John Dickenson answers his critics
It is time that I spoke up for myself. I have to admit I am rather the retiring type of person and I have waited many years for a Graeme Henderson to come along and tell my story. I have been shocked to find that there are people who are having difficulty in believing the story Graeme has told. I can assure you that the story is true and regrettably has, in the past been buried or ignored, and it is time that the real truth of the invention of the modern weight shift hang glider is told.
GRAEME HENDERSON.
I owe Graeme Henderson a deep debt of gratitude; indeed the whole world should applaud his work. Graeme was visiting Grafton and had heard that the hang glider had its origin there. I understand that he gained this information from an article written by Mark Woodhams and published in the British Hang Gliding magazine, May, 1993.
Graeme was surprised to find no monument or evidence of any kind to indicate the creation of the hang glider in Grafton. He made enquiries of the locals who were surprised to hear the glider had been created in Grafton. By one means or another Graeme’s enquiries led him to me, I received an email from him requesting information and permission to approach the Grafton city council with a view to establishing some form of recognition in Grafton to record the invention of the modern hang glider.
Consequently, an intense period of information exchange has continued ever since. Graeme is a careful researcher, he has checked every statement or piece of information I would put forward to him. He said initially, he didn’t believe some of the claims I made to him, but as he checked them out, one by one, he has built a foundation of facts upon which he can rely. For example, he learned about the models I claimed to have made from light pine timber and brown paper, he went to the trouble to build a duplicate, and test it in the manner I had, and he found it performed exactly as I had described. I also told Graeme that I had built and flown a gyro-plane. One of the strange confirmations of my work arose when we were discussing the gyro-plane I had built; Pat Crowe, who was present during the conversation, told us that he had cut out the spars for my gyro-plane. I was completely unaware of this, as I had given my requirements and specifications to an engineering company in Grafton, I did not know that Pat Crowe worked for this company. But this information confirmed the truth of my involvement with gyro-planes. Graeme was to uncover other instances of confirming information by similar accidental coincidences.
Graeme and I have a firm friendship that I value highly. I find him a man of considerable integrity and a true seeker of the truth, he understands that I require, in the broadcasting of my story, that he speaks the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Recently, due to a misunderstanding, in a recent item he published on the net, Graeme awarded me a PhD in Psychology. I promptly brought this error to his attention, and he corrected it immediately. Otherwise I regard the items he has published on the net, and his article “Fly Like a Bird, the Dickenson Wing Story”, are accurate and truthful.
As long as Graeme continues to tell this story truthfully and based on confirmable facts he has my full support.
STEPHAN MALBOS & MARK WOODHAMS.
My story has been told before by Stephan Malbos, now resident in France. His version of the story came about following an interview with him here at my home in 1988, where he met Amy and was also able to examine the documentation, photos etc. that I have to support my claims. His articles were published in the European Hang Gliding Magazines in 1988-89 and were widely accepted in Europe. His articles were offered in” English” to the British and American Hang Gliding magazines, and they were rejected outright. The truth of this story has been around for some time. I understand that Stephan Malbos has met Francis Rogallo on more than one occasion, and if there had of been any reason for my story to be doubted; Francis Rogallo had every opportunity available to correct my story if he (Rogallo) had considered my story in error. Recently Stephan has published a book “And The World Could Fly” and in essence has repeated and republished the Mark Woodhams version of the story in his publication. This publication has world wide distribution.
I met Mark Woodhams in the UK in 1992 during a trip with my wife. We spent about an hour together at Gatwick Airport. He frankly did not believe my story and had never heard of me before. However, he said if I could prove my claims he would publish the story in the British Hang Gliding Magazine. I had the photos I possessed copied, along with all the documents and letters from Francis Rogallo and forwarded them to him. As a result he carried out a thorough investigation including obtaining data from the USA. He was as good as his word, and in May 1993 a story titled “Who Really Invented the Flex Wing Hang Glider?” was published in the British Hang Glider and Paraglider Magazine. The story was published here in Australia, but totally ignored in the USA. Additionally I was awarded life membership of the British Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association. Woodhams last paragraph stated “Despite all this, his contribution is not generally recognized, even in Australia. Surely John Dickenson’s place in history is alongside Dr.Francis Ragallo.”
GRAFTON 1993-1995
The story of flying a gyro plane, initiated a request by the Grafton Water-ski Club is well known and doesn’t require further expansion. It is probably important to restate that as a child and well into my late teens, that I studied in a very serious way every aspect in relation to aircraft, their structure, and how they fly. This took practical form in that I built and flew many models and also constructed many kites, and from about 9 or 10 years of age almost all were of my own design. I had an almost desperate passion to fly. The gyro plane, I had hoped, would be a cheap answer to getting airborne. Looking back now I was lucky to survive the experience. I found the gyro plane tricky and at times unpredictable.
