According to Associated Press on July 18,1963: “Francis M. Rogallo and his wife,Gertrude,are $35,000 richer today due to the invention which they hold over their heads… NASA administration made the award,the largest they have ever given to inventors.”

The Man, the Wing, the TruthRogalo The Man The Wing The Truth

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.
Carl Sagan ##

The story about Gertrude and Francis Rogallo, their flexible kites, and their impact on NASA, kiting, hang gliding and paragliding.

Twenty years of research and some 700 pages of supporting documentation are the authors’ contribution to a more factual and authentic history of hang gliding and paragliding.

The chapters

After 20 years of research by Graeme Henderson, Stéphane Malbos, Ken de Russy and others, we propose a more factual and authentic history of hang gliding (and paragliding).
Chapter 1Foreword
Clarification: the act or process of clarifying, i.e. making something less confusing or easier to understand.
Chapter 2Clarifications
From Rogallo's childhood obsession with flying objects and kite, to his appointement at NACA Langley and what he accomplished during the years 1936-1958. And a look at what was NACA.
Chapter 3Before NASA 1912-1958
July 1958 - NACA is disbanded to become the National Aeronautic and space-agency (NASA). Francis M. Rogallo becomes a NASA employee as head of the 7-by-10-foot Tunnels Branch.

August 1964 - The NASA Paraglider Development Program is discontinued as part of the Gemini space program.

To write the story of the Paraglider Development Program, we relied on these publications:

- Barton C. Hacker and James M. Grimwood: On the Shoulders of Titans: A History of Project Gemini (doc-07)

- Richard Hallion: On the Frontier (doc-08)

- Robert G. Ferguson: NASA’s First A – Aeronautics from 1958 to 2008 (doc-16)

- Amy Shira Teitel: The Paraglider: How NASA Tried and Failed to Land Without Parachutes. (doc-17)
Chapter 4At NASA 1958-1964
September 1964 - Francis M. Rogallo writes his first letter to John Dickenson, showing his interest “in getting as much information about (your glider) as you could conveniently send”.

June 1972 - Rogallo’s last presentation for NASA, Flexible Wings for Transportation, is published.
Chapter 5At NASA 1964-1972
Rogallo was the first builder of his myth. In his post-NASA years, with the explosion of hang gliding as a sport, he always claimed that the modern hang glider was his legacy. In later years, he added the modern ram-air multi-cell parachutes and paragliders to it.

The myth was first told and promoted in the USA. The rest of the world followed blindly.
Chapter 6Building the Myth
A sum-up of the previous chapters. These 44,000+ words of argumentation and some 700 pages of supporting documents are our contribution to a more factual and authentic history of hang gliding and paragliding. We believe that, in the long term, the truth will prevail. We hope that, if you were bamboozled by the Rogallo myth, as we once were, these pages helped you reclaim your power from the charlatans.
Chapter 7Deconstructing the Rogallo Myth
The bulk of this book has been looking at the trees, these pages are looking at the forest. One view does not negate the other, for they are just different ways of looking at the same truth.
Chapter 8Afterword
Without the help of many people, this new look at hang gliding and paragliding history would never have been completed. We thank them all.
Chapter 9Acknowledgments and Recognition
We compiled some 700 pages of documentation to support our argumentation.
Chapter 10Documents