Production of both designs was completed on 1 June 2006 after having been available for 23 years.[9]
Design and development
The Coyote single seat was designed by Randy Schlitter in 1982, as a result of his dissatisfaction with existing ultralight designs at the time. Construction of the first S-2 Coyote prototype was started in November 1982, with the first flight following in March 1983.[10] Originally the design was to be manufactured by a new company Aero-Max, which was a partnership between Schlitter and a friend of his. The partnership failed over financial issues and kit manufacturing was passed to Schlitter's company, Rans, which was at that time building sailtrikes.[3]
Both models of the family feature a welded 4130 steel tube cockpit, with a bolted aluminum tube rear fuselage, wing and tail surfaces all covered in pre-sewn Dacron envelopes, which shorten construction time. The reported construction time is 211 man-hours.[1][2]
The Coyote II two-seater was later developed from the S-5.[2]
Operational history
There were 246 S-4s and S-5s built and flown by December 1998.[1]
Many S-4s are flown as unregistered ultralights in the US, but in November 2010 there were four registered along with four S-5s. In November 2010 there were four S-4s and one S-5 registered in Canada. In December 2010 there were nine S-4s and three S-5s registered in the United Kingdom.[12][13][14][15][16]
Tricycle landing gear version for the US Experimental amateur-built category with options such as brakes. Engines include Rotax 447 of 40 hp (30 kW) and the Rotax 503 of 50 hp (37 kW). No longer in production.[1][2][4][11]