I quickly moved from the notion of a “flat kite” and, inspired by natures flexible wing, the Australian flying fox, I actually made a model that flew, plan view looked roughly like a Lilienthal wing, but with less components. I didn’t see it as a solution.
At this point I was shown a magazine article by one of our water-ski club members. I read the article then and there and handed it back to the person who had shown it to me. The article carried a photograph of a gliding parachute with a space capsule suspended underneath it. A Dr Francis Rogallo was credited with being the inventor. The wing was a parachute, and did not have inflated leading edges or keel. What I was looking for was some form of wing that would provide a safe and stable descent. From my point of view a parachute was “deployed” after leaving an aircraft and does not take off from the ground. It seemed to me that I would have to build a kite like framework to support the flexible wing. I can’t say just how long it took for me to make the connection between the Rogallo wing, the solid members of a flying fox wing and the lateen sail, but it did not take long – possibly before I left the Ski Club on that fateful afternoon.
I wish to state here that the inspiration for my invention occurred exactly as described above. I have been accused of obtaining my information from the Parasev/Ryan projects. This accusation is absolutely untrue. The work of Rogallo et al was absolutely unknown to me. I only learned of this work when Rogallo provided me with full information in 1965.
I started building my idea of a double lateen sail in model form immediately; it was built in the same manner as I used to build my kites as a child, of brown paper and thin strips of pine timber. I used “Tarzans Grip” for glue. And as has been recorded I was stunned by the long flat glide I obtained. I was expecting a descent at 45 degrees. The rest of the story is fairly well covered by Graeme Henderson, but there are a few points here that should be raised. After the initial flight by Rod Fuller and the wing was returned to the river bank, I changed the rigging in the light of Rod’s experiences, shifting centre of gravity, and the relationship of a control bar to the pilot hang point, and it took quite a while so that it was completed late in the afternoon. As a consequence, I had glass smooth water and no wind to contend with and so with a better speed match to the wing’s flight, I had full control. It would climb and move left and right and in combination of these moves with great ease. It felt sweet, stable and secure. I also found that it would fly on a slack rope and the energy required to maintain level flight was so small it did not lose height. It was in fact gliding, and when I moved the bar towards me it would start to overtake the boat. I realized I was not flying a water-ski kite, but a glider.
Again I wish to state here that some further, small, modifications were made including the “A Frame”, which became a structural element as well as a means of control. It has been falsely proposed by some that all I ever developed was a “Ski Kite”. The dimensions of this wing gave it the capability of free gliding soaring flight, and later expressed in aluminum and nylon sail material became what was called “The Standard Rogallo”, this wing will be known to the Americans as a “162” Built by Bill Bennett in the USA, and in Australia by Bill Moyes as the “Moyes Delta Glider”.
Since the glider, which has been dubbed Mark 1, took off at 15 miles per hour, it was too slow for comfortable skiing, including taking off and landing. So I simply scaled the wing down, to match skiing speeds. Later, when Bill Moyes wanted slower foot launched takeoffs in Show Grounds, I simply gave him the dimensions of the original glider.
DR FRANCIS ROGALLO.
Late 1963 – early 1964 a picture of my glider appeared in a Brisbane newspaper, a copy of which was forwarded to Francis Rogallo. He in turn acquired my address and contacted me by letter requesting information regarding my wing. Initially I responded with a letter of acknowledgement, which I followed up later with a full written description and drawings sufficient to build and fly one of my gliders. Francis responded by sending me a great deal of information concerning his designs and experiments including wind tunnel test results related to his gliding parachute concepts and also the stiffened wing projects he was testing for the Ryan/Parasev project. We continued to communicate, both at a technical level and also privately. A friendship developed between us, there were some private letters and Christmas cards. I even discussed with him the work I was doing on a proposed powered version of my wing. This correspondence went on from 1964 to sometime in 1977. Graeme Henderson has, what I believe is, a complete copy of all our technical correspondence. Where the picture of Rogallo’s gliding parachute figured in my inspiration. The success of my wing spurred him on to making and flying his own totally flexible gliding parachute in 1967. For those serious researchers wishing to determine the absolute truth of the Rogallo story in relation to the Apollo project, they will find a link at the end of this document. It will be shown that the Ryan/Parasev project wings were extensively wind tunnel tested. The results of those tests showed real problems of control, and when they carried out the first manned flight test in mid 1963 they had all sorts of control problems wherein they experienced a serious crash resulting in the injury of a NASA test pilot. No wonder Francis Rogallo was so interested in my fully controllable wing. Around this time the Apollo project abandoned the flexible wing concept in favor of the use of conventional parachutes. I can only imagine the considerable disappointment that Francis Rogallo must have experienced. I found Francis to be a man of great integrity and intelligence and I hold him in the highest possible regard. He is one of the few people in all aviation history to have conceived, designed and built a wing form which today is flown in the thousands, possibly millions. Francis Rogallo considered his greatest achievement was the fully flexible gliding parachute that was his dream. He expressed this in person to me and the world during an interview for a local television station ,with myself and Bill Moyes. Francis went to a lot of trouble to point out that his inspiration was from the sails of boats and that his dream was to remove the spars and masts etc to form a totally flexible wing. And what I did was to put those components back in to form my wing.
