Despite their availability, few people could afford to own a light aircraft. However, the development of hang-gliding pioneered in Australia, brought aviation within the reach of many more people. The sport of hang-gliding was begun by Bill Moyes, the unbeaten world champion kite flier for six years between 1967 and 1973.
Moyes sold his first hang-glider in 1967 and the following year flew a distance of 2.4 km in the Snowy Mountains, the world's longest unassisted flight. By 1974 he was building the Moyes Delta Glider, designed by John Dickenson, with Dacron sails, aluminum spars and steel bracing. The Bennett/Moyes-designed harness and trapeze has become a standard item on all hang-gliders. The pilot lies in a streamlined 'superman' flying position supported at the chest and feet. This allows control of the glider by weight shifting in relation to the trapeze height. By 1988 hang-gliding had developed into a fast-growing sport with an estimated 5,000 pilots nationwide. Within ten years, kites manufactured by the Moyes family were sold internationally and recognised as the best in the world.
Margaret Simpson,
May 2005
Because of his reputation Bill Moyes was constantly approached by other pilots for advice and help with sails so he turned to manufacturing and selling complete kites. Part of his auto-electrical workshop was set aside for this purpose. Within 10 years Moyes kites were sold internationally and recognised as the best in the world. In 1983, 2000 kites came out of the Waverley workshop, 600 of which were for the Australian market, the rest were sold in Asia and particularly Europe. In 1982 Bill opened a kite factory in Como, Italy and the following year another near Los Angeles.
By the 1980s the Waverley factory was a family run business with Bill's daughter, Susan running the shop and various sons-in-law employed in the firm. Steve looked after overseas sales and transformed Bill's designs into a reality. He also test flew every hang-glider that left the shop and several other qualified test pilots were needed as business expanded. Each customer was seen as an individual and frames were adjusted to the skill of the pilot. A beginner needed a softer, more flexible frame while a competition pilot needed it to be rigid to give immediate and tight response.
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By 1988 hang-gliding had developed into a fast-growing sport with an estimated 5,000 pilots nation wide. By this time Bill had turned his attention to another area of flight, ultralights.
This glider was made by Moyes Delta Glider Pty Ltd in Australia.
This glider was made 1973-1974.
The origin of kites large enough to lift a human off the ground is obscure. They are most commonly attributed to the Chinese who used them for the purposes of war for spying and dropping of troops into besieged cities. The first European kites were noted in 1326 though these were also used for war
One of the pioneers of modern kiting sports is Francis Melvin Rogallo (1912-). Born in California, Rogallo was the son of Polish immigrants who arrived in the U.S. in 1890. Francis became an engineer and in 1936 started work at the then NACA controlled Langley Research Centre, taking charge of the wind tunnel experiments. During the mid 1940s Francis, with the help of his wife Gertrude, began conducting experiments at home for a flexible kite which would maintain its shape and carry weight. Their flexible kite was patented in Gertrude's name in 1948. The invention found moderate success when it was privately marketed as a toy but it was the space race that which began to blossom in the mid-1950s that caught the imagination of NASA. Much money was spent developing not only flexible re-entry gliders for space capsule re-entry but various helicopter towed flex-wings,
In the 1940s Dr Francis Rogallo of the US National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) developed a new airfoil for inexpensive amateur flying. He made it from cloth and a light frame and discovered that this wing shape glided very well but was hard to steer. In the 1960s Australian John Dickenson, who had corresponded with Rogallo about his kite, developed a delta-winged kite based on the Rogallo wing. He added a trapeze bar and weight shift system with which it could be steered.
The hang-glider was made by the famous hang-gliding team, Bill Moyes and his son, Stephen. Bill Moyes pioneered the sport of hang-gliding and was the unbeaten world champion kite flier for six years between 1967 and 1973. During that time he held every record for height and distance and won every competition. Steve Moyes later became world champion in 1983 and a gold medalist in the national team at the world championships in 1983 and 1987.
From a young age Bill Moyes had dreamt he could fly. He was born in 1932 at Bronte, a southern Sydney beach suburb, and after leaving school married his childhood sweetheart Molly. He started a cadetship as an electrical engineer but switched to being an auto electrician. He worked for two years then, with a 200 pound bank loan, bought his employer's business in the City then moved it to Waverley close to his home and the beach.
