Introduction

Since the earliest of times man has dreamt of flying and over the past 100 years has found a number of ways of seeing the World from a bird's point of view. Today there are those who fly un-powered using a paraglider (aka paraplane), hang glider or sail plane (aka glider), while others prefer to use an engine to get off the ground with a paramotor (or "flyke" when a wheeled trike is used), flexwing microlight (aka weight-shift trike) or small fixed wing aircraft (aka 3-axis airplane).

Paraglider	Hang Glider	Paramotor	flexwing microlight	3-Axis aircraft

This website is dedicated to the growing number of enthusiasts who are choosing to fly lightweight trikes but with a high-performance Rigid Wing.

These aircraft fit somewhere between the foot-launched powered hang gliders who use a powered harness such as the "Wasp" and self-propelled gliders like the Swift.

	The Directory of Rigid Wing Trikes
Wasp powered harness		Swift self-propelled glider

A common feature of all Rigid Wing Trikes is the manner is which the trike unit is freely suspended from the wing. The term "pendular" used in France neatly summarises the arrangement. The aircraft typically use spoilers in the upper wing surface to control direction, and weight-shift to control pitch. All the aircraft currently featured in this directory are clearly "trikes" having three wheels, but an alternative arrangement would not exclude an aircraft from being included here with other Rigid Wing Trikes. It is not known if there are any Rigid Wing sea-planes in existance.

If you know of a Rigid Wing Trike aircraft not in the list the author would be very interested in hearing from you. Please contact him by e-mail.

To discuss any matter relating to the design or ownership of a Rigid Wing Trike, please see the Yahoo Rigid Wing Trike discussion group.