The Buckeye Eclipse and Buckeye Endeavor are a family of

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

two-seat

flying wing A flying wing is a tailless fixed-wing aircraft that has no definite fuselage, with its crew, payload, fuel, and equipment housed inside the main wing structure. A flying wing may have various small protuberances such as pods, nacelles, blis ...

ultralight trikes that was designed and produced by

Buckeye Industries Buckeye Industries, also called Buckeye Aviation, was an American aircraft manufacturer, based in Argos, Indiana. The company was one of the leading manufacturers of powered parachutes and also produced some models of ultralight trikes.Clich ...

. The aircraft were supplied fully assembled.Cliche, Andre: ''Ultralight Aircraft Shopper's Guide'' 8th Edition, page C-6. Cybair Limited Publishing, 2001.

Design and development

Buckeye Industries was well known in the US ultralight business as one of the leading manufacturers of

powered parachute A powered parachute, often abbreviated PPC, and also called a motorized parachute or paraplane, is a type of aircraft that consists of a parafoil with a motor and wheels. The FAA defines a powered parachute as ''a powered aircraft a flexible o ...

s in the 1980s and 90s. The company decided to expand their line with the introduction of a line of trikes in the late 1990s. The aircraft were not strong sellers and the company went out of business in the mid-2000s. The Eclipse features a cable-braced

hang glider Hang gliding is an air sport or recreational activity in which a pilot flies a light, non-motorised foot-launched heavier-than-air aircraft called a hang glider. Most modern hang gliders are made of an aluminium alloy or composite frame covered ...

-style

high-wing A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing confi ...

, weight-shift controls, a single-seat, open cockpit,

tricycle landing gear Tricycle gear is a type of aircraft undercarriage, or ''landing gear'', arranged in a tricycle fashion. The tricycle arrangement has a single nose wheel in the front, and two or more main wheels slightly aft of the center of gravity. Tricycle g ...

and a single engine in

pusher configuration In an aircraft with a pusher configuration (as opposed to a tractor configuration), the propeller(s) are mounted behind their respective engine(s). Since a pusher propeller is mounted behind the engine, the drive shaft is in compression in nor ...

. Factory-supplied standard equipment included dual controls and electronic flight instruments. Optional equipment included a

fiberglass Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass (Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass cloth ...

cockpit fairing, windshield, wheel pants and electric starter. The aircraft carriage is made from welded

4130 steel 41xx steel is a family of SAE steel grades, as specified by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). Alloying elements include chromium and molybdenum, and as a result these materials are often informally referred to as chromoly steel (common ...

tubing, while the wing is constructed from bolted-together

aluminum Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It has ...

tubing and covered in

Dacron Polyethylene terephthalate (or poly(ethylene terephthalate), PET, PETE, or the obsolete PETP or PET-P), is the most common thermoplastic polymer resin of the polyester family and is used in fibres for clothing, containers for liquids and foods ...

sailcloth. The area wing is supported by a single tube-type kingpost and uses an "A" frame control bar.

Variants

;Eclipse :Basic model powered by a Rotax 503 twin cylinder, air-cooled,

two-stroke A two-stroke (or two-stroke cycle) engine is a type of internal combustion engine that completes a Thermodynamic power cycle, power cycle with two strokes (up and down movements) of the piston during one power cycle, this power cycle being comple ...

engine of , with a gross weight of . Price was

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

14,500 in 2000. ;Endeavor :Up-market model powered by a Rotax 582 twin cylinder, liquid-cooled, two-stroke engine of , with a gross weight of . Price was US$16,300 in 2000.

Specifications (Endeavor)

References

{{Buckeye Industries aircraft 1990s United States ultralight aircraft Single-engined pusher aircraft Ultralight trikes