11:47.720 one of them hand glided. They were it made its appearance, 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:51.680 It had its fingerprints all over seventies pop culture. Do 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:54.640 you remember, like back in the day on prices, right, 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:58.680 one of the standard um one of the standard prizes 0:11:58.760 --> 0:12:02.640 was a Hobie Cat personal sailboat. Yeah, like anyone, You're like, 0:12:02.640 --> 0:12:07.240 what am I going to do with that? In Texas? Right? Well, 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:09.880 I guess Texas has a shoreline though, look at me? Yeah, 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:13.160 there you go. How about Nebraska? Yeah, no shore line 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:17.760 of Nebraska. So by the seventies this thing had kind 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:24.520 of taken off, if you will forgive the unintended punt um, 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:28.080 and it's it's I don't have the impression that it's 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:31.200 like nearly as much of a craze today, even though 0:12:31.240 --> 0:12:34.400 there have been major improvements like the rigid wing design. 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:37.560 It seems like it's the seventies and maybe the eighties 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:40.960 were the heyday, right. I get the feeling that today 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:46.120 it's sort of in that extreme sports category, especially with 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:48.800 these rigid wing But back in the seventies and eighties, 0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:51.520 like dudes like my dad would probably go out and 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:55.280 give it a whirl right in his jeep. Yeah, absolutely, 0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:58.880 Like my dad para glided or paras sailed on one 0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:01.920 Florida trip one time, I remember, and in true like 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:03.760 my dad fashion was he was like, I'm the only 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:06.080 one doing this. It's like, I'm not gonna pay for 0:13:06.120 --> 0:13:09.760 you guys to do it. The one but no way, 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:13.480 the one behind the boat. Mhmm. Yeah, Uman did that. 0:13:13.559 --> 0:13:16.040 Once it got stuck up there for some reason, they 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:18.200 couldn't get her, like her and the friends she was 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:23.120 with down for a while, suck floating aloft. Yeah, well, 0:13:23.160 --> 0:13:25.000 don't they just stop the boat and you come down. 0:13:25.200 --> 0:13:27.360 I don't remember what the problem was, but there was 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:29.880 an issue that they couldn't like her her turn or 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:32.240 her ride or whatever, just kept going on and on 0:13:32.320 --> 0:13:34.160 and on for some reason. I feel like the boat 0:13:34.160 --> 0:13:37.559 didn't stop. They're like, I can't take my foot off 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:43.080 the gas. But by the way, and something you do 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:46.280 probably it's usually with the hand. I can't take my 0:13:46.360 --> 0:13:50.480 hand off the gas. Yeah, exactly. There. So you want 0:13:50.480 --> 0:13:52.240 to take a little break and then come back and 0:13:52.280 --> 0:14:14.960 get into hang gliders themselves, Yeah, let's suit up. Okay, yeah, okay, man. 0:14:15.880 --> 0:14:21.720 So hang gliders at its core an extremely simple machine, right, 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:25.000 and uh, it's actually a pretty clever one too, to 0:14:25.040 --> 0:14:27.520 tell you the truth, I'm not quite sure. I can't 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:29.760 really put my finger on why I'm so jazzed about 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:34.040 the idea of trying it, but it's somewhere in here. Okay, Okay, 0:14:35.280 --> 0:14:37.720 So you get the hang glider, which is basically an 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:42.440 air foil, right, yeah, and are we going to differentiate 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:45.960 a lot between the sort of the old school and 0:14:46.040 --> 0:14:48.800 the and the new ones and the rigid wing. I 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:51.720 I looked up the difference and I didn't see a 0:14:52.160 --> 0:14:55.720 terrible amount of difference. I saw that the rigid ones 0:14:55.800 --> 0:15:00.320 have um they glide a lot longer, I think um 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:02.840 or they have like less of a sync rate. But 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:05.400 other than that, it's more of like a matter of 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:08.720 personal preference. And then you would train on the flexible 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:12.360 one for sure, So they still use flex wings. Okay, 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:15.080 I just wasn't. I had for some reason thought reddit 0:15:15.120 --> 0:15:17.480 as sort of like the rigid wing took the place 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:20.760 of the flexible wing. No, I think it did not. Actually, 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:24.720 it's a different it's a modified design. And if you're 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:30.000 really really good at um at hand gliding, you you 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:32.560 may prefer the rigid, but you may also prefer the 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:35.480 flex you don't, you wouldn't necessarily graduate from one to 0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:38.400 the other. And then the rigid didn't replace the flex wing, 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:40.480 all right, And just so people know for sure, we're 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:43.400 talking about the flexible wing. It's sort of that old 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:46.680 school hang glidder