Rainbow Aerotrike
type of aircraft
The Rainbow Aerotrike is a family of South African two-seat ultralight trikes, made by Rainbow Aircraft of Edenvale, Gauteng and available in kit form for amateur construction or fully assembled. The type has been noted for its long-distance flights.
Design and development
The current Aerotrike series comprises two variants of the same basic design, the Scout and Cobra. Both share the same basic design, including the two-seat carriage frame, suspension, steering and folding inverted "V" mast assembly. The Scout is equipped minimally, while the Cobra has many options as standard equipment, including a cockpit pod fairing, windshield, instrument panel, saddle bags and wheel pants.
Both models require 30–40 hours to assemble from the supplied kit.
Operational history
The Aerotrike series were the choice of Mike Blyth for his record long-distance flights. The first in 1995 was from Cape Town, South Africa to North Cape, Norway a distance of 10,255 mi (16,504 km) and the second was an around-the-world flight of 29,000 mi (46,671 km).
Variants
Cobra
Fully equipped version with full cockpit fairing. Standard engine is 80 hp (60 kW) Rotax 912UL four-stroke with the 100 hp (75 kW) Rotax 912ULS optional.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 8, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7284570. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1995.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rainbow Aerotrike” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.