Jean-Louis DARLET interview
What did you do before la Cage ?
I prepared an escape! Technical director of a plastic injection firm,
I benefitted from a hiatus to gild the feet under the sun of la Réunion(1) by admiring the pretty fabric butterflies which started to darken the sky.
How did you imagine another way to control a flexible wing ?
The idea came from the desire for letting fly a flexible wing freely!
In this era of freedom why not to found the movement of release of the flexible wings?
How to go up anchorings to bring them closer from the centers of pressure? Simple mechanical problems.
How, and with which hardware did you carry out the first tests ?
The first test is a practical search of the centers of pressure, carried out starting from a framework in perforated angle which I fixed the suspending rods
of an escape 27 bought for the occasion: the beginning of a long expenditure ...
The second test, second but the following evolutions were only successive improvements, was a test live with a structure out of tubes of a hang glider
(recovered with the cemetery of hang gliders); the structure was rigid, nondismountable and Spartan but made it possible to really fly in edge of sea.
How was the need essential for designing a specific wing ?
The need for a specific wing is essential from the first day of course since the brakes became useless, awkward and dangerous appendices!
The fact of removing them purely and simply highlighted the need for maintaining the back of the wing etc.
The behavior in turn required a modification of the end of wing, the need for lowering the sail without the brakes involved another modification.... The galère!
Which were the évolutions of the cage (metallic framework) ?
Its foldable form was born in la Réunion and dimensions practically did not change; only the manufacturing methods and the materials evolved.
Can you give us some dates ?
The first tests, in la Réunion, are spring 1989, deposit of the patent in 1990, the first Lagoon was marketed in March 1995.
The Paradigm started to fly in the autumn 1997 and Seagull at the end of the year 2000.
(1) La Réunion is an island in the indian ocean near Madagascar.
|
All about la Cage
FAQ
What's AsPiC
Where to try
For sale
Gallery
Press book
Map
