The next type of micolight aircraft to be registered in New Zealand was the Ultraflight Mirage and the first of these was Ken Asplin's ZK-KJA. Of course there had been several Mirages flying here when they were not required to be registered but I don't know how many of them there were.
The Ultraflight Mirage was designed by Frank Riley in the US and was supplied as a kit for amateur construction. It was developed from the Aerodyne vector and Hill Humbug ultralights and conformed to the US FAR 103 regulations for ultralight aircraft which required the empty weight to be no more than 254 pounds (115 Kg) and the Mirage came in at 246 pounds (112 kg). It was a single seat cable braced high wing microlight with a tricycle undercarriage, constructed from aluminium tubing with the flying surfaces covered with dacron sailcloth. It had a Kawasaki TA440A twin cylinder 2 stroke engine from a snowmobile and this produced 35 HP. The engine was mounted above the leading edge of the wing and drove a pusher propellor behind the wing by an extension shaft. The control system involved spoilers on each wing to reduce lift and therefore turn the aircraft, and standard rudder cables. An optional fairing could be fitted.
The specifications for the Mirage were: wingspan 32 feet (9.8 metres), length 19 feet 6 inches (9.54 metres), wing area 13.4 square metres, empty weight 246 pounds (112 Kg) and MAUW was 500 pounds (227 Kg). The cruising speed was 50 mph and the stall speed was around 25 mph.
We have had 39 Mirages registered in New Zealand and remarkably 35 of them were registered in 1982 - that shows quite a bit of pent up demand for microlight flying!
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