Triangle control frame

In most hang gliders, the control is and has been achieved using a horizontal bar held by the pilot, also known as triangle control frame (TCF), control bar or base bar. This bar is usually pulled to allow for greater speed. Either end of the control bar is attached to an upright, where both extend and are connected to the main body of the glider. This creates the shape of a triangle or A Frame. In many of these configurations additional wheels or other equipment can be suspended from the bottom bar or rod ends.

Images showing a triangle control frame on Otto Lilienthals 1892 hang glider prove that the technology of such frames has existed since the early design of gliders, but he did not mention it in his patents. A TCF shows also in Octave Chanutes designs. It was a major part of the now common design of hang gliders by George A. Spratt from 1929.The most simple A frame that is cable stayed was demonstrated in a Breslau gliding club hang gliding meet in a battened wing hang glider in the year 1908; hang glider historian Stephan Nitsch has collected instances also of the U control frame used in the first decade of the 1900s; the U is variant of the A frame.