The Rutan Model 77 Solitaire is an

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 ...

, single seat, canard, mid-wing

motor glider A motor glider is a fixed-wing aircraft that can be flown with or without engine power. The FAI Gliding Commission Sporting Code definition is: a fixed-wing aerodyne equipped with a means of propulsion (MoP), capable of sustained soaring flight ...

that was developed by

Burt Rutan Elbert Leander "Burt" Rutan (; born June 17, 1943) is a retired American aerospace engineer and entrepreneur noted for his originality in designing light, strong, unusual-looking, and energy-efficient air and space craft. He designed the recor ...

in response to the 1982 Sailplane Homebuilders Association Design Contest for a homebuilt glider. It first flew in 1982. The Solitaire was declared the winner of the contest and its unusual layout attracted a great deal of attention. For a time in the 1980s the aircraft was available as plans and as a kit.Said, Bob: ''1983 Sailplane Directory,

Soaring Magazine ''SOARING'' is a magazine published monthly as a membership benefit of the Soaring Society of America. It was first published in 1937. The headquarters is in Hobbs, New Mexico. The magazine's article topics include safety issues and accounts of in ...

'', page 126. Soaring Society of America, November 1983. USPS 499-920

Design and development

Like many Rutan designs, the Solitaire uses a canard layout, with a lifting foreplane with elevators for pitch control at the nose, and a rudder at the rear of a tail boom. The pilot sits under a

bubble canopy A bubble canopy is an aircraft canopy constructed without bracing, for the purpose of providing a wider unobstructed field of view to the pilot, often providing 360° all-round visibility. The designs of bubble canopies can drastically vary; s ...

and the electro-hydraulically retractable gasoline engine occupies the space between the pilot's feet and the canard. The aircraft is constructed from

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 cl ...

Nomex Nomex is a flame-resistant meta- aramid material developed in the early 1960s by DuPont and first marketed in 1967. Properties Nomex and related aramid polymers are related to nylon, but have aromatic backbones, and hence are more rigid and m ...

honeycomb and urethane foam. The wing has a built-in mid-span twist to offset the effects of the canard's downwash, with the inboard having 2 degrees less twist than the outboard portion of the wing. The wing is equipped with very effective

trailing edge The trailing edge of an aerodynamic surface such as a wing is its rear edge, where the airflow separated by the leading edge meets.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third edition'', page 521. Aviation Supplies & Academics, 199 ...

spoilers, consisting of a

flap Flap may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Flap'' (film), a 1970 American film * Flap, a boss character in the arcade game ''Gaiapolis'' * Flap, a minor character in the film '' Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland'' Biology and he ...

that deploys down while also protruding its leading edge upward into the airflow. The canard configuration is designed so that the forward surface stalls before the main wing, making the aircraft unstallable, and also unspinnable. This does not mean, however, that the aircraft cannot be maneuvered into a flight regime where a high rate of descent is achieved. When it was in production, the kit included all the hardware to assemble the prefabricated fiberglass parts. The

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft t ...

halves came with Nomex honeycomb cores and a special film adhesive to bond the halves together. The main wing spars supplied used

S-glass 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 ...

roving spar caps that had been molded in metal molds. The kits also included many molded parts, including the seat pan, canopy pre-mounted in its frame, turtledeck, fuselage bulkheads, wing root fairings, wheel fairings, wingtips and the foam cores used in the wings and the canard. The initial engine was the Zenoah G-25, but this was changed to a Robin engine and then later the

Cuyuna 215 The 2si 215 is a family of single-cylinder, fan-cooled, two-stroke, single ignition, aircraft engines that were designed for ultralight aircraft.Cuyuna Development Company: ''Cuyuna Engines'', Cuyuna Development Company, undated The basic engin ...

. The

KFM 107 The KFM 107 is a two-cylinder, two-stroke, single ignition, horizontally opposed aircraft engine designed for ultralight aircraft and motor gliders.Cliche, Andre: ''Ultralight Aircraft Shopper's Guide'' 8th Edition, page G-5 Cybair Limited Publis ...

e engine has also been used.

Operational history

Within two months of the aircraft's introduction in 1982, 50 to 60 sets of plans had been sold. In March 2011 there were seven Solitaires registered in the United States, including one in the

EAA AirVenture Museum The EAA Aviation Museum, formerly the EAA AirVenture Museum (or Air Adventure Museum), is a museum dedicated to the preservation and display of historic and experimental aircraft as well as antiques, classics, and warbirds. The museum is lo ...

Aircraft on display

Specifications (Solitaire)

References

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External links