LAZAIR Ultralight Aircraft

[Admin]

 

• This is my favorite ultralight. this is from 1981 filmed in super 8 in Australia and a little bit from Canada.After all these years they are still the best. but then i am a little biased as i still have one.
   
  

 

 

 

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• Watch Now!
   
  

 

 

 

 

[Spin]

ozzie is your man I believe.

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

Guilty. goes back a bit. just video it straight off the screen and uploaded it. pretty crude. small file size does not help the quality. yes, very 'elegant,' gets the ladies choice award at airshows.

 

 

[Guest Maj Millard]

Ian, you have a Lazair ????.........................................

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

Major, that comment is mine from the you tube upload.

 

Ozzie

 

 

[turboplanner]

the flying showbag...

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

sure do. upgraded series 1. there are several around but mine is the only one on the register.

 

 

[winsor68]

The movie "The Gods Must be Crazy II" had a Lazair type aircraft in it...Was this what the aircraft could have become? I think the only one you actually see flying in the movie was a model...

 

 

[winsor68]

This old footage needs to be preserved...Would be nice to see it restored to better quality. There must be hours upon hours of this old 8mm footage showing aviation in storage around Australia...

 

 

[Guest Maj Millard]

David, The Lazair was way ahead of it's time when they came out in the early 80s. It had an all metal frame, and the wing was a rivited full d-cell spar, with attached foam ribs, and covered with clear Mylar, and later Tedlar, which was plastic film originally used on greenhouses.

 

It was a beautifull tapered 36' span wing, with pushrod activated, differential ailerons, and beautifull upturned tips. The tail was an inverted ^ with pushrod controlled 'ruddervators'. The control stick on all but the latest, came down from overhead. So it was a twin engined, inverted- tailed tail-dragger, with overhead control stick!.. Just to keep the theme going the twin single cylinder 125 cc Rotaxs, (on some) came from a commercially produced firepump engine, and on the Lazair used two carbon fiber 'Biplane' props, which was one little prop on top of another, to reduce drag when you shut them off for gliding flight. Total horsepower, both engines, was only 18hp or so, but the plane which only weighed 180 lbs ready to go, could also carry a pilot of 180 lbs !!. Actually they could carry more than that as one of my mates proved. Fuel burn ,both engines, was 1.8 US gals an hour, which is about 8 lts an hour or so . The controls were standard 3-axis but once airborne, you could flick a little lever, and all the 3 axis went onto the stick, so you didn't need to use the rudder pedals.

 

They were an amazing machine to fly as Ozzie will attest to I'm sure. More of a powered glider really. There was a twin seat model also.Not fast, (35-40 kts or so) but with the inverted V-tail it really felt just like you were flying a large eagle. in the hands of factory pilots, they were capable of performing nice loops also..If you were lucky enough to fly one, it was the coolest ride around as you could 'sinc' the two engines after take off, into a beautifull drone sound which just layed everybody out watching on the ground.................................................................................................:thumb_up:

 

 

[eastmeg2]

The movie "The Gods Must be Crazy II" had a Lazair type aircraft in it...Was this what the aircraft could have become? I think the only one you actually see flying in the movie was a model...

Ahhh Yes,

 

I remember the Lazair. That was the plane with a cute set of a ladies hips, buttocks and legs for landing gear . . .

 

Or was it just that in the movie the floor fell out.

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

David.

 

if you are up for the 'lunch with the tigers' in a couple of weeks send me a PM and i'll meet you there. wer're about 10 minutes away. Lazairs in the shed at the moment i have some parts coming from the USA to finish off the wing mod to increase the G rating. There is a bit of a cottage industry going on around the US and Canada for spares. i've just built up two more engines (5.5hp) and mounts so if i blow an engine it will only take a couple of minutes to swap it out. mine started off as an original series 1 with the bike wheels and sling seat. then it had the options added as they came out. The twin engines do sound good but it sounds best when they stop.

