My father, who was the Executive Vice President of Aetna Life and Casualty, a/k/a "Mother Aetna", was a friend of Frank Rogallo. Though Dad was a Mechanical Engineer (Georgia Tech) and a Masters of Marine Architect (U.S. Naval Academy Annapolis), he was fascinated by and loved every aspect of flight. The Aetna insured the U.S. Space Program from Mercury through Apollo, and when the Gemini Program was first on the drawing board, the Rogallo "Parawing" was considered as a recovery system. Dad (and the astronauts!) were entirely in favor of the concept: a steerable vehicle with a glide ratio would preclude the danger-ridden parachute landing in the ocean. Unfortunately, the engineers could not find a weight-economic way to stow the wing during launch and orbit. Deployment on orbit prior to re-entry presented its own set of problems.
On Christmas Day 1964 I was presented with a real Rogallo-winged kite powered by an .049 engine. The trailing edge of the device, which spanned about four feet, was autographed by Mr. Rogallo and his wife, Gertrude. My father, younger brother, and I took this high-viz orange-winged beauty to a nearby elementary school's playground for a test flight. The engine started on the first try and we released the kite into a calm, severe clear azure sky. Up, up, up she went, ascending in a slow left-handed turn toward heaven. The engine's fuel tank was relatively large; the Rogallo was but a speck (~ 3,000 feet?) when, as soon as the engine was fuel-exhausted, a straight ahead course became evident. She flew for miles and miles and out of sight on an eastward course - I like to think she made England...
Fast forward to 2004. My wife was the Assistant Curator of the Outer Banks History Center in Manteo, North Carolina on Roanoke Island. (You know, the first British attempt at colonization of North America. Virginia Dare, etc.) She had archived maps and notes dating back to 1583! I was visiting one spring day when she said "Come back into (the temperature, light, and humidity controlled vault, occupying about 10,000 square feet) my parlor, she smiled and beckoned. I have something I know you will like!" Thinking I might have lucked into a little "afternoon delight", I was not disappointed. Before me lay the entire compendium of notes and drawings of Francis Rogallo. He lived in Southern Shores, North Carolina, next door to a big sand dune in a place called Kitty Hawk, where he would often fly his own man-carrying designs. He had come home to test the same winds that his heroes, the Brothers Wright, had spent the Fall and Winter of 1903 mastering powered, sustained, and controlled flight.
My wife and I lived across Roanoke Sound, a mile from the tall and imposing Wright Brothers Memorial. It features a very bright rotating beacon that cycles around every eight seconds. It serves as a warning to sailors of the treacherous coast of North Carolina and a beckoning candle to aviators. It stands where our species first took flight. My wife learned to fly there. She would return from a flying lesson, give me a hug and a kiss, and say "I just flew in the same airspace as Orv and Will!" Our Golden Retriever would join the hug with his cold nose and wagging feathered tail. He was nearly the color of my Rogallo that had flown out of sight all those years ago...
- Ed