Recreational Aviation Australia Inc home page

Wheeler Scout

Photo Gallery

  

Please note this page has opened in a new browser window


Wheeler Scout
Ron Wheeler, a hang glider manufacturer of Sydney, Australia, fitted an 8 hp engine to his Tweetie tapered wing, tail plane equipped hang glider and undertook the first flights of his Scout in June 1975, starting series production of this aircraft soon after. The Scout was the world's first commercially available powered 'minimum' aircraft – rigid wing rather than a Rogallo – and started a new Australian industry. It was a factory-built minimum aircraft that initially utilised yacht fittings from his local marine shop. The early Scout was an extremely basic machine, a publication describing it as "the ultimate in simple tube and Dacron design." It utilised a cambered single surface wing (rather than a full aerofoil wing), a yacht mast spar and had only rudder and elevator controls; and was easily transportable. The original Scout was underpowered but nevertheless, on a good day, it usually flew.

During the early 1960s, an Australian – John Dickenson – designed the triangular trapeze (an 'A' control frame of aluminium tubing that is still in use today) as a means of shifting the pilot's weight under a single surface wing to control the aircraft'.Note the 'A' frame and lack of ailerons, only rudder and elevator control in this 1977 Scout.
VULA Tyro
Geoff Eastwood's Tyro is similar in configuration to the Scout


Scott Perkins is the founder of the Vintage Ultralight and Lightplane Association - VULA - located in Atlanta, Georgia.

The VULA is interested in researching, retrieving and preserving the technology associated with lost and forgotten light planes around the world and in creating a cyber museum with as much information as is gatherable. The Scout and Tyro photos are from the VULA archives.

Scott has several books containing information about early ultralights and hang gliders in Australia and would like to get much more Australian content into their archives. Ideally VULA would be able to find sales brochures, assembly manuals, and the construction drawings for these aircraft.