WI Hang Glider invented 1200AD by the Chinese?

[tallwingedgoat]

Barry Hill Palmer invented the first flexible wing glider in the 1960s using a simple Rogallo wing design. WI this was invented in China and became well known by the 13th century. Like they did with gunpowder and handgonne, the Mongols could spread this technology throughout Eurasia during their conquest.

Bamboo Butterfly, 1966

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Hill_Palmer

 

[TapReflex]

Well, for the chinese, it would be relatively useless, as it would be to the mongols (unless theres some jumping off mountains involved...)
it may be long forgotten until someone invents a manned aircraft, in all likelihood.

 

[MattII]

Even less useful than an Arab hot-air balloon since the materials of the time will make it too heavy to catch many of the beneficial updrafts.

 

[tallwingedgoat]

Even less useful than an Arab hot-air balloon since the materials of the time will make it too heavy to catch many of the beneficial updrafts.

All you need is silk and bamboo.

 

[Russian]

All you need is silk and bamboo.

The Chinese could use Hang Gliders for reconnaissance purposes during the war and for patrolling the borders in peace time.

To fly a Hang Glider would be a risky job though. Maybe suicidal.
For if something goes wrong with the wind or the glider you are either crushed or caught by the enemy. Or both

But could Hang Glider butterfly the history?
Actually it might.
You all know A LOT of battles lost because the lack of information about the enemy or the disinformation.

 

[tallwingedgoat]

The average Mongol probably died before 25 from battle or riding accident anyways. Besides hang gliders have a pretty good safety record if you know what you're doing.

Mongols were bad enough, but flying Mongols would be terrifying.

 

[RGB]

The average Mongol probably died before 25 from battle or riding accident anyways.

Well, I can tell you the average Mongol ruler died of alcohol-related problems, heart attacks, and assassinations, before 25, but where are you getting the statistics for Mongols as a whole?

Not criticising, just asking for sources due to curiosity,

 

[tallwingedgoat]

Well, I can tell you the average Mongol ruler died of alcohol-related problems, heart attacks, and assassinations, before 25, but where are you getting the statistics for Mongols as a whole?

Not criticising, just asking for sources due to curiosity,

I'm guessing, but I heard the average life span of cowboys was 24, and the most likely cause of death was falling from a horse. Living on horseback seems at least as dangerous as hang gliding.

 

[Russian]

Mongols were bad enough, but flying Mongols would be terrifying.

Ye, I see a Mongol army and there are dozens of gliders flying over it high in the blue sky like sinister black ravens.
Quite terrifying

But I guess the Mongols would make Chinese pilots to fly gliders.

 

[RGB]

But I guess the Mongols would make Chinese pilots to fly gliders.

Chinese did like their kites a lot. I can certainly see kites with observers on them as a potential application in the navy. And China's probably the only place on Earth back then that can afford that much silk, especially with the implied need for replacements.

 

[tallwingedgoat]

Ye, I see a Mongol army and there are dozens of gliders flying over it high in the blue sky like sinister black ravens.
Quite terrifying

But I guess the Mongols would make Chinese pilots to fly gliders.

If they start dropping grenades I'm deserting immediately.

 

[carlton_bach]

The Chinese had kites, no need for hang gliders. Kites could carry bombs and observvers, be launched from the ground in the right wind conditions, and be maneuvered, to a degree. Plus, you could control the landing. The only advantage of a glider is that you can launch without favourable wind, but as a downside, you need to do so from a high point. Which kind of questions the usefulness of the design in Mongolia, for one thing.

 

[Russian]

hang gliders have a pretty good safety record if you know what you're doing.

But if you use gliders for spying over the enemy territory every minor accident will be your last one.

But I am not saying that it somehow destroys the idea of using gliders for military purposes.
War is a dangerous thing but people still enjoy it.

you need to do so from a high point

Some fellows from the Mongolian army could help the pilot to launch his glider. Some kind of tower carried by bulls or catapult.
Let the Chinese egghead engineers solve this problem

 

[Michael B]

Ye, I see a Mongol army and there are dozens of gliders flying over it high in the blue sky like sinister black ravens.
Quite terrifying

Terrifying? Who you are trying to kid? A Mongol on a horse can kill you. A Mongol on a hang glider is just target practice for archers.

To take the post Columbian analogy of horsemen against Incas and Aztecs, once the latter started to get their heads round the former they were no longer terrified and in fact some even learned to ride captured mounts. That still did not get around the point that Spanish lancers routinely butchered Inca/Aztez infantry with almost impunity.

In contrast a flying Mongol is a Mongol out of the action , especially if the wind is blowing the wrong way. Yes, they could try carrying rocks like the gryphons in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Somehow though I don't think that would work quite so well here in the real world.

For reconnaissance, you will only need a few and there is little that they can not do that a cavalry scout can not do. Assume that some are used. They have to find the enemy, albeit easier from the air, then fly back faster than a horse can gallop to report for there to be any benefit. In contrast if an knowledgeable enemy sees a hang glider they know that you are close and need just travel in the same direction to find your army.

