Piuma Ultralight Motor Gliders
The design and construction of a small ultralight motor glider are not impossible things, if there is at least a base of technical knowledge, a lot of passion and the patient study of the sacred texts (Aeronautical Construction - Eng.
Mario Ribaldone, The Glider of the great Eng. Stelio Frati and some others).
The creation and first flights of the Original Piuma single-seater date back to 1990; the prototype is still fully functional and flies with a frequency of 2 or 3 times a month.
Compared to the prototype, the project and the drawings have been refined and improved several times in many aspects (Original Piuma Version 2005, 2012 and 2021) while more radical changes had already
led to the creation in 1995 of the Piuma Evolution (drawings and manuals updated in September 2020), motor glider with higher performance and comfort and its fast Tourer Piuma version, with wings more suitable
for touring rather than sailing.
In the following years the two-seater projects such as the Piuma Twin Evolution were completed and in 2012 those of the Piuma Almerico two-seater, which merged the improvements suggested by the previous projects.
The website illustrates the 5 Piuma buildable from the plans and some of the builders/pilots' creations, while on
YouTube and
Facebook there are various videos of Piuma in flight.
Given the growing interest in minimal ultralights, in 2021, the drawings of the Original Piuma, the Construction Manual and also the Project Book, were improved with new photos, all now available also in English language.
The Original Piuma is the simplest and lightest of the Piuma; with the KFM engine the empty weight is 145 kg and is slightly higher than the 120 kg weight envisaged for minimal ULMs; using the latest generation lightweight single-cylinder Italian
engines or an electric motor and limited batteries, together with essential instrumentation, it could perhaps fall into this last category.
