Shortly after he died in December 1982 at the early age of 54, Colin Chapman's Microlight, the Bert Rutan designed Scaled Composites 97-M, built by Scaled Composites Inc, arrived at the Group Lotus airfield at Hethel in Norfolk, was assembled and flown for the fisrt time in August 1983, registered G-MMLC. It was planned to have a Lotus engine, and I understand that this was being developed by Tony Rudd who was a senior figutre at Lotus at the time.
The aircraft was retruned to the USA in 1988, and was I understand put into production by the company Eippert, who are no longer trading.
It is an interesting "what might have been" which I would dearly love to know more about. Does anyone out there know of any published material that would provide more information, or do you youself perhaps know the story, or part of the story, yourself - or know someone who does?
There is a photo of it in Gerard Crombac's book "Colin Chapman - The Man and his Cars" on page 348. It is a side by side two seater, with swept back wing and canard foreplane, and of course a pusher propeller behind the cockpit.
22/12/2003, 7:28 PM