 

[tallwingedgoat]

Terrifying? Who you are trying to kid? A Mongol on a horse can kill you. A Mongol on a hang glider is just target practice for archers.

To take the post Columbian analogy of horsemen against Incas and Aztecs, once the latter started to get their heads round the former they were no longer terrified and in fact some even learned to ride captured mounts. That still did not get around the point that Spanish lancers routinely butchered Inca/Aztez infantry with almost impunity.

In contrast a flying Mongol is a Mongol out of the action , especially if the wind is blowing the wrong way. Yes, they could try carrying rocks like the gryphons in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Somehow though I don't think that would work quite so well here in the real world.

For reconnaissance, you will only need a few and there is little that they can not do that a cavalry scout can not do. Assume that some are used. They have to find the enemy, albeit easier from the air, then fly back faster than a horse can gallop to report for there to be any benefit. In contrast if an knowledgeable enemy sees a hang glider they know that you are close and need just travel in the same direction to find your army.

Arrows are not anti-aircraft weapons, trying shooting them up, they don't go very high. OTOH a glider can drop grenades and do some damage.

The reconnaissance role will be the bread and butter of the glider corp. Power gliders are used today by the forestry service to monitor forest fires. The pilot in the documentary I saw said he could survey in 30 minutes what used to take him four hours on a horse.

 

[Russian]

For reconnaissance, you will only need a few and there is little that they can not do that a cavalry scout can not do.

If you had read this thread carefully you would have noticed that I personally consider gliders to be of some value exclusively for reconnaissance.
Anything else is funny (throwing grenades or horses' faeces)

But answering your reasoning:
1) glider can fly much more higher to be shot with arrows
2) you can see MUCH further from the sky then from the saddle (it's physics)
3) you can glide over the enemies camp and see the very center of it (impossible for a cavalry scout).

sorry, guys, couldnot resist and made a picture

 

[Falastur]

I'm sorry but this idea is pretty stupid, no offense intended OP. How many Mongol battles were fought under the shade of a nearby mountain? None, the Mongols were a steppe people and lived on the plains. Building a launching tower? Or a catapult? Ridiculous. Elementary physics says that a glider must fall a certain altitude before it gets enough of an updraft to start gliding. The Mongols weren't exactly known for their cutting-edge scientific breakthroughs, and hated any kind of technology that couldn't be carried at the speed of a galloping horse, because their military campaigns existed on their capacity for fast moving. Are they really going to invent a 200 metre tower that can be dragged at the speed of their horses?

And let's not forget that the hangglider was invented in 1960 according to the OP when aeronautical theory was already highly advanced and technology was great enough to ensure that most of the dangerous part of the testing had already been done by people who had engines attached to their inventions. Any Mongol who actually has the ingenuity to invent this will A - have been ostracised by his tribe for lack of devotion to his horse and B - die testing an early model.

I just cannot see how this plan is supposed to get off the ground....uh, so to speak.

 

[RGB]

I'm sorry but this idea is pretty stupid, no offense intended OP. How many Mongol battles were fought under the shade of a nearby mountain? None, the Mongols were a steppe people and lived on the plains.

Clearly, Alatau, Altai, Tian Shan, Urals, Caucasus, Hindu Kush, Tatras, Carpathians and the Himalayas are not mountains...because they conquered all of those places. Just sayin'.

Building a launching tower? Or a catapult? Ridiculous. Elementary physics says that a glider must fall a certain altitude before it gets enough of an updraft to start gliding. The Mongols weren't exactly known for their cutting-edge scientific breakthroughs, and hated any kind of technology that couldn't be carried at the speed of a galloping horse, because their military campaigns existed on their capacity for fast moving. Are they really going to invent a 200 metre tower that can be dragged at the speed of their horses?

That's...just...wow. Do you know what made Mongols Mongols, instead of being mere Cumans or Pechenegs? Their ability to take formidable cities by siege or storm in weeks at most. And they probably brought the trebuchet to Europe. Even more convincingly for this argument, it got elaborated on really quickly in the West, and then taken in its ultimate counterweight form back to China to siege down the fortresses in Sichuan by the very same Mongols that hated technology and sieges - disseminating the ultimate medieval siege machinery west and then back east across all of Eurasia in less than 100 years.

If they were just dedicated horsemen and nothing more, they wouldn't have built the vast Empire they did, because good walls stopped many like them before repeatedly. Except this one time.

Finally, nobody travels at gallop, and Mongol horses weren't really strong or fast. What they were was hardy and numerous. Mongol strategic speed was due to organisation rather than some kind of miraculous four-legged superweapon.

 

[Russian]

tower that can be dragged at the speed of their horses?

Do you know what made Mongols Mongols

RGB, I added just a few picteres to illustrate your thoughts:

 

[RGB]

RGB, I added just a few picteres to illustrate your thoughts

Two notes on that:

1. Nice teghilay on the lancer in the picture, a bit early perhaps? But a very historical armour style.
2. Russian internet is terrifying, by Ishtar's triple gate. I'm afraid of clicking somewhere other than the linked page for fear of ending up somewhere really bad.