About 1977-8 a number of manufacturers discovered that beginner - intermediate wings with simpler, deflexorless airframes, provided surprisingly good performance. Suspicion arose as to the benefit of using cables to keep the leading edges in shape. Designers experimentally removed deflexors and used larger diameter leading edge tubing to restore strength and stiffness. It was found to provide an improvement in performance with no significant handling drawbacks.

The deletion of deflexor cables and their associated wing-posts, bolts, bottle-screws, and attachment brackets, brought a reduction in cost, complexity, rigging hassle, and susceptibility to damage on the ground. (Adjustable deflexors additionally provided pilots an opportunity to 'tune' the glider into a dangerous condition, which some did.) Hang gliders with crosstubes were once more competitive with bowsprit types (without crosstubes).

The author's records, augmented by input from others who flew during the early days, indicate that either the Australian Moyes Maxi or the British Superscorpion (released early summer 1978) was the first deflexorless top-of-the-range flexwing. The Sunbird Nova (California) followed. Then the Electra Flyer Floater (New Mexico), Delta Wing Phoenix 6D (California), and the popular Wills Wing Raven (also from California). But, in the opinion of many pilots, the ultimate single surface flexwing of the time was the French Atlas which emerged mid 1979.

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The author was amazed to come across a Hiway Superscorpion being flown in 1999 -- more than twenty years after the first one flew. Modern hang gliders are more airworthy however.