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56-570: The first aircraft produced from the collaboration between Arturo González Gil y Santibañez and José Pazó was the Gil-Pazó No.1 . It was, like all of their aircraft, a low-wing cantilever monoplane . It was built of wood and metal with plywood skinning, seated two and had an unfaired conventional undercarriage . Reportedly similar to the Miles Hawk , it was powered by an ADC Cirrus engine. Almost no specifications are known, apart from

112-465: A cranked or polyhedral wing the dihedral angle varies along the span. (Note that the description "cranked" varies in usage. See also Cranked arrow planform.) Some designs have no clear join between wing and fuselage, or body. This may be because one or other of these is missing, or because they merge into each other: Some designs may fall into multiple categories depending on interpretation, for example many UAVs or drones can be seen either as

168-594: A kite as they worked towards achieving powered flight. They returned to glider testing in 1911 by removing the motor from one of their later designs. In the inter-war years, recreational gliding flourished in Germany under the auspices of Rhön-Rossitten . In the United States, the Schweizer brothers of Elmira, New York, manufactured sport sailplanes to meet the new demand. Sailplanes continued to evolve in

224-435: A car or boat rather than being capable of free flight. These are known as rotor kites . However rotary-winged gliders, 'gyrogliders', were investigated that could descend like an autogyro , using the lift from rotors to reduce the vertical speed. These were evaluated as a method of dropping people or equipment from other aircraft. A paper plane, paper aeroplane (UK), paper airplane (US), paper glider, paper dart or dart

280-516: A glider. The Space Shuttle and its Soviet equivalent, the Buran shuttle , were by far the fastest ever aircraft. Recent examples of rocket glider include the privately funded SpaceShipOne which is intended for sub-orbital flight and the XCOR EZ-Rocket which is being used to test engines. Most unpowered rotary-wing aircraft are kites rather than gliders, i.e. they are usually towed behind

336-753: A loaded weight of 778 kg (1715 lb). It first flew in June 1932 and was last recorded at Cuatro Vientos , Madrid in July 1936. In 1934 the Director General de Aeronáutica issued a specification for a two-seat trainer and Gil-Pazó's response was the GP-1. This "supremely elegant" aircraft, with two open cockpits and a trousered undercarriage was reportedly somewhat like the Miles Hawk Major in appearance. Its wings, of semi-elliptic plan, had

392-409: A motor mounted on a wheeled frame rather than the pilot's back. There can be confusion between gliders, hang gliders, and paragliders . Paragliders and hang gliders are both foot-launched glider aircraft and in both cases the pilot is suspended ("hangs") below the lift surface. "Hang glider" is the term for those where the airframe contains rigid structures, whereas the primary structure of paragliders

448-559: A patent US Patent 3131894 on the Parafoil which had sectioned cells in an aerofoil shape; an open leading edge and a closed trailing edge, inflated by passage through the air – the ram-air design. The 'Sail Wing' was developed further for recovery of NASA space capsules by David Barish. Testing was done by using ridge lift . After tests on Hunter Mountain , New York in September 1965, he went on to promote " slope soaring " as

504-517: A potential escape method at Oflag IV-C near the end of the war in 1944. Foot-launched aircraft had been flown by Lilienthal and at the meetings at Wasserkuppe in the 1920s. However the innovation that led to modern hang gliders was in 1951 when Francis Rogallo and Gertrude Rogallo applied for a patent for a fully flexible wing with a stiffening structure. The American space agency NASA began testing in various flexible and semi-rigid configurations of this Rogallo wing in 1957 in order to use it as

560-401: A precipitous running or jumping, as opposed to a smooth motion. Scholars are uncertain as to its original derivation, with possible connections to "slide", and "light" having been advanced. Early pre-modern accounts of flight are in most cases difficult to verify and it is unclear whether each craft was a glider, kite or parachute and to what degree they were truly controllable. Often the event

616-544: A recovery system for the Gemini space capsules . Charles Richards and Paul Bikle developed the concept producing a wing that was simple to build which was capable of slow flight and as gentle landing. Between 1960 and 1962 Barry Hill Palmer used this concept to make foot-launched hang gliders, followed in 1963 by Mike Burns who built a kite-hang glider called Skiplane . In 1963, John W. Dickenson began commercial production. January 10, 1963 American Domina Jalbert filed