 

I have about an hour or so of super 8 movie of rag and tube stuff. there is a company that does good quality transfers by scanning each frame digitally but expensive. probably have three hours in all. some hangliding jumping ect. pull it all out and run it though for special occasions.

 

Ozzie

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

In The Gods must be Crazy movie there were three 'Lazairs' used. The model and full size mock up that had gutted JPX motors fitted with a small electric motor to turn the prop when fliming. The actual flying one was designed and built locally and now hangs in an airport.

 

 

[Guest Maj Millard]

The one in the movie where the guy hangs it on the fence is real. They didn't mean to hang it on the fence, but they left it in the movie anyway. The design came from central Canada (praire country), was it Dale Kramer that designed it Ozzie ? Sort of a mutation of a foot launched fixed-wing hang-glider called the 'Super Floater'. There was a real Super floater hanging up in the rafters of a hangar, at Oakland airport in the early 90s...If you Google 'SuperFloater' in the second offering there is a great shot of one flying at altitude...The LA dealer was a Mr Martin (can't think of his first name) he actually built the Lazair I flew in the States, and I got a few parts from him.They had one down there that had a fully enclosed pod on it that looked great, don't know if it was in the movie or not............

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

The one in the movie was a South African clone, same series three wing with fabric. the cockpit undercarriage was a local design.

 

The Lazair designed by Dale Kramer around Ontario area of Canada first prototype around 76/77. It was built in response to Klause Hill's Superfloater wing. There are 4 single seat models series 1,2 3 all open cockpit, series 2 and 3 had the 185 rotax engines, series three had wide gear and normal positioned control stick. the fully enclosed single seat Elite model an other beefed up to handle around 600lb mtow was called the SS. this had the JPX engines and several served with various police departments in the US. Their was also the Lazair 2 a open cockpit two seater powered by the rotax 185 and later the JPX engines. The Bi Props were just the stock 100cc pioneer props placed on top of ech other they had a heap left over when they changed engines. The aftermarket Prince P tip prop is the preferred prop for these engines now.

 

www.lazair.com

 

 

[Spin]

Is this what you're referring to? Strangely enough the subject came up on an SA aviation forum a while ago and the consensus of opinion was that such an unlikely looking beast didn't actually fly.

 

 

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

That is the beast and it did fly very well.

 

 

[eastmeg2]

That's the one! Where's the legs?

 

It's living proof of how unimportant streamlining is below 40 knots, as are the slower trike wings that have exposed cross-bars under the undersurface of the wing, like my Buzzard trike with it's Airborne Wizard wing that trims at 33kts IAS.

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

What is your weight and wing area, HP, thrust and fuel burn for that 33kts?

 

No matter what the speed if you can keep it as clean as possible that HP and fuel burn reduces big time.

 

 

[eastmeg2]

What is your weight and wing area, HP, thrust and fuel burn for that 33kts?No matter what the speed if you can keep it as clean as possible that HP and fuel burn reduces big time.

Take-off Weight 275kg

 

Wing Area 17 sqm

 

hp 50 (Rotax 503) 3.47 reduction g'box and 68 inch Bolly BOS3 3-bladed prop.

 

thrust estimate approx 250 pounds

 

Fuel burn at 33kts cruise estimated 11 L/hr, only have 5 hours on it so far.

 

It gives me time to count the daisies on final and in some ways is a breath of fresh air after doing twice the speed in the XT-912 :see saw:. Finals are much shorter.

 

Cheers,

 

Glen

 

 

[Guest Maj Millard]

There was also a single seat podded job that looked a lot cleaner than that 2-seat one.

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

The Lazair Elite and the SS.

 

 

 

[Guest Maj Millard]

That's the one Ozzie...damn you'r good !!.............................................................

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

Fig jam!!

 

 

[Guest Maj Millard]

Don't you hate that !!....hell I've got the brother-in-laws 70th birthday party this weekend for Chris sake !!!.....They must think we have nothing better to do !!.............................................................