The Ultralight Engineering Astra ( en, Star) is an American

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 ...

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 ...

, cable-braced, single-seat, open cockpit, single engine in pusher configuration, ultralight aircraft that was designed and produced by Ultralight Engineering in the 1980s. The aircraft was supplied as a kit for amateur construction.Cliche, Andre: ''Ultralight Aircraft Shopper's Guide'' 8th Edition, page E-2. 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 Astra's standard empty weight is . Like many ultralights of the early 1980s, it was derived from the

Eipper Quicksilver Quicksilver is a line of single and two-place high wing, single-engine, ultralight aircraft that evolved from weight-shift hang gliders including Bob Lovejoy's High Tailer. The earliest powered version, the Quicksilver C, was created as a se ...

and generally resembles that aircraft. The Astra primarily improved upon the Quicksilver in its main landing gear design, which is suspended by

coil spring A selection of conical coil springs The most common type of spring is the coil spring, which is made out of a long piece of metal that is wound around itself. Coil springs were in use in Roman times, evidence of this can be found in bronze Fib ...

s to reduce the chances of damage during rough landings. The airframe is made from bolted-together

aluminium 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. I ...

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 foo ...

sailcloth. The span wing is braced by cables from a

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 controls are three-axis, with roll controlled by three small spoilers mounted on each wing. The standard factory supplied engine was the

Rotax 377 The Rotax 377 is a , twin-cylinder, two-stroke aircraft engine, that was 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. Development The Ro ...

of and it is mounted on the

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 ...

of the wing, with the propeller in between the four tailboom tubes. The aircraft can be assembled or disassembled for storage or ground transportation by two people in fifteen minutes. Ultralight Engineering went out of business after the fatal crash of a prototype of another design and production of the Astra ended at the same time.

Specifications (Astra)

References

{{reflist 1980s United States ultralight aircraft Homebuilt aircraft