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672-869: A set of (feathery) wings, and both blamed their crash on the lack of a tail. Hezârfen Ahmed Çelebi is alleged to have flown a glider with eagle-like wings over the Bosphorus strait from the Galata Tower to Üsküdar district in Istanbul around 1630–1632. The first heavier-than-air (i.e. non-balloon) man-carrying aircraft that were based on published scientific principles were Sir George Cayley 's series of gliders which achieved brief wing-borne hops from around 1849. Thereafter gliders were built by pioneers such as Jean Marie Le Bris , John J. Montgomery , Otto Lilienthal , Percy Pilcher , Octave Chanute and Augustus Moore Herring to develop aviation . Lilienthal

728-462: A side effect. The wing chord may be varied along the span of the wing, for both structural and aerodynamic reasons. Wings may be swept back, or occasionally forwards, for a variety of reasons. A small degree of sweep is sometimes used to adjust the centre of lift when the wing cannot be attached in the ideal position for some reason, such as a pilot's visibility from the cockpit. Other uses are described below. Some types of variable geometry vary

784-412: A summer activity for ski resorts (apparently without great success). NASA originated the term "paraglider" in the early 1960s, and ‘paragliding’ was first used in the early 1970s to describe foot-launching of gliding parachutes. Although their use is mainly recreational, unmanned paragliders have also been built for military applications e.g. Atair Insect . The main application today of glider aircraft

840-538: A tailless blended wing-body or as a flying wing with a deep centre chord. A variable geometry aircraft is able to change its physical configuration during flight. Some types of variable geometry craft transition between fixed wing and rotary wing configurations. For more about these hybrids, see powered lift . A polymorphic wing is able to change the number of planes in flight. The Nikitin-Shevchenko IS "folding fighter" prototypes were able to morph between biplane and monoplane configurations after takeoff by folding

896-472: A wooden structure and a stressed plywood skin. Flaps were fitted. The fuselage was a steel tube structure, fabric covered at the rear with dural skinning forward. For its first flight in June 1934 it was powered by the same Cirrus engine as the No.1 but this was replaced by a 145 kW (195 hp) Walter Junior inverted inline engine for the trainer contract competition. The competitive trials, against

952-709: Is a toy aircraft (usually a glider) made out of paper or paperboard; the practice of constructing paper planes is sometimes referred to as aerogami (Japanese: kamihikōki), after origami, the Japanese art of paper folding. Model glider aircraft are flying or non-flying models of existing or imaginary gliders, often scaled-down versions of full size planes, using lightweight materials such as polystyrene , balsa wood , foam and fibreglass . Designs range from simple glider aircraft, to accurate scale models , some of which can be very large. Larger outdoor models are usually radio-controlled gliders that are piloted remotely from

1008-484: Is common to refer to a plane as a wing, as in "a biplane has two wings", or alternatively to refer to the whole thing as a wing, as in "a biplane wing has two planes". Where the meaning is clear, this article follows common usage, only being more precise where needed to avoid real ambiguity or incorrectness. Fixed-wing aircraft can have different numbers of wings: A fixed-wing aircraft may have more than one wing plane, stacked one above another: A staggered design has

1064-608: Is done by individual designers and home builders. Unlike a sailplane, a hang glider is capable of being carried, foot launched and landed solely by the use of the pilot's legs. In a hang glider the shape of the wing is determined by a structure, and it is this that distinguishes them from the other main type of foot-launched aircraft, paragliders , technically Class 3. Some hang gliders have engines, and are known as powered hang gliders . Due to their commonality of parts, construction and design, they are usually considered by aviation authorities to be hang gliders, even though they may use

1120-638: Is only recorded a long time after it allegedly took place. A 17th-century account reports an attempt at flight by the 9th-century poet Abbas Ibn Firnas near Córdoba, Spain which ended in heavy back injuries. The monk Eilmer of Malmesbury is reported by William of Malmesbury ( c.  1080  – c.  1143 ), a fellow monk and historian, to have flown off the roof of his Abbey in Malmesbury , England, sometime between 1000 and 1010 AD, gliding about 200 metres (220 yd) before crashing and breaking his legs. According to these reports, both used

1176-438: Is particularly so for variable geometry and combined (closed) wing types. Most of the configurations described here have flown (if only very briefly) on full-size aircraft. A few theoretical designs are also notable. Note on terminology: Most fixed-wing aircraft have left hand and right hand wings in a symmetrical arrangement. Strictly, such a pair of wings is called a wing plane or just plane. However, in certain situations it

