Rogallo Hall of Fame Inductee – Ken Brown
Kenny (Ken / Kendrick / Hey Brown!) Brown’s passion for hang gliding led to a career that has spanned four decades. It all started in the spring of 1980, at age 17, when he got an entry-level job as the shipping clerk at Flight Designs in Salinas, California. Flight Designs provided the perfect location to gain well-rounded knowledge of the sport–a factory location next to consistent dune soaring combined with working alongside, learning from and flying with legendary pilots, Marty Alameda, Jean-Michel Bernasconi, Graham Bird, Steve Brockman, Doug Rice and many others. All combined, this allowed Ken to swiftly learn to fly and develop skills to rapidly progress into racing with the best pilots in the region. As his flying and competition skills evolved, his apprenticeship and countless hours building rigging, frame parts and final glider assembly ignited his excitement for building gliders and flying gear and the sales of the equipment that made flying possible. He became fully absorbed in the sport.
After working at Flight Designs from 1980-1983, he accepted a position from Bill Bennett at Delta Wing Kites and Gliders working in the factory in Van Nuys and to fly the Streak for the 1983 competition season. Many hours were accumulated flying Kagel and other SoCal sites after work. At the early season dune racing Ken nabbed first place finishes at Marina Steeple Chase and Fort Funston Air races with Dan Racanelli hot on his keel. Ken traveled to the 1983 Dunlap Nationals and Masters of Hang Gliding at Grandfather Mtn with Chris Bulger, Bob England, Luigi Cheroni and Rich Phiffer. Each meet piled on the learning experiences…
In the 80’s Ken was also chalking up competitive finishes in one on one, pylon racing and longer race to goal formats throughout the USA. Jim Zeiset selected Ken as assistant team coach and alternate for the US World teams for the 1988 World Championships held at Mt. Buffalo Australia and the 1989 World meet in Fiesch Switzerland. In the 1990’s he was in the top 3 in several in the East Coast Championships and consistently competed in the US National Championships.
At the end of 1983 Ken and his flying buddy Chris Bulger started importing the Airwave Gliders from England. The Magic 3 and Magic 4, designed and built by Rory Carter and Graham Deegan, were easy flying performance gliders sporting highly crafted sail shaping and an effective variable geometry system. Ken’s travels throughout the USA, Canada and Mexico setting up dealerships and providing demo flights established his promotional chops in a highly competitive market. Fellow pilots and rival promoters Rob Kells, Mark Bennett and others gave an ideal bench mark of professionalism that Ken’s eagle eye never lost sight of. USAirwave sold around 400 Magics into the US Market.
In 1987 Ken started working at the newly formed Pacific Airwave to manufacture the Magic IV, Magic Kiss and subsequent models, the Vision Mk IV, Double Vision, Pulse 3-10-11Meter, T2 and later TrikeWings designed by Kameron Blevins, over a 10-year period. The early role of Marketing Director enabled Ken to continue to travel extensively for promotion and competition flying. One of the joys of the marketing role was working with instructors, recreational pilots and pilots who were flying competitions. Forming and supporting flying teams for the active competition scene provided vicarious thrills as did kickstarting careers of the likes of Kari Castle, Dave Sharp and others.
When Airwave England started building Paragliders, Pacific Airwave began importing and distributing them. Preferring to fly paragliders only at the beach limited Ken’s sales reach with this product line. He left the sales role to Lee Gardner and Scott Amy would fly the competitions.
Ken was promoted to president of Pacific Airwave in 1991 and retained that position until Pacific Airwave closed in 1996. The total production of Pacific Airwave numbered in 1000s
The United States Space Foundation and NASA inducted Pacific Airwave into The Space Technology Hall of Fame for the development of Hang Gliders in 1995.