you think of that. Uh, it looks 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:50.280 like a modified parachute, and in fact it is like 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:53.240 a nylon parachute that you can hear kind of flapping 0:15:53.240 --> 0:15:57.760 in the wind over some sort of aluminum frame. The 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:02.360 rigid wing is ordered the same but the fabric, it's 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:09.880 the wings themselves are it's just stiffer. It's not like 0:16:09.880 --> 0:16:12.640 it's made out of wood or anything like that. It's 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:16.720 just like a stiffer um like the exoskeleton. I'm not 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:21.320 describing this very well. Once you bring the exo skeleton in, 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:24.360 it's all downhill from there. How would you describe the 0:16:24.400 --> 0:16:27.440 rigid wing? So like it was, like you said, the 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:30.520 flex wing, it kind of flaps in the wind. It's 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:34.960 it's it covers a skeleton. But the rigid wing is 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:37.840 is virtually the same thing, but it has like struts, say, 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:40.400 woven into it that keeps it from flapping as much. 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:42.720 It makes it makes the fabric rigid. Yeah, and it's 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:47.320 like a pre fab wing you know that you would 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:51.000 load out of your car. Yeah. They're really tough to 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:53.160 travel with it from what I understand. As far as 0:16:53.200 --> 0:16:56.600 like if you're flying somewhere on an airplane, you would 0:16:56.800 --> 0:17:00.120 you would have to take your flexible wing pair and 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:05.880 glider like on an airplane. Yeah. Yeah, they disassemble really easily. 0:17:06.200 --> 0:17:09.320 The like all of the joints are hinged, the tubes 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:13.640 pop out of one another. Um. The the actual um 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:17.080 fabric folds up and comes off and the wires, you know, 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:21.480 snap off. It's like whenever you're you're going to hang glide, 0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:23.680 you want to put your thing, you want to assemble it, 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:26.600 and then you disassemble it when you're done. Yeah, And 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:30.840 they're like somewhere between forty seventy pounds, and from what 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:33.080 I can tell, the ones that way less are the 0:17:33.200 --> 0:17:36.240 much more expensive ones because they might not even be 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:38.119 made out of aluminum. They may be made out of 0:17:38.119 --> 0:17:40.840 something even light or like carbon fiber or something like that. 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:44.280 So the so, the whole, the whole point, whether you're 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:46.439 talking about and I don't really think we need to 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:49.879 get into two rigid wing just because it is just 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:53.120 a modified version of the flexible wing and the flexible 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:56.679 wings the one that everybody's familiar with. But with the 0:17:56.680 --> 0:18:02.120 flexible wing, it's basically it's just a triangular skeleton made 0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:07.399 of hollow aluminum aircraft grade aluminum tubes or carbon fiber tubes, 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:16.080 and you've basically got three um three tubes coming out 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:18.160 at one point. Did you ever take an art class 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:23.320 of drawing class? Nope, this can not make sense to you. Then, 0:18:23.800 --> 0:18:26.520 well I've seen a hang glider though, Okay, well, so 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:29.320 if there's a point, if there's a the very front 0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:32.639 tip of the triangle of that, that the that is 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:38.600 the hand glider. Then right the widow maker, the that's 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:43.600 the nose. Out of the nose, going directly back away 0:18:43.600 --> 0:18:48.520 from you is a piece of metal, a tube called 0:18:48.600 --> 0:18:53.560 the keel, yes, going at angles out of the nose 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:57.280 backward away from you as well. Those are the leading 0:18:57.400 --> 0:19:02.560 edge tubes. And then about halfway back from the nose, 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:07.879 crossing the leading edge tubes and the keel connecting them all, 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:13.720 that's the crossbar. You have those four bars put together, 0:19:14.080 --> 0:19:17.520 that's the basically the basic skeleton of the of the 0:19:17.560 --> 0:19:21.040 hand glider. Okay, And if you haven't seen one of these, 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:25.240 just crawl out from under your rock, go to your laptop, 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:27.720 look at a picture of it. And you know, when 0:19:27.760 --> 0:19:32.040 I was researching this, especially when Freud and Rich started 0:19:32.040 --> 0:19:35.119 to get into the wires, the front wires and the 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:39.400 landing wires, and I was like, now I fully understand 0:19:39.920 --> 0:19:41.680 what they mean when they say that a picture is 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:44.480 worth a thousand words. Like Freuden Rich could have spent 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:49.760 five thousand words explaining all this and he still wouldn't 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:52.520 have nailed it like a picture would it's