Horten HXa

The first edition of the HX

DO NOT FORGET THE LINKS AT THE RIGHT → → → → →

The drawing has NOT the right airfoil. Please, go see the known Horten-fan sites to get that data. I just made a "rough" sketch here.

The Horten HXa was designed to take of on foot. But due to little wing at the time they wanted to test the glider, they placed a skid and took off by auto-tow. Running that hard behind a car is not that healthy. ;^)

You also see that the glider-pilot has his upper body always at the 30° angle. Even when running. The modern hanggliders like the SWIFT have the pilot running upwards. The book "Nurflugel" (written by Reimar Horten and Peter F. Selinger) mentions that the pilot, Rogelio Bartolini, experienced that he had enough freedom of movement while running and... that he could run faster with the glider on his back then without.

Note the fences on the top of the wings. The HXb didn't had them. The Horten HXc design had them back. Did Reimar Horten think he was wrong to delete them in the second design? I don't know. Do you?

NOTE BY REIMAR HORTEN