With its mountains of soft sand and consistent wind, the Outer Banks have long provided an excellent place to experiment with flight. The Wright Brothers discovered this in the dunes of Kill Devil Hills just north of Jockey's Ridge, where generations of hang gliders, kite flyers, wind surfers, kite boarders, and other wind-sports enthusiasts have come to play and learn in what Francis Rogallo called "a natural wind laboratory." Rogallo dreamed of personal flight for everyone, and although he and his wife Gertrude did not invent hang gliding, their flexible wing helped propel a craze for it. They patented the wing in 1948, and in the 1960s NASA considered using the "Rogallo Wing" to guide space capsules back to land. Aviation enthusiasts then used NASA research and photographs of the flexible wing to develop simple, inexpensive flying craft, helping launch the hang gliding movement in the freewheeling culture of the 1970s. In 1975, People to Protect Jockey's Ridge succeeded in preserving the dunes as a state park, by which time the area was home to a hang gliding school and extravaganzas that drew aviators from around the world. Francis Rogallo worked in a wind tunnel at his home, later tested designs in NASA labs, continued testing wings on Jockey's Ridge after retiring to the Outer Banks with Gertrude, began flying gliders at age 62, and soared until he was 80 years old. The tradition of experimenting in the wind and sand continues there today, and the Rogallo Kite Festival carries on in his honor.