Manufacturer

Micro Aviation (NZ) Ltd

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In 1983 Max Clear (Inventor, and founder of Micro Aviation) saw the need for a fun, stable, affordable aircraft, which could be mostly maintained by the owner, so he designed and built the first Bantam Mircolight.
1985: Micro Aviation (NZ) Ltd, C/- Post Office, Te Kowhai.
In March 1993, Max Clear bought out his partners John Dick and John Smith.

Max Clear

2009: Limmer Rd, Te Kowhai, RD 8, Hamilton 3288, New Zealand.

Max Clear died in November 2010 and the entire manufacturing operation was made available for sale.

By 2013 almost half of the production was exported to seven countries. The Bantam Aircraft Manufacturing Plant was relocated to Mandeville, New Zealand, with Colin & Maeva Smith having spares available for all models.

The latest production Model Bantam – the B22UL, with a 4 cylinder, 4 stroke UL 260i engine, was undergoing its final Certification tests.

Meyers, George

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George W. Meyer was already a well known craftsman and model airplane builder prior to his full size project. He started the Little Toot by drawing it in ½ inch to the foot scaled drawings and proceeded to build a metal, 1/24 scale model of his dreams. The model duplicated what he wanted in the full size airplane including a scale metal engine. Many of the building processes were refined in the small model, prior to starting the full size project in 1952.

The full size airplane performed perfectly on the first flight with only a slight adjustment to the rudder trim tab. The first flight was flown on February 2, 1957 in Corpus Christi, Texas. The pilot for the test flight was a great lady pilot by the name of Pauline Glasson, who is now in her 90’s and still a flight instructor in Corpus Christi. All the test hours were flown off and the plane came through with flying colors. The plane was fully aerobatic, and had no bad habits in stall or spin type maneuvers. George originally intended for the Toot to be a one of a kind airplane, but the requests for plans soon overwhelmed that decision so he began to produce plans with all of the modifications incorporated into them that he had made during the project.

Meyers Aircraft Co

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Formed 1936 at Tecumseh, Michigan. Developed OTW- 160 biplane trainer and MEW-165W monoplane trainer for U.S. schools within CAA War Training scheme. Postwar production included MAC 125 and MAC 145 two-seat cabin monoplanes with Continental engines. Meyers 200 four-seat cabin monoplane flown 8 September 1953, deliveries began 1959. Acquired by Rockwell-Standard Corporation 12 July 1965, and marketed Model 200 as Aero Commander 200. Manufacturing rights in this model were acquired in 1977 by Meyers Aircraft Manufacturing Company of Broomfield, Colorado, to build the Meyers 200D.
1980: Meyer Aircraft, 576 Abby Dr, Corpus Christi, TX 78413, USA.

Meusnier, Jean-Baptiste

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Jean Baptiste Marie Charles Meusnier de la Place (1754 — 1793) was a French mathematician and engineer. In 1784, less than a year after the first balloon flights, he presented a plan for a military dirigible, driven by men turning a hand crank to operate a propeller. It would have been the world’s first airship, but it was never built.

In 2002 the BBC series “Building the Impossible” set out to recreate Meusnier’s design to find out whether it would have worked.