BILL BENNETT & BILL MOYES.
I set an endurance record for towed flight behind a speed boat. This achievement received publicity in late 1966. Its purpose was to provide publicity and announce the production of the wing by Aerostructures. Aerostructures was run by Mike Burns, who had independently developed a small flexible wing mounted on a pair of floats. His work was totally unknown to me as mine was to him. Eventually we got together and, because he had a manufacturing facility building his ski plane, we made a deal in which he would produce my wings. The story appeared in the New South Wales Waterski Magazine and attracted the attention of Moyes and Bennett. They may have had contact with Mike Burns in 1966, but I had no contact with them before February 1967 when Mike Burns arranged for them to participate in a demonstration and a test flight of the wing. A great deal of legend has been made of this meeting and this following brief description is the actual truth of what occurred. Three people attended Moyes, Bennett and one other. I spent a full hour on the bank with them explaining how the wing flew and was controlled and the procedure that they were to use in take off, the flight, and landing. These instructions were followed by a demonstration flight by myself .And I explained it was to be duplicated exactly by the participants. The first person to try, during the jump start, broke his leg. What I did not know was that he had broken this leg about four weeks before, in a motor cycle accident and should never attempted to ski at all. He was taken to hospital by one of his friends contrary to other stories that were circulated, neither Mike Burns nor myself left the scene. Bill Bennett was the next to take part. He took off, flew around the course suggested a couple of times, glided down for a perfect landing. He did not disconnect from the rope. On the other hand, Bill Moyes had no problem in taking off, climbed to the top of the rope, did a couple of circles covering probably half a mile, and contrary to my instructions, released into gliding flight, which ended in a large splash in the middle of the river necessitating retrieval of the wing and himself by the tow boat. This was a matter of great annoyance to me, because the person who had kindly provided the boat was a proud owner, and the finish of the boat was like a grand piano, so it was very difficult to take the wing and Moyes on board without scratching the boat. The result was that Moyes and Bennett bought wings from Aerostructure. Bill Moyes has stated that he was provided with no more than written instructions in relation to flying the wing, and has inferred that he was the “test pilot” – both untrue. As you can understand. the wing had had about three and a half years of intensive test flying before he had ever heard of it. Within weeks, during May 1967, he climbed to about 1250 feet and released into gliding flight, a testimony to the ease and safety of flying this wing, for a feat of this kind to be carried out by a novice pilot. He and Bennett then started a long period of dare devil stunts, each trying to outdo the other. I was not happy about this because I was trying to build a reputation for the wing of ease and safety, where they were creating the impression that you had to be half mad, superman to fly. Late in 1967 Aerostructures went out of business and Moyes and Bennett started building wings of their own and selling them. My patent pending had lapsed and I could not stop them. Since I had tried every means to get my wing into production I sort of had given up, and I saw, particularly in Bill Moyes, a person who could see my dream and make a success of it. I felt it better to assist him than to just let the whole weight shift hang glider perish. Consequently he became my pupil and I passed on a great deal of information to him, much of which he passed on to Bennett. Somewhere around that time Moyes and Bennett realized the enormous business potential of the wing and literally carved the world up. Bennett was to concentrate on the USA and Moyes the rest of the world. I wasn’t really aware of this arrangement, but since I had given my advice and help to them I didn’t really expect any financial reward, but what I did expect was that when they were asked or they advised where the wing had come from that they would truthfully put my story forward. Regrettably, they were not as generous with me as I was with them. Thus a process was put into motion that created the myth of the invention of the modern weight shift hang glider.
