Kite Lines - Vol.3 No. 1 - KiteLife

Empty Spaces in the Sky. . .ALLISON'S DEATH LEARNEDKite Lines learned only recently of thedeath of William M . Allison on March 22,1978, at age 62, of a stroke, in Dayton,Ohio, where he had lived all his life .Allison led a quiet life, lit by hope forhis inventions and pride in the kite patenthe applied for on September 8, 1950, andwas awarded over five years later onMarch 6, 1956 . Allison was the inventorof the kite popularly called the sled, whichhe himself named the polymorphic kite.He started designing it in the late 40s,finalized the prototype in 1962 and continuedto work on it as late as 1977 .Legend has it that one of his kitesbroke loose one day and was recovereddown the street by Frank Scott, whostarted making modified versions in earnest,to such an extent that the kite becameknown as the Scott Sled. AsAllison's son, William (Terry) Allison,recounts the tale, "Frank Scott got it, cuta hole out of it and made a very erratickite out of a very stable kite ." Scott succeededin popularizing the kite but notthe name Allison, which is still not asrecognized as Rogallo or Jalbert .Terry describes his father as a familyman, employed in maintenance, wholoved to invent things and was fascinatedby "things that fly ." He often flew kiteswith his four children in the neighborhood .In a rare flicker of limelight, Allisonappeared in a Dayton Daily News story in1950, just after he had applied for hispatent . But the article's focus was on thekite's having been tracked as the sourcefor a UFO sighting . He received a measureof appreciation from kite enthusiastswhen Ed Grauel wrote a story about himin the Fall 1974 issue of Kite Tales (predecessorof KiteLines) . Grauel pronouncedthat "Allison's place in the history ofkiting is assured . He gave to the worldone of the simplest, yet one of the finestall-around kites that anyone has evolvedWILLIAM M. ALLISONin over 2,500 years of kiting ."Those of us who have seen hundredsof smiles beam from the faces of fliers ofsleds have hundreds of reasons toremember William M . Allison . V .G .