The Basics

The trike and wing are standard production items.

The Alize trike is a honey. The base tubes are aluminium, while the rear tubes which support the enging are steel. G-CFDZ has no brakes and only a hand throlle. Newer Alize trikes have a brake on the front wheel and a foot throttle fitted as standard and 30cm wheels (G-CFDZ has only 26cm wheels).

The engine is a standard Solo 210, which is rated at 14.5hp. This drives a composite propeller through a reduction drive.

The Exxtacy wing has aluminium central tubes and control frame but the wing is entirely composite with a carbon fibre D box section leading edge and carbon fibre ribs.

Weight shift is used for pitch control while turning is effected by the use of spoilers.

Putting the bits together

The build was fairly straight forward. A hang block was machined from a block of nylon and is split horizontally to facilitate fitting around the base tube of the Exxtacy's keel. The bracket and hang block from the original Ellipse Fuji wing were used for patterns.

New rigging wires were made up to reposition the control bar within reach of the pilot. Without these, the pilot would have had to sit bolt upright, rather than adopting the recumbent position that is a feature of the Alize trike. It was also necessary to lengthen the cord rigging to the spoilers.

To trim a little weight off the trike, 20 AA NiMH batteries replaced the lead acid unit originally fitted.

Instruments

The engine is equipped with a small digital tachometer, otherwise there is only what the pilot chooses to carry.