In late 1969 private circumstances caused me to walk away from the hang glider. I had been working on a powered version; the air frame was very similar to gyro planes I had built. While at a small airfield west of Sydney a gyro plane crashed and the pilot was killed. This circumstance, and others, had a big impact on my family, which resulted in a promise from me to my wife, I would give up the wing and flying, concentrating on my work and studies, and get our lives back on track again. I kept my word. One of the effects of this was that I was completely unaware that my name was not carried out into the population that was by now foot launching my wing. I have found out, only recently, that an unreal history was constructed and there are a number of amazing stories were alleged to have originated from Moyes and Bennett . One of these stories was described in “The Hang Gliding Book” by William Bixby 1976 as follows:-
“Francis Rogallo invented the wing (sometimes called the Rogallo Standard). Palmer was the first recorded pilot of the wing. But
William Bennett, of Australia, really got the sport of hang gliding off the ground. As early as 1956, Bennett and his friend William Moyes were experimenting with a kite of their own invention: cloth stretched as tightly as possible over a winglike frame. They
skiied furiously downhill with their kite, trying to soar aloft. They
also tried to wing it behind motor boats, but the flatness of their
kite wing made their glider unstable. They probably would have
killed themselves if they had not tumbled into water or snow when
the kite tipped over and fell to the ground. Then a friend of theirs
from New South Wales received the NASA report on the Rogallo
wing. Since the cloth on the Rogallo kite was loose, it filled with
air and gave stability to the kite. Bennett and Moyes immediately
built one and began soaring. They still got up in the air by being
towed, but one day the towline broke. Bennett soared gracefully
to earth. Soon both men had become able hang glider pilots.”
This of course is totally untrue. And, I can make these statements.
1) Francis Rogallo invented the totally flexible wing, as in our paragliders today. Flexible wings that contain solid elements, as flown by Palmer and others, were inspired by Rogallo. But would have been more correctly called “Sail Wings”. Rogallo never claimed to have designed the modern weight shift hang glider, and he was first to call my wing “The Dickenson Wing” here in Australia in 1988.
2) I understand Bill Bennett had flown “flat water ski kites” before meeting me. However, it is my belief that neither Moyes nor Bennett ever had any previous experience or knowledge in aviation. Either at model level or in full sized aircraft.
3) Bill Moyes foot launched into soaring flight in late 1969 at La Peruse, a suburb of Sydney.
4) I have been told, and I also understand that Graeme Henderson has heard the same story from Bill Liscomb of the USA, that Bill Bennett admitted to him “that he had stolen my design, that he was sorry for doing so, and that he extended an apology to me”. I deeply regret Bill Bennett’s passing, and I am also sorry that I did not meet him when I visited Florida in 2004, where perhaps he may have made the same confession to me.
5) Whether by accident or design, the term Rogallo Standard, has been appended to my wing. This has become part of a belief system. Belief systems are very hard to change. At one time people believed the earth was the centre of the universe. Dissenters were burnt at the stake. It is a tragedy that it has taken more than 40 years for my true story to be told. So deep is the untrue history, that it is likely that many will be unable to accept it.
6) In 1997 Andrew Abbott, an Australian Paraglider Pilot, was visiting France for a major paraglider event and had the pleasure and honour of an interview with Francis Rogallo. He asked Francis Rogallo if he was aware of my work and Rogallo’s reply was “John Dickenson,truely he is the man that invented the Hang Glider”.
For those researchers who are serious seekers of the truth, who really want to find out how it all began, I suggest they come to Australia and do their homework, as Graeme Henderson has, and research the real hard data. Recently Joe Faust, who describes himself as a researcher, claimed that a photograph of my late wife was falsified in someway that inferred that she could not have lifted one of my 13 foot wings with one hand. If Joe was a serious and practical researcher, he would have obtained “hard” data from aluminum suppliers as to weight per foot of the aluminum tube used and establish the air frame weight, added the weight of the wing fabric, the A frame, bolts, nuts, nose plates, wires, and release mechanism, attachment tabs( wire to airframe), turned Douglas Fir Plugs. Had Joe done his homework carefully, he would have come up with a weight of between 38 and 39 pounds, which is about half the weight of our son who she could lift easily at that point in time. Amy was also a member of our waterski club, and could do deep water single ski starts, which puts a strain on the body equal to the weight of the skier. Clearly Joe is not about establishing the truth in any practical manner. By questioning the elements of my story in the way he does he continues the process of minimizing, eroding and diluting the truth. For him to infer that my wife was party to a deception, to be initiated some 30 or 40 years in the future, is ridiculous as it is despicable. Joe has extended an apology to me, but because it totally lacks sincerity, it is not accepted. I will accept Joe’s apology, without reservation, when I learn that he is truly seeking the truth in a practical way and not just wanking in cyber space in a deliberate pseudo, semi scientific endeavor that has as its aim to further belittle and demean me and my achievements.
© Copyright John Dickenson 2008
All Rights Reserved
