Monday 9 October 2017

A New Merlin at Whangarei

A New Zealand-new type of microlight was registered today and it's not often that that happens.

TechPro Merlin 100 UL ZK-MEF (c/n MV23) was registered to Allan R Cameron of Mangawhai today, 9/10/17.  The TechPro Merlin is a single seater of all metal construction that comes as a matched hole kitset, but Allan's aircraft was built up in the TechProAviation factory at Olomouc in the Czech Republic and was test flown there before shipment to New Zealand.  It is photo'd above after re-assembly at Whangarei with thanks to Gary Eady for the photo.

The TechPro Merlin dates back to 2011 when the first prototype flew, and kits have been manufactured from 2015.  It has a length of 5.3 metres (17 feet 5 inches), a wingspan of 7.8 metres (25 feet 7 inches) and a wing area of 75.9 square feet.  Empty weight is quoted as 150 Kg (330 pounds) and MAUW is 300 Kg (660 pounds).  Allan's aircraft is fitted with a horizontally opposed twin cylinder four stroke HKS 700E engine which produces 60HP and which will give sparkling performance with a cruise in excess of 100 mph.

The rationale for a single seater is that the vast majority of sport aircraft flights are flown one up, and the savings able to be achieved with the single seater can be put to use to hire a two seater when you need one.

The TechPro Merlin should not be confused with the Glasair Merlin which looks similar but is a two seater of carbon fibre construction.

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