Bill and Molly Moyes raised a family of five and built up the business working long hours. As well as working hard Bill played hard and started barefoot water skiing in 1965 becoming an Australian barefoot water ski champion. His interest in kite flying developed almost as soon as the Rogallo wing was developed in 1967. However, at this time there were many accidents and deaths amongst participants. Bill realised that the kite was the answer to his childhood flying dreams and every week would build a new model in his workshop, changing and modifying the design. He had no formal training in aerodynamics but worked through trial and error and observation. His first kites flapped like rags but after reading about high speed sailing on ice he picked up numerous hints about battens and airfoil shapes and flexibility. Within six weeks of first taking to the air Bill astounded aeronautical experts by flying 321 metres over Tuggerah Lakes on the Central Coast of NSW and became the first in the world to fly a man-carrying kite at an altitude of over 300 metres .
Initially Bill used his skill as a water-skier to launch himself into the air while being towed behind a speed-boat. This was dependent on the boat driver pulling at the right speed and ended up in numerous spills into Botany Bay. Later he unsuccessfully tried launching himself from a speeding motorcycle riding along the sand with the kite strapped to his back.
In the Winter of 1967 Bill became the first person to ski off Mount Crackenback in the Australian Alps and flew his kite down to the ski resort of Thredbo. Then, in early 1968 on Lake Ellesmore, in New Zealand, he attached himself to a 3,000 metre cable behind a speed boat and took the world altitude record to 883 metres. A madcap venture to fly a kite some 1,000 km from Sydney to Brisbane in 1969 was abandoned after only 304 km and six hours of flying when the boat hauling him in open sea was swamped and broken up by waves. Even more dangerous was the plane tow behind a Piper Supercub in 1971 in Amery, Wisconsin, USA.
By this time Bill's interest in kite flying became an all-consuming passion so to promote the burgeoning sport and satisfy his own innate showmanship he started giving spectacular demonstrations of his flying. For these shows Bill wore a white jump-suit and was billed as 'The Australian Birdman'. He was towed behind a dune buggy and 'cut loose' to gracefully fly to the ground. He performed at the Royal Easter Show in Sydney then found an agent and toured America. At one stage he was apparently the highest paid thrill show performer in the USA. It was at one of these shows at North Dakota that he nearly lost his life. The buggy that towed him went too fast and the kite climbed too quickly and flipped over. Bill fell 100 metres sustaining a crushed pelvis, several broken ribs, and injuries to his knees and teeth. Despite this Moyes continued to compete in the North American Championships the same year and later jumped off the Grand Canyon gliding for 7 .5 km in 8 minutes down to the Colorado River. For this stunt he was arrested and fined $500. Back in Australia at the Melbourne Show a miscalculation saw him plummet into an adjacent carpark onto the parked cars. Despite another broken pelvis Bill had it strapped up and performed the next day. In all he has had five very bad falls but none were from his own error.
By the time he was forty in 1972, Bill held every world hang-gliding record in the world including the world record height of 3,500 metres and the world record distance of 33 km achieved after being towed under a hot air balloon at Canowindra, NSW, then cut loose. This was captured in a documentary 'A Boy with Wings'.
By the 1980s Bill's son, Steve, had supplanted his father in competitions. As a teenager Steve was a reluctant pilot but by the age of 18 began to really enjoy it. He first beat his father in a competition in 1974 and in 1983 was world champion. In 1982 the father and son team climbed 5800 metres up to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest peak, and launched their kites. The film of this exploit, 'Birdmen of Kilimanjaro' highlighted the difference between father and son. Bill as the pioneer and innovator and Steve as the more natural pilot.
In the early 1970s hang-gliding began to gain enormous popularity. At weekends the sandhills around Botany Bay and north of Sydney at Palm Beach became launching pads for beginners. The more adventurous jumped off the cliffs at Newport while the experts discovered the perfect wind conditions at Stanwell Park between Sydney and Wollongong.
Bill's pioneering adventuring has earnt him a Bronze Medal for services to sport by the Russian Government, a Silver Jubilee Medal from Britain and from Australia the Oswald Watt Gold Medal for Dedication to Aviation presented by the Royal Aero Club in 1980. A previous recipient was Sir Charles Kingsford Smith.
By 1988 hang-gliding had developed into a fast-growing sport with an estimated 5,000 pilots nation wide. By this time Bill had turned his attention to another area of flight, ultralights.
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