just impossible 0:19:52.560 --> 0:19:54.919 in a situation like this. Well, you've already explained more 0:19:54.920 --> 0:19:56.359 than I would have. I would have just said, a 0:19:56.359 --> 0:19:59.040 series of tubes and wires. Okay, So a series of 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:02.440 tubes connected, and then you've got the fabric covering that 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:07.159 you got wires having like holly, connecting everything um and 0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:09.960 stabilizing it. And then the key to all of this, 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:12.920 there's a couple of keys. This is where it starts 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:15.640 to get fascinating. There's something called the control bar, right, 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:19.280 and the control bar is like a triangle that dangles 0:20:19.400 --> 0:20:21.399 right in front of you when you're hanging from the 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:24.800 hand glider. And this is the thing that you you 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:27.760 have your hands on. It's it's how you control the 0:20:27.760 --> 0:20:29.920 hand glidder, which is why it's called the control bar. 0:20:30.480 --> 0:20:33.160 And then the next really essential piece, and I'll stop 0:20:33.160 --> 0:20:37.840 after this, I promise, is the harness, which is suspended 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:41.560 from the keel above you, right behind where the control 0:20:41.560 --> 0:20:46.199 bar hits the keel right, and so you are prone, 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:49.440 you're lying on your stomach when you're flying, and you're 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:52.520 hanging onto the control bar and you're dangling from the 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:55.440 hand glider above, which is why it's called hand gliding. 0:20:55.480 --> 0:21:00.320 Because you're hanging from the hand glider. Fascinating it is, 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:02.919 and I imagine in the nineties seventies it seemed like 0:21:02.920 --> 0:21:06.919 a fun idea when you're in Hawaii, we've had a 0:21:06.920 --> 0:21:10.359 couple of rum drinks to uh to get in a suit, 0:21:10.520 --> 0:21:14.440 throw on the helmet, strap into that harness and run 0:21:14.440 --> 0:21:18.680 off the side of a cliff because that's how you used. 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:21.119 I mean, you can still launch like that, but it 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:24.720 looks like it's gotten a little more uh, like that's 0:21:24.720 --> 0:21:26.600 fallen out of fashion a little bit, the run off 0:21:26.600 --> 0:21:28.800 the cliff version. I don't know if that's true. Man, 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:31.840 I think that that's like, um, that you're an advanced 0:21:31.880 --> 0:21:34.280 hand glider, that's probably how you're going to try it, 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:37.600 although you yeah, although you can't, I mean, you can't 0:21:37.640 --> 0:21:40.640 do um, you know, like a dune or something like that. 0:21:40.800 --> 0:21:43.359 It's really good for training or whatever. But they have 0:21:43.520 --> 0:21:46.280 like I don't know if you call it, like a 0:21:46.359 --> 0:21:48.800 launch ramp or something like that, but like some sort 0:21:48.800 --> 0:21:52.400 of launch that they build onto the edges of cliffs 0:21:52.440 --> 0:21:55.760 to run off of for hand gliding, and they're just 0:21:56.040 --> 0:21:59.280 terrifying to even look at pictures of. Yeah, I mean, 0:21:59.280 --> 0:22:01.040 i'd say I'm not scared to do it, but I'm 0:22:01.800 --> 0:22:03.760 I imagine I would have some butterflies when you go 0:22:03.800 --> 0:22:06.879 and run and jump off that thing, Right, I would too, man, 0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:08.879 So don't feel bad. But you see people do it. 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:12.399 And my immediate thought is I'm gonna nose dive, But 0:22:12.520 --> 0:22:16.040 you don't knows dive thanks to physics. Right, And do 0:22:16.080 --> 0:22:17.520 you want to take a break and then get into 0:22:17.520 --> 0:22:36.040 the physics. Yeah, we might as well hang gliding shock 0:22:41.040 --> 0:22:45.720 all right, physics. So the reason a hang glider works 0:22:46.240 --> 0:22:49.280 is because of its elegant lightweight design and the way 0:22:49.320 --> 0:22:53.320 the air moves over these wings, and then all of 0:22:53.359 --> 0:22:57.600 these other forces acting in concert with one another to 0:22:57.680 --> 0:23:00.480 make sure you stay up there for as long as possible. Yeah. 0:23:00.800 --> 0:23:04.080 So the first one we're talking about is lift. The 0:23:04.240 --> 0:23:06.320 air goes over the surface of that wing, and that's 0:23:06.320 --> 0:23:08.720 going to generate that lift when you run and you 0:23:08.800 --> 0:23:12.000 jump off of that platform, and it's going to counter 0:23:12.040 --> 0:23:15.480 the gravity. But gravity in this case is not bad 0:23:15.760 --> 0:23:19.120 like gravity is actually going to be. While it does 0:23:19.160 --> 0:23:21.480 want to pull you to Earth, it's what's making you 0:23:21.520 --> 0:23:26.760 go forward continuing that airflow. Gravity is is your friend 0:23:26.960 --> 0:23:30.920 in this case. Yeah, and then you've got drag, which 0:23:30.960 --> 0:23:33.960 is really the the other one. Um, those three factors 0:23:34.000 --> 0:23:37.800 together are what really applied to hang gliding, and drag 0:23:37.920 --> 0:23:40.960 is what ultimately slows you down. It's you're running into 0:23:40.960 --> 0:23:43.320 air molecules, and the faster you go, the more drag 0:23:43.359 --> 0:23:45.920 you have, the more the faster you get slowed down, 0:23:46.920 --> 0:23:51.160 which then brings in the syncrate, which is the speed 0:23:51.560 --> 0:23:55.240 at which a hang glider starts to descend towards Earth. 0:23:55.640 --> 0:24:00.560 It's measured in like feet per second in still air, okay, right, 0:24:00.600 --> 0:24:05.639 and the distance it can travel is determined by something 0:24:05.640 --> 0:24:08.440 called the glide ratio, which is the ratio of the 0:24:08.480 --> 0:24:12.520 forward distance through the vertical distance dropped for forward distance 0:24:12.560 --> 0:24:16.720 you've traveled to your to that drop rate. Yeah, so 0:24:16.960 --> 0:24:22.159 like say every twenty four ft you move forward, you 0:24:22.280 --> 0:24:27.720