Although the first two seater Bantam B 22 had first appeared in 1986, it was not a homebuilt aircraft but rather a factory built aircraft.
So that leaves the Skyflight Mynah 2 as the first in the series of homegrown two seat homebuilt aircraft of New Zealand. This aircraft had no commonality with the earlier single seat Mynah aircraft, although both were designed by Wallace and Robert McNair of Auckland. The prototype Mynah 2 was powered by a 65 HP 2 cylinder horizontally opposed Arrow engine from Italy. Construction was a fibreglass fuselage and the wings were constructed of of folded aluminium channel extrusions for the spars, pressed aluminium ribs and an aluminium leading edge, with the covering being very light weight Mylar. The fuel tanks were in the leading edge of the lower wings. It flew well with a cruise of around 70 mph. Empty weight was around 220 Kg and MAUW was 449 Kg.
It was a different layout to most of the other microlights of the time (which were mostly side by side high wing machines such as the Quicksilver and Mirage). You can see in the photo that the top wing was swept to allow access to the front cockpit. It was designed with an eye to production but this never eventuated.
ZK-FWT (c/n 001/MAANZ/450) was built by the McNairs and also by Alan Stewart of Tuatapere, to whom the aircraft was first registered on 25/10/90. It is photo'd above at a flyin at Matamata around 1991. It was sold to RA Hansen of Huntly on 30/8/93. It is still currently registered and it is kept in a hangar at Glen Murray, although I believe it hasn't flown for several years.
So that leaves the Skyflight Mynah 2 as the first in the series of homegrown two seat homebuilt aircraft of New Zealand. This aircraft had no commonality with the earlier single seat Mynah aircraft, although both were designed by Wallace and Robert McNair of Auckland. The prototype Mynah 2 was powered by a 65 HP 2 cylinder horizontally opposed Arrow engine from Italy. Construction was a fibreglass fuselage and the wings were constructed of of folded aluminium channel extrusions for the spars, pressed aluminium ribs and an aluminium leading edge, with the covering being very light weight Mylar. The fuel tanks were in the leading edge of the lower wings. It flew well with a cruise of around 70 mph. Empty weight was around 220 Kg and MAUW was 449 Kg.
It was a different layout to most of the other microlights of the time (which were mostly side by side high wing machines such as the Quicksilver and Mirage). You can see in the photo that the top wing was swept to allow access to the front cockpit. It was designed with an eye to production but this never eventuated.
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