Website of the Day - Raven Soaring Trikes (Trikosaurus)

Billed as "The Most Comfortable Trike You'll Ever Fly", the Raven Soaring Trike is an FAR Part 103 legal trike that is powered by a 28hp Hirth Engine. It is also an engine-less soaring trike.
 
It is basically the undercarriage and power unit, and can be used with a variety of wings. Fully transportable, quiet, and convenient. A nice alternative to the two-seat trainers and SLA machines more commonly in use. I can imagine that one of these machines would be incredibly relaxing to fly on an early Sunday morning with calm winds and the sun coming up in the East....

A brief description from Bob Corbo's article in Hang Glider Magazine:

Although first conceived in 1999 it wasn’t until the spring of 2000 that the first Trikosoarus™ as originally named, got airborne. What it is in one form is a rigid supine harness with a tricycle landing gear, and rigid connection to a hang glider, designed to be aero towed or roll launched. In its other form it’s the most fun powered micro light trike you could ever fly. Capable of both super slow powered flight (18 mph indicated airspeed with a 160lb pilot) and engine off soaring with electric restart. And the real neat thing about these two very different flying machines is that it only takes 10 minutes to convert from one to the other.

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Thrust SSC Team - Flashback highlight on Bill Sherlock

My good friend, and former head of P&M Aviation, Bill Sherlock, was involved about ten years ago in a great project to exceed the speed of sound in a land vehicle. They succeeded. The first ever supersonic World Land Speed Record of 763.035 mph was set on 15th October 1997 by Andy Green in ThrustSSC, on the Black Rock Desert, Nevada.


Bill's job was to fly the a Quantum 912 over the course during operations - looking for incursions onto the playa and giving members of the media rides. Though Bill has since moved on to other interesting endeavors, the Thrust Site is still up and running and makes a fascinating read.

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Origins of the Species? or.... Who Flew Before the Wright Brothers?

An interesting article describing the cast of characters who actually did "fly" at the same time or before Orville and Wilbur, but were never given the same recognition. Check out the video then visit the article

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