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1232-563: Is sport and recreation. Gliders were developed from the 1920s for recreational purposes. As pilots began to understand how to use rising air, gliders were developed with a high lift-to-drag ratio . These allowed longer glides to the next source of ' lift ', and so increase their chances of flying long distances. This gave rise to the popular sport known as gliding although the term can also be used to refer to merely descending flight. Such gliders designed for soaring are sometimes called sailplanes. Gliders were mainly built of wood and metal but

1288-714: Is supple, consisting mainly of woven material. Military gliders were used mainly during the Second World War for carrying troops and heavy equipment (see Glider infantry ) to a combat zone, including the British Airspeed Horsa , Russian Polikarpov BDP S-1 , American Waco CG-3 , Japanese Kokusai Ku-8 , and German Junkers Ju 322 . These aircraft were towed into the air and most of the way to their target by military transport planes, e.g. C-47 Dakota , or by bombers that had been relegated to secondary activities, e.g. Short Stirling . Once released from

1344-413: Is the basis for most recreational flights and competitions, though aerobatics and 'spot landing competitions' also occur. Launching is often done by jogging down a slope, but winch launches behind a towing vehicle are also used. A Paramotor is a paraglider wing powered by a motor attached to the back of the pilot, and is also known as a powered paraglider . A variation of this is the paraplane , which has

1400-408: Is the silhouette of the wing when viewed from above or below. See also variable geometry types which vary the wing planform during flight. The aspect ratio is the span divided by the mean or average chord. It is a measure of how long and slender the wing appears when seen from above or below. Most variable geometry configurations vary the aspect ratio in some way, either deliberately or as

1456-488: The Beechcraft Staggerwing . To support itself a wing has to be rigid and strong and consequently may be heavy. By adding external bracing, the weight can be greatly reduced. Originally such bracing was always present, but it causes a large amount of drag at higher speeds and has not been used for faster designs since the early 1930s. The types are: Wings can also be characterised as: The wing planform

1512-742: The Bell X-1 in 1946 up to the North American X-15 spent more time flying unpowered than under power. In the 1960s research was also done on unpowered lifting bodies and on the X-20 Dyna-Soar project, but although the X20 was cancelled, this research eventually led to the Space Shuttle. NASA 's Space Shuttle first flew on April 12, 1981. The Shuttle re-entered at Mach 25 at the end of each spaceflight , landing entirely as

1568-574: The Horten flying wings , the scaled glider version of the Armstrong Whitworth A.W.52 jet powered flying wing. Lifting bodies were also developed using unpowered prototypes. Although the idea can be dated to Vincent Justus Burnelli in 1921, interest was nearly non-existent until it appeared to be a solution for returning spacecraft. Traditional space capsules have little directional control while conventionally winged craft cannot handle

1624-875: The Loring X , the Hispano HS-34 and the Adaro 1.E.7 , assessed the Gil-Pazó GP-1 as the clear winner, so in 1936 González Gil and Pazó received an order for 100 aircraft. These were to be built by Aeronáutica Industrial S.A. (AISA) , the former Talleres Loring factory at Carabanchel Alto , Madrid . None of these had been completed by July 1936 at the start of the Spanish Civil War , and with rebel forces approaching Madrid in October, AISA retreated to Alicante . About forty GP-1s were built there during

1680-621: The Supermarine Spitfire is a conventional low wing cantilever monoplane of straight elliptical planform with moderate aspect ratio and slight dihedral. Many variations have been tried. Sometimes the distinction between them is blurred, for example the wings of many modern combat aircraft may be described either as cropped compound deltas with (forwards or backwards) swept trailing edge, or as sharply tapered swept wings with large leading edge root extensions (or LERX). Some are therefore duplicated here under more than one heading. This

1736-487: The air sports of gliding , hang gliding and paragliding . However some spacecraft have been designed to descend as gliders and in the past military gliders have been used in warfare. Some simple and familiar types of glider are toys such as paper planes and balsa wood gliders. Glider is the agent noun form of the verb to glide . It derives from Middle English gliden , which in turn derived from Old English glīdan . The oldest meaning of glide may have denoted

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1792-491: The 1930s, and sport gliding has become the main application of gliders. As their performance improved, gliders began to be used to fly cross-country and now regularly fly hundreds or even over a thousand of kilometers in a day, if the weather is suitable. Military gliders were developed by during World War II by a number of countries for landing troops,. A glider – the Colditz Cock – was even built secretly by POWs as

1848-544: The FAI based on a maximum weight. They are light enough to be transported easily, and can be flown without licensing in some countries. Ultralight gliders have performance similar to hang gliders , but offer some additional crash safety as the pilot can be strapped in an upright seat within a deformable structure. Landing is usually on one or two wheels which distinguishes these craft from hang gliders. Several commercial ultralight gliders have come and gone, but most current development

