page_title: Ultralight trike
section_title: First trikes
hierarchical_section_title: Ultralight trike / History / First trikes
caption_attribution_description: English: Full scale of XV-8A Fleep prototype, a flexible wing aircraft built by Ryan, was flown in the Full Scale Tunnel.
context_page_description: An ultralight trike is a type of powered hang glider where flight control is by weight-shift. These aircraft have a fabric flex-wing from which is suspended a tricycle fuselage pod driven by a pusher propeller. The pod accommodates either a solo pilot, or a pilot and a single passenger. Trikes grant affordable, accessible, and exciting flying, and have been popular since the 1980s.
  Trikes are referred to as "microlights" in Europe. Such aircraft are also known as 2-axis microlights, flex-wing trikes, weight-shift-control aircraft, microlight trikes, deltatrikes or motorized deltaplanes,
context_section_description: In 1961, Engineer Thomas Purcell built a towable Rogallo-wing glider with an aluminum frame, wheels, a seat and basic control rods; soon he replaced the wheels for floats and motorized the aircraft. In 1964, Swiss inventor Pierre Aubert saw a photo of NASA's Fleep and completed construction of a similar trike. As with the Fleep, his Rogallo wing was fixed and did not allow for pendulum weight-shift control.
  In March 1967, aeronautical engineer Barry Palmer completed the earliest example of a true weight-shift powered trike: the Paraplane; it was controlled by a single vertical control bar as the Paresev experimental glider that inspired him. The Paraplane used two West Bend-Chrysler 820 engines of 8 hp at 6000 RPM, reduced to 4700 RPM for about 6.5 hp each, for a total of 13 hp. Each engine had a direct drive to a 27-inch-diameter two-blade propeller made of polyester and fiberglass. On March 24, 1967, Palmer registered the trike with the FAA as the Palmer Parawing D-6, serial number 1A, registration number N7144; no restrictions were noted.
  The second Palmer trike, Skyhook (FAA registration N4411), in spite of its early date of origin, had most of the attributes of a modern ultralight, except it used a single-cylinder snowmobile engine, as the two-stroke twin-cylinder engines were not available yet. It was powered by a 17 hp at 5000 RPM single-cylinder JLO L297 two-stroke engine, driving a composite propeller designed and built by Palmer himself and driven by a 2.1/1 reduction gearbox. The engine had electric start and the craft had fiberglass composite spring landing gear. Airframe construction was bolted 6061-T6 aluminum thin-wall tube, with 6061 T-6 extruded angle. The craft took off, flew, and landed at around 30 mph.
  The commercial availability of Dickenson's hang glider made the Rogallo wing very popular, and prompted several builders during the 1970s to attempt motorization of their flexible-wing aircraft but unlike Barry Palmer – who placed the center of gravity well below the keel – most builders were mounting the engine to the wing, where a fine balance existed between applying too much power, causing the aircraft to overtake the pilot, or not enough power for flight. It was not until Roland Magallon took a long look at the Motodelta ultralight (a hybrid Rogallo wing designed by Jean-Marc Geiser had a 'fuselage' and a rudder) that Magallon decided to replace the Motodelta's 'fuselage' with a simple tubular framework pendulum and dispensing with the rudder. Magallon is thus generally thought to have invented the trike because it was he who first marketed it. He called the first version 'Mosquito' and marketed it from October 1979 through 1981. The prototype had flown with a McCulloch MC-101A motor of 125 cc, delivering 10 hp at 8000 RPM to a direct-drive prop with ground-adjustable pitch. Later he offered it with a Solo 210 engine which produced 15 hp (11 kW) at much smaller RPM.
  The "trike", as it soon became known, quickly became popular in the UK and France, where it had been reborn. Trike technology still shows its hang gliding origins, though the wings are no longer converted hang gliders, but are designed for power. In fact, none of the commercially available trike wings can be used as foot-launched hang gliders as they are too heavy and too fast.
caption: Ryan XV-8 'Fleep' flown in the Full Scale Tunnel at Langley, 1962
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