Meet the Esprit – a twin-engine ultralight motorglider.
Soaring enthusiasts who want to self-launch their aircraft are limited to simple hang gliders on one end and expensive motorgliders on the other. Performance for these machines ranges 15:1 to 50:1. To get one you’ll spend $5000 or $200,000. What you could not do is spend $20,000 to get medium performance*… until now.
Debuting his machine at AirVenture 2000 airshow, Dobro Hajek brings a modern soaring aircraft to the ultralight community. I believe he will also find significant interest from two other groups: sailplane and hang glider pilots. Each loves dedicated machines without engines but many will also prefer an aircraft that can launch itself.
Welcome, Esprit
With its distinctive compound-tapered wings and winglets and its dual engines with folding props, the sleek Esprit goes a long way past the Aero Dovron that Hajek (pronounced HAY-yek) once imported. The Straton D-8 was an interesting little motorglider with a high wing and struts but at 17:1, this inexpensive machine didn’t have the go power it needed to attract a solid market in the United States.
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Marske Sailplanes
The Marske Monarch continues to offer economical soaring.
Ultralight sailplanes. Are they a new category of aviation, a segment of ultralight aircraft or just little sailplanes? Though ultralights seem to be some of the newer aircraft in general aviation, their true lineage is based on soaring machines.
For example, the first and still most successful ultralights, the Quicksilver series, came from a hang glider design to which a small engine was added back in the 1970s. Trikes, which have continued to grow in worldwide popularity, are based on delta-wing hang gliders to which power and landing gear were added. Therefore, though the term may be relatively new (going back a decade or so), the aircraft has a longer heritage. One shining example of this is Jim Marske’s Monarch.
New Model, Old Design
Marske has been building the Monarch for 20 years and has added his higher performance model, the Pioneer, to his list of designs spanning 40 years.