1904-810: The Korean War, transport aircraft had also become larger and more efficient so that even light tanks could be dropped by parachute, causing gliders to fall out of favor. Even after the development of powered aircraft, gliders have been built for research, where the lack of powerplant reduces complexity and construction costs and speeds development, particularly where new and poorly understood aerodynamic ideas are being tested that might require significant airframe changes. Examples have included delta wings, flying wings, lifting bodies and other unconventional lifting surfaces where existing theories were not sufficiently developed to estimate full scale characteristics. Unpowered flying wings built for aerodynamic research include

1960-400: The altitude (normally a sailplane relies on rising air to maintain altitude) with some being powerful enough to take off by self-launch . There are a wide variety of types differing in the construction of their wings, aerodynamic efficiency, location of the pilot, controls and intended purpose. Most exploit meteorological phenomena to maintain or gain height. Gliders are principally used for

2016-402: The engine for the entire flight. Some flexible wing powered aircraft, Ultralight trikes , have a wheeled undercarriage, and so are not hang gliders. A paraglider is a free-flying, foot-launched aircraft. The pilot sits in a harness suspended below a fabric wing. Unlike a hang glider whose wings have frames, the form of a paraglider wing is formed by the pressure of air entering vents or cells in

2072-492: The front of the wing. This is known as a ram-air wing (similar to the smaller parachute design). The paraglider's light and simple design allows them to be packed and carried in large backpacks, and make them one of the simplest and economical modes of flight. Competition level wings can achieve glide ratios up to 1:10 and fly around speeds of 45 km/h (28 mph). Like sailplanes and hang gliders, paragliders use rising air (thermals or ridge lift) to gain height. This process

2128-451: The ground with a transmitter . These can remain airborne for extended periods by using the lift produced by slopes and thermals . These can be winched into wind by a line attached to a hook under the fuselage with a ring, so that the line will drop when the model is overhead. Other methods of launching include towing aloft using a model powered aircraft, catapult-launching using an elastic bungee cord and hand-launching. When hand-launching

2184-465: The horizontal stabilizer. Angling the wings up or down spanwise from root to tip can help to resolve various design issues, such as stability and control in flight. Some biplanes have different degrees of dihedral/anhedral on different wings. The Sopwith Camel had a flat upper wing and dihedral on the lower wing, while the Hanriot HD-1 had dihedral on the upper wing but none on the lower. In

2240-453: The lower wing up into a cavity in the underside of the upper wing. The slip wing is a variation on the polymorphic idea, in which a low-wing monoplane is fitted with a second detachable "slip" wing above it to assist takeoff. The upper wing is then released and discarded once in the air. The idea was first flown on the experimental Hillson Bi-mono . Aircraft may have additional minor aerodynamic surfaces. Some of these are treated as part of

2296-474: The majority now have composite materials using glass, carbon fibre and aramid fibers. To minimise drag , these types have a fuselage and long narrow wings, i.e. a high aspect ratio . In the beginning, there were huge differences in the appearance of early-sailplanes. As technology and materials developed, the aspiration for the perfect balance between lift/drag, climbing ratio and gliding speed, made engineers from various producers create similar designs across

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2352-491: The majority now land on wheels, often retractable. Some gliders, known as motor gliders , are designed for unpowered flight, but can deploy piston , rotary , jet or electric engines . Gliders are classified by the FAI for competitions into glider competition classes mainly on the basis of span and flaps. A class of ultralight sailplanes, including some known as microlift gliders and some as 'airchairs', has been defined by

2408-406: The newer "discus" style of wing-tip hand-launching has largely supplanted the earlier "javelin" type of launch. A glide bomb is a bomb with aerodynamic surfaces to allow a gliding flightpath rather than a ballistic one. This allows the bomber aircraft to stand off from the target and launch the bomb from a safe distance. Most types have a remote control system which enables the aircraft to direct

2464-429: The overall wing configuration: Additional minor features may be applied to an existing aerodynamic surface such as the main wing: High-lift devices maintain lift at low speeds and delay the stall to allow slower takeoff and landing speeds: On a swept wing, air tends to flow sideways as well as backwards and reducing this can improve the efficiency of the wing: Vortex devices maintain airflow at low speeds and delay

