[Frank Colver]

Today, November 5th is the 46th anniversary of the day I began construction of the frame of my all-wing hang glider design I named the Skysail after a cumbersome designation CFSW1 I used at first. My design was inspired by Richard Miller's Conduit Condor that he flew at the first Lilienthal meet in 1971.

The Colver Skysail is shown in its last configuration, in my profile photo. The glider was finally destroyed in the San Diego Aerospace Museum fire (the titanium TE probably survived).

My open driveway was my workshop (photos elsewhere on this forum) until time to cover with polyester dress lining material, from Penny's Dept Store. For that job I took up the entire living room of our house (thank you wife Judy!). After overing I shrunk the material with a flat iron.

In 2013 I came across my original drawing of one wing half. Unfortunately, it was not dated but I knew it was drawn sometime in the summer of 1971. So, I wrote some comments on the drawing in 2013. See attached photo.

To assemble the glider two wing halves were "plugged" together using a fiberglass sleeve over hach cross spar end and clamps at the LE and TE of the wing root. Flying wires to the control bar, just like today's hang gliders, took the flying loads. Originally it was "topless" until I realized it could not take much in the way of negative loads. After that it had kingpost and top wires and even support wires at the washout tips to prevent them flexing downward in a steep dive. This was like the "anti-luff" wires used in many modern flex ing gliders.

Frank Colver

Skysail frame plan reduced.jpg (516.34 KiB) Viewed 2557 times

[Rick Masters]

Unfortunately, it was not dated

We can carbon-date it!        

[Bob Kuczewski]

Happy Birthday Skysail!!

Unfortunately, it was not dated

We can carbon-date it!        

Thanks for sharing these pieces of hang gliding history.   

[SamKellner]

Frank,

Thanks for the Pioneer efforts to get the sport going!

And, all your continued accomplishments.