AfterwordHang Gliding and Paragliding
The modern hang glider comes from the Dickenson Gliders, and the modern paraglider from Jalbert’s multi-cell ram-air parachutes.
Modern hang gliders led the way to powered ultralights, to an exponential increase in knowledge about low-speed flight, to the establishment of foot-launched, unpowered leisure and cross-country flight, and to the enacting of legislation, in nations around the world, that allows for them to be flown legally.
The modern paragliders came later when three French parachutists, having watched Dickenson Gliders being launched off mountains, decided to do the same with their Jalbert parachutes. They diversified into powered flight and kiting (on water, land and snow).
None of these aircraft owe anything to the Rogallos. When the Rogallos claimed them as their gift to the world, they stole the credit for the invention of the aircraft that finally fulfilled human’s age old dream to fly like a bird.
This theft wasn’t a victimless crime. There were many casualties, and they, and their children and grandchildren have been harmed. John Dickenson and Dominic Jalbert are the two most obvious victims, but Jan Lavezzari, Ulysses Lee, William Darrah, Robert Bach, George Wanner, William Allison, Wilbur Green, David Barish, Rod Fuller and Patrick Crowe, are also victims. People whose names are worthy of being recorded in the history of aviation, people who should be honoured. Their offspring deserve to see them acknowledged. And pilots whose lives were made complete because of John Dickenson and Domina Jalbert should not be cheated out of the opportunity to celebrate them.
The first step to honouring these heroes is to remove the imposters who have been obscuring their contributions from our history. The Rogallos should never have been in the story. Those who included them should be ashamed: simply reading the “famous” Rogallo first Flexible Kite patent would have revealed the truth.