TED NELSON (1985)
(~1910-1994)
Ted Nelson knew that self-launching sailplanes were
the wave of the future thirty years before he was
inducted into the Soaring Hall of Fame. He had
approached Hawley Bowlus early on to build a self-
launching sailplane but Bowlus wasn't interested until
Ted said he would pay the costs.
In 1945 Nelson formed a company with William
Hawley Bowlus – the Nelson Aircraft Corporation – to
build a two-seat, motorglider version of the popular
Bowlus BA-100 Baby Albatross. They gave it the name
Bumblebee but sold it as the Dragonfly. The cockpit
was significantly widened to accommodate the side-by-side seating with flight
controls for each occupant. A tricycle landing
gear with steerable nose gear was added along
with additional vertical fins mounted on the
ends of the horizontal stabilizer.
The aft end of the fuselage pod was an ideal
place for a pusher engine and propeller but
none was available. Thus they built a 25
horsepower motor which was barely enough
to takeoff and slowly climb. Due to this cost to
performance, they sold only seven Dragonflys.
The Dragonfly was the first powered glider to receive a type certificate from the Civil
Aeronautics Administration and, at this writing, is on display at the Smithsonian Air
and Space Museum, Udvar-Hazy Center, Boeing Aviation Hangar.
In 1953 Nelson joined with Harry Perl and Don Mitchell to design the Nelson PG-185B
Hummingbird with the capability of taking off under power, shutting down the
engine at altitude and restarting at the pilot's discretion to return to the airport. The
entire engine (Nelson H-59 four-cylinder, two-stroke, 40 horsepower) and propeller
are fully retractable into the fuselage. Thus substantially increasing the sailplane
aerodynamic performance in free flight. The small two-cycle engine was difficult to
start in flight so pilots chose to use it only for take-off and climb. The Hummingbirds
were produced both as kits and complete aircraft.
Six Hummingbirds were completed. Ted Nelson and Harry Perl flew the first one to 7
th
place at the Grand Prairie Nationals in Texas. At this writing, one Hummingbird is
stored at the Garber Preservation, Restoration, and Storage Facility at Suitland, MD
(soon to be at Udvar-Hazy). The Southwest Soaring Museum also has a Hummingbird
on display.
Although these days, motorgliders are very much a part of the sport, it took a while
for the “purists” to accept the concept. In that sense, Ted Nelson was ahead of his
time. To quote him, “The 'purists' were saying that we were taking all the sport out of
it.”
Nelson started flying primary gliders in 1926. Even at that early time, he envisioned
the motorglider and built his first powered glider with a 50 hp, 9 cylinder radial
engine. To quote him, “Boy, did that thing jump off the ground . . . It didn't look very
nice, a glider with this big monster sitting out there. You put the power on and wham!
You're off the ground. Fortunately, I cracked it up on a take-off one day and that saved
me from getting killed in the darn thing.”
Nelson retired in the mid- 1960s but took up another hobby a
few years later – developing, manufacturing and selling oxygen
flow meters for gliders and powered aircraft. He received the
Eaton Trophy in 1954 and earned Silver Badge #138 in 1951.
Ted Nelson was among the first in the world to visualize the
future success of motorgliders.