Flight Dynamics Flightsail

Flightsail
Role Homebuilt aircraft
National origin United States of America
Designer Thomas H Purcell, Jr.
First flight 27 October 1961
Unit cost
$200 in 1961

The Purcell Flightsail or Flight Dynamics Flightsail is an experimental towed glider by Thomas H. Purcell, Jr. He sold plans in several publications for the tow-launched hung-mass controllable kite-glider. He flew first off water in late 1961 and then arranged things for off-land and landing on land. His efforts would find similarity echo later in early 1963 by the SkiPlane of Mike Burns.

Development

The Flightsail is a single seat open cockpit parasol-winged glider with tricycle landing gear. The fuselage is constructed of a triangular pyramid-shaped or tetrahedral truss; the pilot was positioned in front of the triangle-control frame.[1] The framed flexible wing resembles a hang-glider arrangement as used on the kited gliders of Paresev program and by Ryan Aeronautical Company. The glider used weight-shift pendulum control using a stick with cables that shifts the cg of the frame relative to the wing pivoting above it. The wing is constructed with a 50-degree sweep based on NASA technical note D-443 and covered with polyethylene sheet with rip-stop fiberglass tape in a one-foot mesh pattern. The aircraft was tested by NASA test pilots Milton Orville Thompson and Victor Horton [2] to compare against the Rogallo wing being tested for space vehicle recovery.[3] Purcell published that in an early 1962 flight session, Francis M. Rogallo also had a flight in the Flightsail; years later Purcell would have a very different aircraft using the flexible-wing in a modification which was flown by Francis M. Rogallo. Purcell's later Flight Dynamics Flightsail VII used the flexible-wing in a modified format.


Specifications (Flightsail)

Data from Sport Aviation April 1962

General characteristics

  • Crew: 1
  • Wing area: 24 sq ft (2.2 m2)
  • Empty weight: 75 lb (34 kg)
  • Gross weight: 225 lb (102 kg)

Performance

See also

North Carolina Museum of History Related development

Aircraft of comparable role, configuration and era

References

  1. ↑ The "Flightsail"
  2. ↑ Space History Photo: The Birth of Hang Gliding
  3. ↑ "The Flightsail". Sport Aviation. April 1962.

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