Photograph:
An American registered Solitaire powered glider (Author’s collection)
Country of origin:
United States of America
Description:
Single-seat powered glider
Power Plant:
One 15 kw (20 hp) Cuyuna 215D single-cylinder, fan-cooled, two-stroke, single-ignition engine
Specifications:
- Wingspan: 12.70 m (41 ft 8 in)
- Wing area: 9.517 m² (102.44 sq ft)
- Never exceed speed: 213 km/h (132 mph)
- Minimum flying speed: 59 km/h (37 mph)
- Wing loading: 6.05 lb/sq ft
- Fuel capacity: 19 litres (4.16 imp gals)
- Minimum sink rate: 46 m/min (150 ft/min) at 74 km/h (46 mph)
- Max glide ratio: 32:1
- Empty weight: 172 kg (380 lb)
- Loaded weight: 281 kg (620 lb)
History:
The Model 77 Solitaire was designed by Elbert ‘Bert’ Rutan as an entry to the Sailplane Homebuilders Association Design Competition in the United States in 1982. His design, a single-seat canard aircraft with a mid-wing, won the contest, its unusual layout attracting a lot of interest. For a few years in the 1980s it was available to home builders in plans and kit form.
Bert Rutan is well known for his canard designs and this one was no exception, having a lifting foreplane with elevators for pitch control, and a rudder at the rear of the tailboom. The pilot sat in an enclosed cabin and the engine was in the front fuselage being raised and lowered hydraulically and housed forward of the pilot’s feet. Construction was from fibreglass over honeycomb and foam. The wing had a built-in span twist to offset the effect of the downwash of the canard and had trailing edge spoilers, these consisting of a flap that deployed down whilst protruding its leading edge into the airflow. The aircraft was designed so that the forward surface stalls before the main wing, making the aircraft unstallable and also unspinnable.
A small production line of aircraft was built, the kit including many of the pre-fabricated fibreglass parts. The fuselage halves had Nomex cores and many moulded parts, such as the seat, canopy, fuselage bulkheads, wing-root fairings, wingtips etc were supplied. Early build kits had the 16 kw (22 hp) Zenoah G-25 engine but some later aircraft had either a Robin engine, the KFM 107e which provided 16 kw (22 hp), or a 15 kw (20 hp) Cuyuna 215D. This latter engine was designed by JLO in Germany and was later acquired by the AMW Cuyuna Engine Co of Beaufort, South Carolina, producing 15 kw (20 hp) at 6,000 rpm and weighing 19 kg (42 lb).
One example of the Solitaire 77-6 was completed in Australia, becoming 19-3178 (c/n 833311-22) under Recreation Aviation Australia (RAA) regulations, this aircraft being registered on 17 June 1998 and being fitted with a KFM Maxi ER engine.