Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Is a Soaring Trike for you?

Many people contact us about soaring trikes, usually because of the lower price of soaring trikes compared to 'regular' trikes. Everyone wants to save money, so will a soaring trike work for you?  First, what is  soaring? Soaring is using thermals or ridge lift to keep an aircraft airborne without using the engine. This is how hang gliders, sail planes, and other un-powered aircraft stay in the air. It takes just the right conditions and is a skill that you must practice.  Your opportunities to soar are limited to certain weather conditions and certain times of the day. A soaring trike is essentially a hang glider with a small engine added to it.

A good analogy for soaring vs. powered flying is sailing vs. power boating.  When conditions are right, sailing is fun, and saves gas. But when the wind dies, no sailing. What if you put a motor on your sailboat, so you can still go places when the wind dies?  That helps, but the motor on your sailboat doesn't really make it a motorboat.  I mean it is a boat, and it does have a motor, but you can't go anywhere fast, and it is no good for wakeboarding or waterskiing. The sailboat with a motor can't do all the things you expect a motor boat to be able to do. Likewise, even though a soaring trike does have a motor, it is not the same as a regular powered trike.

A soaring trike has 'just enough' motor to allow it to take off and climb. That is one of the main reasons it costs less.  A soaring trike uses a motor typically about half the horsepower of a regular trike. And a soaring trike will use a wing which is good for soaring but not for going fast.  Soaring wings operate in the 20 to 30 mph range, whereas a regular single seat trike will cruise between 40 and 60 mph.

When you are soaring, you want the trike to be as light as possible to most resemble the hang gliding experience. So everything will be built lighter. The engine will have 'just enough' power to get you up to the thermals, and the frame will be built for light weight as opposed to being built rugged like a tank. Regular trikes are very tough. They have much more engine power so the extra weight for ruggedness is not noticed. 

For many people, part of the fun of flying a trike is the ability to zoom up, then swoop down for a touch and go, then zoom up again.  With ample power, part of the fun is how sporty it feels, like sports cars, wave runners, dirt bikes, or anything else where 'power' makes it fun.

A soaring trike will have enough power to take off and climb out, but not enough to zoom up like a rocket.   By comparison, a regular trike will make you say 'wow, this is powerful!' to the point that you may not feel the need to use full power on takeoffs and climbs.  

A soaring trike is great for soaring and okay for a small amount of cruising around. But compared to a regular trike it is slow, flimsy and under-powered. Unless you are positive that soaring is the main type of flying you want to do, you will probably be happier with a 'regular' trike. The normal trike will be much faster, more powerful for faster climbs, and more ruggedly built for hard landings and operations from rough fields.

These articles are from my thoughts and experiences. I welcome your thoughts and experiences.  Write me at AirtimeAircraft@gmail.com.



1 comment:

  1. After reading this blog, I am now more than ever convinced that the soaring trike is for me. I am a pilot and I have a cessna 172, (I also have a sailboat). I love to fly slow and low and I like the glynding. I had a paramotor once, but it was very limited to weather conditions and wind speed. I'm sure the open cockpit staying up in the air and flying without the engine sound is a lot of fun. Perhaps the power of an engine is also, but the flight with a motor off, just like sailing is challenging.

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