Air Creation Kiss 400/450

Air Creation have traditionally allowed customers to marry their choice of trike unit to a variety of wings. This customisation allows each individual to craft a machine perfect for their type of flying. Flylight offers a choice of 2 wings (The pocket rocket Kiss 400, with it's bigger brother the Kiss 450), and 4 specifications of trike (The basic Twin trike, Buggy spec adds a pod, the GTE naked trike, and the Clipper at the top of the range).

The Kiss

The Kiss achieves the dual aims of performance and handling in a number of innovative ways. Wing area is kept to a minimum, which improves manoeuvrability and ride in turbulence, and also reduces drag for high-speed performance. In past designs, this has always resulted in unacceptably high stall speeds. However, the Kiss wing uses an optimum span wise area and lift distribution, and has a tightly controlled high lift coefficient centre wing portion. The wing frame has been redesigned to optimise rigidity and weight, and has new spar connections to reduce stress and increase suppleness of flex under rolling conditions.
The sail material is all new too. A fabric called Hydranet is used on the upper surface, offering twice the strength of traditional Dacron, and is almost impossible to tear. The Hydranet upper surface is joined at the rear to the Dacron lower surface by a web of flexible Neoprene, which allows the wing to flex and provides light and smooth control response.

The Kiss is available in two sizes, the Kiss 400 is a 13m² wing rated to carry a maximum all-up weight of 400kg, making it ideal for the majority of pilots needs. The larger Kiss 450 has a wing area of 15m², and a max load of 450kg, for serious touring or load-carrying capacity requirements.

The Trike Unit

The first four Air Creation trike options all share the same basic frame. This trike unit has passed the Section S load tests for a maximum takeoff weight of 450kg- allowing a greater fuel or load-carrying capacity.
The design philosophy was to produce a trike unit that would carry two people in comfort and be capable of rough field operation. The main undercarriage features deep travel gas filled shock absorber units, which are capable of taking a 3G landing impact without bottoming out, yet are supple enough to give a very smooth ride over rough surfaces when taxiing. The front forks are massively strong and also feature deep travel swing arm suspension. The fork position is adjustable to accommodate pilots of differing leg length.

The Twin

The base trike model is the Twin trike, which is kept in naked 'Cafe Racer' form. So often naked trikes look part finished. However, the Twin proudly shows off it's framework in a smooth epoxy coated finish, either lustrous metallic silver, or fiery red. The fully cupped pedals, full screen binnacle, side stowage bags and under-slung radiator cowling (582 only) complete a very finished picture.

The Buggy

In Buggy specification the Twin trike is enclosed in a smooth glass fibre shell and has finned wheel fairings for enhanced directional stability at high speed. The cockpit fairing reduces drag, and coupled with the windscreen reduces slipstream for the occupants. It also provides a useful underseat stowage area.

The GTE

The GTE trike complements the Twin by offering a large number of optional extras as standard. These include the GTE seats, which are colour-coordinated and more comfortable for the incredibly long flights allowed by the standard 60-litre fuel tank. The GTE specification also includes enhanced side stowage bags and rear seat stowage bag, and inertia-reel shoulder straps for occupant comfort. A rear footrest kit and heavy-duty Michelin tyres also come as standard on the GTE.

The Clipper

The Clipper is the highest specification of the basic Air Creation trike range. It has all of the GTE features listed above but in addition the trike unit is enclosed with a forwards fairing like the Buggy trike and has an additional rear fairing/ luggage container beneath the engine; which together with fairings for the gear legs increases the aerodynamic efficiency of the trike unit and completes a very elegant picture. Due to its touring and luggage carrying capacity the Clipper makes a good partner for the Kiss 450 or iXess wings.

Safety Features

Although offered as a kit, all Air Creation aircraft have been required to meet the full specifications of the British Civil Aviation Requirements Section S. This is considered the most thorough standard for microlight aircraft in the world, and provides an excellent guarantee of structural and flight safety standards. In addition, the wing has been thoroughly tested on an aerodynamic pitch stability test rig, which investigates flight characteristics well outside of those normally encountered in flight and beyond what can be explored by a test pilot.
The trike unit features redundancy of key structural components in the form of backup safety cables in the main pylon, front strut and control frame base bar. The cross tube restraint cables also have an independent safety strop. In addition, a total recovery ballistic parachute system is available, which is capable of opening within three seconds and bringing aircraft and occupants safely down from a deployment as little as 300 feet above the earth. Full four-point harnesses are also available as an option to provide restraint in such a situation.