Airborne Redback

The Airborne Redback is an Australian two-seat flying wing ultralight trike designed and produced by Airborne Windsports.

The aircraft is named for the native Australian Redback spider.

Design and development
The aircraft was designed to comply with the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale microlight category, including the category's maximum gross weight of 450 kg. The aircraft has a maximum gross weight of 401 kg. It features a cable-braced hang glider-style high-wing, weight-shift controls, a two-seats-in-tandem open cockpit, tricycle landing gear and a single engine in pusher configuration.

The aircraft's Wizard model wing is made from bolted-together aluminium tubing, with its single surface covered in Dacron sailcloth. Its 9.96 m span wing is supported by a single tube-type kingpost and uses an "A" frame control bar. The standard powerplant is the 37 kW Rotax 503 twin cylinder, air-cooled, two-stroke aircraft engine.

When introduced the Redback was a single configuration model, with no cockpit fairing and no options available. In 2012 the model has evolved and offers tundra tires, intake and exhaust silencer, training bars and an aero-tow system as optional equipment.

Reviewers Noel Bertrand et al., writing about the no-options approach in 2003 said, "The Red Back only exists in one configuration with no options — an intelligent course of action taken by this Australian manufacturer made possible by the very complete specification...All the right ingredients are there; Australian and American pilots adore them."

Variants

 * Redback Wizard
 * Initial model circa 2003 with 37 kW Rotax 503, the Wizard wing and no options available.


 * X-Series Redback
 * Later version circa 2012 with 37 kW Rotax 503, the Wizard-3 wing and limited options.