John Wallace DickensonAM (22 January 1934 – 5 July 2023)[1] was an Australian inventor, who developed some liquid flow measuring devices[2] and designed a successful hang glider configuration,[3] for which he was awarded the Gold Air Medal,[4] the highest award given by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, the world governing body for air sports, aeronautics and astronautics world records.
NASA's Paresev glider in flight with tow cable (1962).
In 1963, after seeing an image of a Rogallo wing airfoil on a magazine, Dickenson set to build a water skiing kite[5] that could be released at altitude for a glide to a safe drop in the water, thus designed and built a water skiing kite wing he called the Ski Kite.[6][7][8]
His ski kite format incorporated an airframe with a triangle control frame as used in hang gliding in Breslau 1908.[citation needed] Having a basebar tow-point and was integrated on an all-ready publicized four-boom stiffened Rogallo wingairfoil, where the pilot sat on a swinging seat while the control frame and wire bracing distributed the load to the wing as well as giving a frame to brace for weight-shift control.[9][10] Dickenson's Ski Wing turned out to be stable and controllable, unlike the flat manned kites used at water ski shows.[11] The Ski Wing was first flown in public at the 'Grafton Jacaranda Festival', New South Wales, Australia, in September 1963 by Rod Fuller while towed behind a motorboat.
The ski kite he now called Ski Wing, was light and portable, so Dickenson decided to file for a mechanical patent, but lacking on economic resources, the patent process of formal review of claims could not be entered to determine which, if any, of the claims could hold, so the patent was not awarded.[12]
Produced in September 1963.
Change: control A-frame added.
1963 October – Flown at the Jacaranda Festival in Grafton, New South Wales, Australia.
1963 Oct 11 – Provisional patent filed.
Produced between 1967 – 1968.
Changes: built by Aero Structures.
1969 April – Bill Moyes at NSW, Australia sets ridge soaring record at 32 minutes. Australia.[14]
Dickenson's hang glider format was further developed by other builders and directly helped to build the popularity of hang gliding around the world in the 1970s and 1980s.[16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]
It is certain that many people from many countries, made contributions to the development of the flexible wing hang glider to the extent that any global mechanical claim for invention would be untenable. In the aviation context of 'first flights' and recreational vs. commercial developments, new and old inventions often complement in synergy; it is in this evolutionary and social context that the crucial developments put together by John Dickenson, were the ones that were most successful and influential on the evolution of hang gliders.[6][27] John Dickenson was a ski-kite pilot; he never foot-launched a hang glider.
^Stability and weight-shift control are inherent flex-wing characteristics previously established and described by its inventor Francis Rogallo and by NASA engineers in the Paresev and Fleep programs.
^On October/11/1963, Dickenson filed for a patent, and a provisional protection was awarded for his application number 36189/63 but the patent was not awarded: "John Dickenson – Profits left hanging by glider"(PDF). InovatED. Archived from the original(PDF) on 31 August 2007. Retrieved 12 August 2008.
