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So here's some food for thought: A 'hang glider', as we know them to be at this point in time, is built to carry an amount of weight. As I understand it, this amount of weight will often compute out to be the equivalent of about 6G's. A tandem glider with just my 150#'s on it may pull as much as 12 G's, but 2 200# passengers might only expect much less.
I've often wondered how much lighter a glider could be built if it were only designed to pull only 2.5 G's as opposed to 6 G's.
To get straight to the point, If a spar is built such that the glider will retain an optimal aerodynamic shape up to the 2 G limit, and then over the course of pulling an additional .5 G's it will distort in a controlled fashion to the point where it can't pull any more G. But it doesn't break or go out of control, it simply assumes a "mush mode" of flight until the G load decreases to somewhere less than 2 G's, at which point it "snaps back" to the optimal shape.
We are getting better with materials tech all the time. Could a spar be built that has an ability to act something akin to a steel tape measure? That is, it holds it's shape up to a certain point, then it "lets go" and distorts out of the way, and when sufficiently unloaded it snaps back into position.
Now the tape measure analogy is a bit extreme, but it makes my point. Could a spar be made that uses a flexible core, such as EPP foam instead of rigid styrofoam, or EPS? Carbon fiber spar caps can be built to bend a lot without breaking, so perhaps the core, or shear/compression web, could be made from a material that allows such action?
I think that if the spar is located at the center of lift in the root area, but gradually "moves" forward towards the leading edge going outboard, it would allow the wing to wash out to an extreme value once the designed load is reached and passed.
The idea here is that we have a weight budget. If we build a glider that can hold it's shape up to the 6 G point, that's going to be expensive. But I rarely if ever need to pull more than 2 G's, which is all I need to circle at a bank angle of 60 degrees. And I only ever exceed 45 degrees if I'm wangin'.
So it seems to me that I could build lighter if I gave up being able to pull 4 or 6 or whatever G load.
I'm dreaming of a new HG design, which just this morning I have named "The Gap Filler", or better yet just "Gap".
This design is intended to fill the tech gap between what we generally consider to be a "hang glider" and what we generally think of as a "paraglider".
A hang glider that has a stall speed equivalent to that of Pg's. Optimized for lightweight and the ability to circle in the proverbial mouse fart. As easy to land, consistently, as a Pg.
It's my not-so-humble opinion that this is the proper course to follow if we want HG to survive.
Ok, I'm ready for the slings and arrows. Bring 'em on, that's how I learn where I've gone wrong.