2520-444: The stall, by creating a vortex which re-energises the boundary layer close to the wing. Glider (aircraft) A glider is a fixed-wing aircraft that is supported in flight by the dynamic reaction of the air against its lifting surfaces, and whose free flight does not depend on an engine. Most gliders do not have an engine, although motor-gliders have small engines for extending their flight when necessary by sustaining

2576-537: The stresses of re-entry, whereas a lifting body combines the benefits of both. The lifting bodies use the fuselage itself to generate lift without employing the usual thin and flat wing so as to minimize the drag and structure of a wing for very high supersonic or hypersonic flight as might be experienced during the re-entry of a spacecraft . Examples of type are the Northrop HL-10 and Martin-Marietta X-24 . The NASA Paresev Rogallo flexible wing glider

2632-403: The tow near the target, they landed as close to the target as possible. Advantages over paratroopers were that heavy equipment could be landed and that the troops were quickly assembled rather than being dispersed over a drop zone. The gliders were treated as disposable leading to construction from common and inexpensive materials such as wood, though a few were retrieved and re-used. By the time of

2688-402: The upper wing slightly forward of the lower. Long thought to reduce the interference caused by the low pressure air over the lower wing mixing with the high pressure air under the upper wing; however the improvement is minimal and its primary benefit is to improve access to the fuselage. It is common on many successful biplanes and triplanes. Backwards stagger is also seen in a few examples such as

2744-547: The war in a collaboration with Hispano-Suiza . In 1935-6 the open cockpit GP-1 was developed into two cabin types, the González Gil-Pazó GP-2 and GP-4. Both had raised rear fuselages faired into the cabin tops. The GP-2 was powered by a 97 kW (130 hp) de Havilland Gipsy Major engine and had two seats in tandem. Only one two-seater was built. A second GP-2 was built as a single-seater with one, rather than two, cabin side windows on each side. The GP-4

2800-458: The wing sweep during flight: The angle of a swept wing may also be varied, or cranked, along the span: On a few asymmetrical aircraft the left and right hand sides are not mirror-images of each other: The classic aerofoil section wing is unstable in pitch, and requires some form of horizontal stabilizing surface. Also it cannot provide any significant pitch control, requiring a separate control surface (elevator) mounted elsewhere - usually on

2856-451: The world. Both single-seat and two-seat gliders are available. Initially training was done by short 'hops' in primary gliders which are very basic aircraft with no cockpit and minimal instruments. Since shortly after World War II training has always been done in two-seat dual control gliders, but high performance two-seaters are also used to share the workload and the enjoyment of long flights. Originally skids were used for landing, but

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2912-637: Was built to investigate alternative methods of recovering spacecraft. Although this application was abandoned, publicity inspired hobbyists to adapt the flexible wing airfoil for modern hang gliders. Rocket-powered aircraft consume their fuel quickly and so most must land unpowered unless there is another power source. The first rocket plane was the Lippisch Ente , and later examples include the Messerschmitt Me 163 rocket-powered interceptor. The American series of research aircraft starting with

2968-513: Was powered by a 97 kW (130 hp) Walter Major engine and carried four people. Only one GP-4 was constructed. Two notable flights were made before the Civil War. In January 1936 Ramón Torres and Carlos Coll set a record with their flight from Barcelona to Agadir , Morocco in the two-seat GP-2. The single-seat GP-2 was flown by Lorenzo Richi in March 1936 from Madrid to Bata in what

3024-423: Was the first to make repeated successful flights (eventually totaling over 2,000) and was the first to use rising air to prolong his flight. Using a Montgomery tandem-wing glider, Daniel Maloney was the first to demonstrate high-altitude controlled flight using a balloon-launched glider launched from 4,000 feet in 1905. The Wright Brothers developed a series of three manned gliders after preliminary tests with

3080-631: Was then Spanish Guinea at an average speed of 187 km/h (116 mph). About thirty of the forty GP-1s built at Alicante were captured by the Nationalist forces, given military serials and incorporated into Grupo 30. After the war at least twelve of these were given Spanish civil registrations ; one remained on the register until 1961. One GP-2 and the sole GP-4 were also on the Spanish civil register until about 1960. The GP-4 had been flown into Nationalist hands by Pazó in September 1936, where it

3136-500: Was used for liaison and transport duties. Data from Howson General characteristics Performance Aircraft of comparable role, configuration, and era Related lists Wing configuration#Number and arrangement of main-planes The wing configuration of a fixed-wing aircraft (including both gliders and powered aeroplanes ) is its arrangement of lifting and related surfaces. Aircraft designs are often classified by their wing configuration. For example,

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