How did they get the Gemini-Rogallo test vehicle airborne? [ Big G Gemini Question]

Thanks to Pat for the Gemini Rogallo references. My questions is: how
did they launch the piloted Gemini-Rogallo test vehicle for its glide
landings? I think a helicopter was used to tow the boilerplate with
attached inflated Rogallo wing, but it would probably take repeated
viewing of some actual footage for me to understand how it was done.
Anyone know the answer?

John Charles
Houston, Texas

John Charles wrote:

Thanks to Pat for the Gemini Rogallo references. My questions is: how
did they launch the piloted Gemini-Rogallo test vehicle for its glide
landings? I think a helicopter was used to tow the boilerplate with
attached inflated Rogallo wing, but it would probably take repeated
viewing of some actual footage for me to understand how it was done.
Anyone know the answer?



We discussed this here a couple of years ago, but I haven't been able to
find the thread via Google. I think Mary Shafer knew about this.

Pat

On Thu, 21 Oct 2004 00:43:55 -0500, Pat Flannery
wrote:



John Charles wrote:

Thanks to Pat for the Gemini Rogallo references. My questions is: how
did they launch the piloted Gemini-Rogallo test vehicle for its glide
landings? I think a helicopter was used to tow the boilerplate with
attached inflated Rogallo wing, but it would probably take repeated
viewing of some actual footage for me to understand how it was done.
Anyone know the answer?

We discussed this here a couple of years ago, but I haven't been able to
find the thread via Google. I think Mary Shafer knew about this.

Wow, I'm really late getting back to this.

They towed it aloft behind the Pontiac convertible they used for the
lifting bodies.

There's one bit of film of the Rogallo wing that always makes me
laugh. Milt lands rather bouncily and tips over, resting on the wing
and the rear wheel. He's stuck--he can't reach the lakebed, although
he tries. They stop the film before the ground crew comes over and
tips him back up, though.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer

Mary Shafer wrote in message . ..
On Thu, 21 Oct 2004 00:43:55 -0500, Pat Flannery
wrote:

John Charles wrote:

... My questions is: how
did they launch the piloted Gemini-Rogallo test vehicle for its glide
landings?

They towed it aloft behind the Pontiac convertible they used for the
lifting bodies.

Mary, thanks, but I think you are referring to the Parasev test
vehicle built by Milt Thompson and NASA out of odds and ends at
Edwards. Later, North American Aviation actually built an inflatable
Rogallo wing (of the same configuration that was intended for Gemini
landings) and attached it to a Gemini boilerplate capsule, and had a
test pilot (sometimes it was Jack Swigert, before he went to NASA) fly
and land it.

THAT is somehing I have read about and imagined, but would love to see
the footage!

John Charles
Houston, Texas

John Charles wrote:

Mary, thanks, but I think you are referring to the Parasev test
vehicle built by Milt Thompson and NASA out of odds and ends at
Edwards. Later, North American Aviation actually built an inflatable
Rogallo wing (of the same configuration that was intended for Gemini
landings) and attached it to a Gemini boilerplate capsule, and had a
test pilot (sometimes it was Jack Swigert, before he went to NASA) fly
and land it.

THAT is somehing I have read about and imagined, but would love to see
the footage!


I want to see the footage where it has a really hard landing, and they
decide that this is _not_ the way that Gemini is going to land.
So...what about rotor blades on the capsule? Then it can autorotate in
to a landing! The Soyuz team came up with this idea:
http://www.astronautix.com/graphics/s/soyrotor.jpg
See the rotor blades? See the landing legs? See the reentry capsule? See
the big dent in the side of the reentry capsule?
'Nuff said.

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote:



John Charles wrote:

Mary, thanks, but I think you are referring to the Parasev test
vehicle built by Milt Thompson and NASA out of odds and ends at
Edwards. Later, North American Aviation actually built an inflatable
Rogallo wing (of the same configuration that was intended for Gemini
landings) and attached it to a Gemini boilerplate capsule, and had a
test pilot (sometimes it was Jack Swigert, before he went to NASA) fly
and land it.

THAT is somehing I have read about and imagined, but would love to see
the footage!


I want to see the footage where it has a really hard landing, and they
decide that this is _not_ the way that Gemini is going to land.
So...what about rotor blades on the capsule? Then it can autorotate in
to a landing! The Soyuz team came up with this idea:
http://www.astronautix.com/graphics/s/soyrotor.jpg
See the rotor blades? See the landing legs? See the reentry capsule? See
the big dent in the side of the reentry capsule?
'Nuff said.

