I recently came across a video of a strange type of microlight flying machine from Japan - it was a weight shift pusher with the pilot in a prone position and seemed to have a bird like tail that could be moved, and by the sound it was powered by a 2 stroke engine. It looked like it flew very well. Here are some screen shots of it from the Japanese video:
In flight.
And approaching to land.
You have to be quite flexible to get out of it! And I suppose it only comes in a single seat version!
The reason I am posting this is because I think there may have been or are some of these machines in New Zealand. A friend of mine told me that they are called "Mosquitos" here and that he had seen a video somewhere of them flying off the Northern end of the beach at Orewa. And I think there might have been one flying at Waitohi back in the day. To my knowledge none have ever been registered here.
So my questions to blog readers are: Have you seen one in New Zealand? Do you have a photo you could supply? Are there still any of them out there? It would be great to know to add to our knowledge of microlights in New Zealand. Over to you!
A mate of mine at the airfield today said he saw something similar to this at Te Kowhai in the late 1970s. Does this jog anyone's memory?
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