Hang gliding: the freedom of flight RAeS Lecture 2024

[@Zalex612]

Thanks for posting this on KZbin! How do you put in a range of aeroelastic tailoring into the inverse design algorithm? I have a program that I'm writing that has a small amount of inverse mathematics, but most of it is sequential testing through different ranges of different criteria. (As you said most people do...) I have no idea how I could go backwards doing the same thing. I attempted to do one of the equations backwards and it came out with no solution. Do you just run one aeroelastic scenario at a time?

[@avianhanggliders1985]

The inverse method isn't being done by me, it's someone else who wrote that tool, so I'm not expert on it.However, it is just working on the sail tension. For a hang glider the shape of the sail is the most aeroelastic thing, so if you take a constant spanwise tension line, work out the lifting load at each point along that line they you can get the billow shape and then the twist. He's not treating the flex of the tubes as part of the aeroelasticity. Although ideally they should be included, the sail is the dominant factor so just fixing the curve of the tubes isn't too bad as an approximation.

[@NevilleStyke]

Were they applauding your flare timing for that imaginary landing, at the end?

[@avianhanggliders1985]

@@NevilleStyke that or nearly tripping over stepping backwards on the stage!