the.com/microlight
flying reduced to its purest dare: a lawnmower engine, a kite, and your nerve.
means A very light, minimal aircraft — typically a single- or two-seat plane built around a small engine and a fabric or simple wing, regulated as the lightest class of powered flight.
from A plain compound of Greek 'mikros' (small) and Latin 'lux/light' — though the 'light' here means low weight, not luminance. The term arose in the latter part of the 20th century alongside the small-aircraft movement, with Britain favouring 'microlight' and America the parallel 'ultralight'; both describe the same idea of flight stripped to its barest mass.
- weight limit
- Often capped under 450kg fully loaded
- open cockpit
- Many fly with zero walls around you
- cheap thrills
- Costs less than a small car
- slow stall
- Can fly slower than highway traffic
- channel crossing
- Microlights have crossed the English Channel
solar impulse — solar-powered aircraft that circumnavigated the globe in 2015-2016 with a 236-foot wingspan
gilo aircraft — brazilian ultralight manufacturer producing the g-202 aero boero since the 1990s
pipistrel virus sw80 — slovenian electric microlight that won the nasa green flight challenge in 2011