Pat

I had a plastic model of a Gemini spacecraft. The kit came
with the option of modeling the craft for landing on land.

Robert Casey wrote:

I had a plastic model of a Gemini spacecraft. The kit came
with the option of modeling the craft for landing on land.


That would probably be the Revell 1/48th scale one that came with a
1/48th scale Mercury;
You used to get one of those kits when you signed up for The Science
Service and got their stick-in stamp illustration books for 10 cents
(IIRC). (I can still taste the adhesive on those stamps.) God knows how
many of those kits they made; it got reissued several times- the last
time with mission patches for Glenn's "Friendship 7" and Grissom's
"Molly Brown".
I say "probably" because OM is sure that the original release of the
1/24th scale Gemini also had the landing gear on it- at one time I was
sure he was wrong, but the more I think about it, there is something a
bit familiar about that also.
I've got a Revell 1/24th scale Gemini sitting about three feet from me
as I type, and that one at least has the landing gear doors molded
integral with the spacecraft's skin. So if they did have a 1/24th
version with the landing gear, they changed the molds at some point.
I'm going to get in touch with a space model whizz kid and get the
straight poop on this stuff; I'll let the newsgroup know what I find out.

Pat

On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 11:15:51 -0600, Pat Flannery
wrote:

I say "probably" because OM is sure that the original release of the
1/24th scale Gemini also had the landing gear on it- at one time I was
sure he was wrong, but the more I think about it, there is something a
bit familiar about that also.

....Pat, I wish I still had the kit to show you, but it's been gone
almost 30 years now. I do recall the landing gear quite vividly, and
being rather horked that the Rogallo wasn't included.

I've got a Revell 1/24th scale Gemini sitting about three feet from me
as I type, and that one at least has the landing gear doors molded
integral with the spacecraft's skin. So if they did have a 1/24th
version with the landing gear, they changed the molds at some point.
I'm going to get in touch with a space model whizz kid and get the
straight poop on this stuff; I'll let the newsgroup know what I find out.

....Remember that the 1/48th was planograph reduced from the 1/24th, as
with most of Revell's space kits. The sole exception I can recall was
the 1/24th really awful Block I CSM stack, which deviated from the
produced-far-more-than-should-be-legally-allowed CSM "Over The
Rainbow" 1/96 CSM stack.

OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

OM wrote:

...Remember that the 1/48th was planograph reduced from the 1/24th, as
with most of Revell's space kits. The sole exception I can recall was
the 1/24th really awful Block I CSM stack, which deviated from the
produced-far-more-than-should-be-legally-allowed CSM "Over The
Rainbow" 1/96 CSM stack.


Uh...OM.... the big Revell CSM was in 1/48th scale; not 1/24th.
And the 1/48th scale Mercury/Gemini combo kit predated the 1/24th scale
Gemini by years.
The 1/24th scale Gemini kit/Gemini mockup contest was around 1967,
according to this:
http://www.clothmonkey.com/gemini.htm
The only other 1/24th scale spacecraft they did was Vostok; why they
never did a Mercury is beyond me.
My current dilemma is determine how exactly I acquired the Friendship 7
patch- the Molly Brown and Liberty Bell 7 patches came with the Gus
Grissom Memorial Mercury/Gemini set, but where the hell did the Glenn
patch come from? The Mercury/Atlas set?

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote in message ...
OM wrote:

...Remember that the 1/48th was planograph reduced from the 1/24th, as
with most of Revell's space kits. The sole exception I can recall was
the 1/24th really awful Block I CSM stack, which deviated from the
produced-far-more-than-should-be-legally-allowed CSM "Over The
Rainbow" 1/96 CSM stack.


Uh...OM.... the big Revell CSM was in 1/48th scale; not 1/24th.
And the 1/48th scale Mercury/Gemini combo kit predated the 1/24th scale
Gemini by years.
The 1/24th scale Gemini kit/Gemini mockup contest was around 1967,
according to this:
http://www.clothmonkey.com/gemini.htm
The only other 1/24th scale spacecraft they did was Vostok; why they
never did a Mercury is beyond me.
My current dilemma is determine how exactly I acquired the Friendship 7
patch- the Molly Brown and Liberty Bell 7 patches came with the Gus
Grissom Memorial Mercury/Gemini set, but where the hell did the Glenn
patch come from? The Mercury/Atlas set?

Pat

don't worry about the patch. the first flight with a patch was
cooper/conrad. all others are as bogus as mosley.