As an early advocate for Speed Gliding Ken placed high in the ranks of US speed gliding competitions and in 2001 was a member of the US Speed Gliding Team and helped secure a Gold medal for the USA team racing on the shoulder of Mount Olympus in Greece. As one of the featured pilots in a documentary of the 2001 World Speed Gliding Championships in Greece Ken mounted POV cameras on his glider and flew a speed gliding run with commentary for a Discovery Channel feature of the event.Extreme Air | Speed Gliding | Discovery
Ken’s international competition experience includes: Being selected and competing as a US Pilot in the 1984 European Championships in Norway. 1985 Competing in Japan at Mount Fuji. And competing in and winning the 1992 Columbian National Championships with an invite to return and defend the title the following year which was politely declined for self preservation reasons…
His reputation for high speed precision flying and being comfortable in high-pressure flying situations earned him several media spots including a Chevy S-10 commercial filmed on the slopes of Mount Toro in Salinas, California that received a lot of play on the West Coast. Ken Brown – Chevy S-10 Commercial – YouTube
Flying for a MTV Sports segment, with MC Hammer providing the intro doing his levitation move, placed Hang Gliding in front of a ripe market. Ken Brown – MTV Sports
A YouTube video of Ken’s precise low-level dune flying at Marina Beach titled ‘Kenny Doing What He Does Best’ has received close to 70,000 views. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCSCE2NN0YI
Ken’s knowledge and interest in safely progressing the sport naturally led to him doing extensive prototype flying, glider development, certification and documentation of designs and evaluating flight characteristics of proto-type and production gliders with Jean-Michel Bernasconi at Pacific Airwave. Other designers such as Dick Boone enlisted Ken to fly his early flexi rigid wing prototype.
While doing a glider demo event at Big Sur / Plaskett Creek in 1990, Ken met his soulmate and future wife Julann Lillian Wilson. They flew tandem the next day and ended up working side by side at Pac Air soon after. Ken was managing sales and marketing and Julann took care of the vital tasks of managing the books. Ken and Julann married in February 1995 with his best man Mark Bennett and brothers Rod and Dan at his side. Ken and Julann have two sons, Avery born in 1996 and Jeremy born in 1999. Both sons are Eagle Scouts and fledged successfully out into worlds of their making.
After the closure of PacAir Ken began working with Ivor J. Lee II of Lakeland Ultralights in Sharon PA over the winter of 1996-97 building and readying for market the SeaWing amphibious trike which used the PacAir trike wings. These wings were some of the last ones made by Pacific Airwave.
Motorized flight began with weight shift, direct drive, 2 stroke, JetWing trikes in 1980-81 and a flight on a weight shift Quicksilver thus earning him entry into the LOUD BIRDMEN as a FOUNDING MEMBER. This honor was bestowed by Jack McCornack at Sun-N-Fun. While Trike flying was always secondary to free flight Ken attended and flew in Airshow, Fly-ins, more AirRaces and generally enjoyed terrorizing the ground with hours of low level zooming.
Later came the power harnesses Moskito Prone and DoodleBug Suprone Harness. Inspired by the suprone flying he began working on what became the Scorpion prototype harness with the assistance of Dan Armstrong who sketched up the carbon layout and Lucien Nicore who built the carbon fiber ’riggers. Test flights are ongoing…
When it came to aerotowing clinics that Chris Bulger and Ken ran in 84-85 in the PNW Ken took on the role of ground ops. He would do the first demo flight with the Magic III to show how to foot launch and required flying speeds and then hook up and coach the pilots critiquing their performance and technique.
Ken became the North American Distributor for Moyes Gliders in the later half of 1997. During the 8 years working with the Moyes family, Moyes America sold around 300 gliders ranging from the SX, CSX, Sonic, Lightspeed, Lightsport and Ventura along with selling and providing parts for the popular Moyes/Baily Aerotow plane.
In 2006 Ken transitioned from professional hang glider pilot and sales to solar sales to reclaim his weekends for the family activities. Ken still flies on an occasional basis in Northern California and is safety director for his local flying club. He satisfies his ‘need for speed’ by sail boat racing Lasers at his local sailing club and larger sailboat cruising in the SF Bay area.
