Before NASA 1912-1958Rogallo's Early Days

My mother was French, from Oleron, near the Pyrenees mountains. She was raised by her grandparents before joining her father and mother who had moved to California to start anew. Her father was Polish, but had lived in France for a long time. His passion was theatre, so he moved to California to start his own company, and was successful until the other actors took off one day with all the costumes. He switched to grocery, bought a store and met my mother. They got married and built a whole block —grocery, restaurant and saloon— in a town that was being built up near Fresno. That’s where I was born.

When I was seven, a plane flew over my home. From then on I became obsessed with all flying objects and toys, like paper or elastic-powered airplanes. Of all the games of my boyhood, kite flying was the most thrilling. We had difficulty finding suitable wood for our “barn door” and “bow” kites. The covering was newspaper. These materials were so poor that many of our kites had broken even before they were flown. Making a kite that would fly was a challenge, and those who succeeded felt a real sense of accomplishment. With such boyhood experience, it is little wonder that I aspired to become an aeronautical engineer, to design bigger and better kites, big enough for people to ride in, with engines and propellers to pull them through the air.