The Pinaire Ultra-Aire is an American
ultralight aircraft that was designed and produced by
Pinaire Engineering. The aircraft was supplied as a kit for
amateur construction.
[Cliche, Andre: ''Ultralight Aircraft Shopper's Guide'' 8th Edition, page E-42. Cybair Limited Publishing, 2001. ]
Design and development
The aircraft was designed to comply with the US
FAR 103 Ultralight Vehicles
Ultralight aircraft in the United States are much smaller and lighter than ultralight aircraft as defined by all other countries.
In the United States, ultralights are described as "ultralight vehicles" and not as aircraft. They are not req ...
rules, including the category's maximum empty weight of . The aircraft has a standard empty weight of . It features a
cable-braced 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 co ...
,
canard elevator, 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.
The aircraft is made 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 ha ...
tubing, with its flying surfaces 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 foo ...
sailcloth. Its compact single-surface span wing is supported by cables attached to a simple tube
kingpost
A king post (or king-post or kingpost) is a central vertical post used in architectural or bridge designs, working in tension to support a beam below from a truss apex above (whereas a crown post, though visually similar, supports items above f ...
. The pilot is accommodated on a suspended sling seat. The control system is two-axis with pitch controlled by a canard elevator attached to the
side-stick
__NOTOC__
A side-stick or sidestick controller is an aircraft control stick that is located on the side console of the pilot, usually on the righthand side, or outboard on a two-seat flightdeck. Typically this is found in aircraft that are equ ...
. Roll and yaw are controlled by
wing tip
A wing tip (or wingtip) is the part of the wing that is most distant from the fuselage of a fixed-wing aircraft.
Because the wing tip shape influences the size and drag of the wingtip vortices, tip design has produced a diversity of sha ...
rudders also controlled by the side-stick. The landing gear features a steerable nose wheel, also controlled by the side-stick. The standard engine supplied with the kit was the
Cuyuna UL II-02 twin cylinder,
two-stroke
A two-stroke (or two-stroke cycle) engine is a type of internal combustion engine that completes a power cycle with two strokes (up and down movements) of the piston during one power cycle, this power cycle being completed in one revolution of ...
powerplant of .
The aircraft was carefully tested using
sandbag
A sandbag or dirtbag is a bag or sack made of hessian (burlap), polypropylene or other sturdy materials that is filled with sand or soil and used for such purposes as flood control, military fortification in trenches and bunkers, shielding gl ...
loading to +6 and -4
g without failure. Reviewer Andre Cliche describes the design as "well engineered". The Ultra-Aire can be quickly dismantled for ground transportation or storage.
Specifications (Ultra-Aire)
See also
References
{{reflist
External links
Photo of sales brochure
1980s United States ultralight aircraft
Homebuilt aircraft
Single-engined pusher aircraft
Canard aircraft
High-wing aircraft