Solo Wings CC was a South African

aircraft manufacturer An aerospace manufacturer is a company or individual involved in the various aspects of designing, building, testing, selling, and maintaining aircraft, aircraft parts, missiles, rockets, or spacecraft. Aerospace is a high technology industry. ...

based in

Gillitts, KwaZulu-Natal Gillitts is a town in the KwaZulu-Natal Province of South Africa. Overview It is about inland from the Durban city centre at an elevation of 1800 feet (600 m ASL). Although Durban is semi-tropical and very humid, Gillitts is above the humidity ...

. The company specialized in the design and manufacture of

ultralight trike 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 so ...

s in the form of ready-to-fly aircraft for the European

Fédération Aéronautique Internationale The (; FAI; en, World Air Sports Federation) is the world governing body for air sports, and also stewards definitions regarding human spaceflight. It was founded on 14 October 1905, and is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland. It maintai ...

microlight Ultralight aviation (called microlight aviation in some countries) is the flying of lightweight, 1- or 2-seat fixed-wing aircraft. Some countries differentiate between weight-shift control and conventional three-axis control aircraft with ailer ...

category.Cliche, Andre: ''Ultralight Aircraft Shopper's Guide'' 8th Edition, page C-30. Cybair Limited Publishing, 2001. Downey, Julia: ''2000 Trike and 'Chute Directory'', Kitplanes, Volume 17, Number 2, February 2000, page 45. Kitplanes Acquisition Company. ISSN 0891-1851Bertrand, Noel; Rene Coulon; et al: ''World Directory of Leisure Aviation 2003-04'', page 110. Pagefast Ltd, Lancaster OK, 2003. ISSN 1368-485XBayerl, Robby; Martin Berkemeier; et al: ''World Directory of Leisure Aviation 2011-12'', page 222. WDLA UK, Lancaster UK, 2011. ISSN 1368-485X The company seems to have gone out of business circa 2012 and production of its Solo Wings Aquilla design taken over by Microcrafts Africa. The company produced two ultralight trike designs, starting with the entry-level

Windlass The windlass is an apparatus for moving heavy weights. Typically, a windlass consists of a horizontal cylinder (barrel), which is rotated by the turn of a crank or belt. A winch is affixed to one or both ends, and a cable or rope is wound arou ...

, powered by the

Rotax 503 The Rotax 503 is a , inline 2-cylinder, two-stroke aircraft engine, built by BRP-Rotax GmbH & Co. KG of Austria for use in ultralight aircraft.Raisner, William: ''LEAF catlog'', pages 6-105. Leading Edge Airfoils, 1995. As of 2011 the Ro ...

twin cylinder,

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 ...

, air-cooled

aircraft engine An aircraft engine, often referred to as an aero engine, is the power component of an aircraft propulsion system. Most aircraft engines are either piston engines or gas turbines, although a few have been rocket powered and in recent years many ...

in about 1987. More than 600 of this model had been delivered by 2001. In the 1990s the more sophisticated Aquilla was introduced.

Bateleur Sky Sports

Both Solo Wings models were sold in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

by a Solo Wings distributor, Bateleur Sky Sports, Inc. of

Palm Coast, Florida Palm Coast is a city in Flagler County, Florida. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population was 75,180, more than twice the 32,832 counted in 2000. The population was estimated to be 89,800 in 2019. It is the most populous city in Flagler ...

and later

Fort Lauderdale, Florida Fort Lauderdale () is a coastal city located in the U.S. state of Florida, north of Miami along the Atlantic Ocean. It is the county seat of and largest city in Broward County with a population of 182,760 at the 2020 census, making it the tenth ...

from the late 1990s until the early 2000s under their own name as the Bateleur Windlass and Bateleur Aquilla. Bateleur Sky Sports appears to have gone out of business in about 2004.

Aircraft

References

External links

* redirects to Microcrafts Africa
Company website archives
on

Archive.org The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

{{Solo Wings aircraft Companies based in KwaZulu-Natal Defunct aircraft manufacturers of South Africa Ultralight aircraft Homebuilt aircraft Ultralight trikes EThekwini Metropolitan Municipality