Charles Richards (NASA engineer)

Charles Richard was a design engineer, who designed the collapsible four-tube Rogallo wing used in the experimental NASA Paresev glider.^[1] The wing configuration he created was used for manned hung-pilot kite-gliders and was to be found copied only with slight ornamental variation in a decade of hang gliders.^[2] Richards was of the Flight Research Center's Vehicle and System Dynamics Branch. The four-beamed wing folded from the nose plate; one of the beams was the spreader beam that kept the flexible-wing's sweep.^[3] Those in the following decade copying the Charles Richard wing configuration expanded kiting, hang gliding, ultralight, and trike flight.

Charles Richard
Engineering career
Discipline	Design Engineer
Institutions	NASA Flight Research Center
Employer(s)	NASA
Projects	NASA Paresev glider
Significant design	Collapsible four-tube Rogallo wing
Significant advance	Wing configuration widely copied in hang gliders, expanded kiting, hang gliding, ultralight, and trike flight
Awards	Included in the space Stardust (spacecraft) chip (2004)

Timeline

• 1961 December : Charles Richard is given a directive from NASA's Paul Bikle to build quickly a cheap kite glider that could be used to give pilots practice in flying in free flight using simple weight-shifting that would change the attitude of the wing relative to the hung position of the pilot and payload.^[4]
• 1962 February 12 : Charles Richard and his team completed a first kite-glider that achieved obtaining an FAA registration. Many versions followed first flight tests.^[5]
• 2004 Charles Richard name was included in the space Stardust (spacecraft) chip. .^[6]