Ultrasports Puma

The Ultrasports/ Southdown Sailwings Puma 330 is a weight-shift tandem two-seat single-engined flex-wing aircraft with weight-shift control. Rogallo wing with fin. Pilot suspended below wing in trike unit, using bar to control pitch and yaw/roll by altering relative positions of trike unit and wing. Wing braced from above by kingpost and cables, from below by cables; floating cross-tube construction with >75% double-surface enclosing cross-tube; pre-formed ribs. Undercarriage has three wheels in tricycle formation; no suspension on any wheels. Push-right go-left nosewheel steering independent from yaw control. No brakes. Aluminium-tube trike unit, without pod. Engine mounted below wing driving pusher propeller. Aluminium tubing to British HT30TT specification, anodised. Wing fittings made from stainless steel. Wing fabric Dacron.

The Puma in both 330 and 440 forms was obsolete by 1982. Consisting of an Ultrasports two-seat trike unit and the Lightning DS wing of Southdown Sailwings, the Puma was intro-duced early in 1982 and was by no means the first two-seat trike. It was, however, the first to use a floating cross-tube double-surface wing and quickly became known for its vice-free handling, good performance and reliability.