If you just want to get in the machine and go from A to B or around the area with the engine on., there are better machines than nanolights to do it in.

Because nanolights use a hang glider wing, you realistically can’t expect to cruise at much more than 45km/hr (about 22 knots or 28mph). To get any real distance against the wind, it really has to be a very light wind day. Sure you can just fly a nanolight under power around the general area within a few km of takeoff, but it will lose its appeal pretty quickly and if power-on is your thing, you’ll start hankering for something with more power, speed and comfort pretty quickly and start saving for a heavier trike and purpose-built wing

The real fun in nanolights is doing what the wing was designed for – the challenge of staying aloft in thermals.

A nanolight trike is not rocket science, and anyone with a little engineering competence and knowledge of the requirements and compromises required should be capable of designing and building one.

If I have one major suggestion to anyone contemplating it, and wanting to build something to fly, rather than spend forever in the workshop, it is to keep things simple. There are lots of builders out there who spend *years* on the project because they have decided on a complex structure. Read what you can find, look at existing units, decide which criteria apply to you and pick the eyes out of existing designs first before deciding to do something exotic. Most (but not all) nanolights are just extra light variations of the bigger trikes, so there are plenty of examples of good engineering practice to be copied. But do not design and build your own unless you are confident of your knowledge and skills, and remember - you will be the test pilot!

There is a second suggestion; and this is that you should choose a commercially available power plant (engine, exhaust and propeller combination) that has been proven to be effective and safe. Problems with vibration, lack of thrust, broken exhaust mounts and engine reliability are all common issues for such units that keep you on the ground more often than not.

In addition, I suggest you acquire these items and your wing before you cut your first tube or make your first weld. You will know the actual weight and dimensions of the unit (as opposed to those from the specs), and will not have to make later compromises and changes to make it fit in the real world.. 

This FAQ is not the place to go into the design requirements, so I recommend that if this is the route you want to take, you talk with folks who've already done it themselves and research far more thoroughly before committing to it! It’s easy enough to test the trike base for air load strength once built. Simply suspend it from a strong rafter (or roof crane) and load it up to about 400kg (900lb) with bags of cement!

It may be of use to join the following mail group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Lite_Trike_Builders

You'll need:

Big trikes use a joint from wing to trike that allows only roll and pitch inputs. This is fine for most trike flying under power, but if you're after the ultimate in handling to work light lift, you need to suspend the trike in such a way that it handles just the same as it would if you were a hang glider pilot in a harness. To do this, some nanolights, like mine, have a universal joint that allows a limited amount of yaw as well (up to 30 degrees, so that you can't clip the wires or sail).

Hang glider pilots flying in prone and initiating a turn usually "lead with their hips", yawing the body relative to the wing as well as moving the body weight to the inside of the required turn. When flying a nanolight, power off, with a yaw joint, you can "lead with the engine", so that while moving the body toward the inside of the turn, the feet remain pointed more in the original direction of travel. This allows the turn to get started without the wing having to yaw the whole mass of the trike at the same time as well as counteracting any adverse yaw characteristic of the wing - the turn begins faster and you can get into light or tight lift more easily.

This is not to say that you can't use a normal trike joint on a nanolight - most of them do have just that setup, but it won't handle thermalling quite as well.

Most hang gliders are designed for the pilot to fly them in a prone position, with the control bar situated just below the pilot’s chin at trim speed. This gives a full arms length of push-out and pull-in for pitch control. When you go to a seated or supine (more laid back) position, it puts the shoulders much further back than they would be in prone. You also have only one arms length of throw available, rather than two, so you actually have a more limited pitch range. To make the most of what you have, the control bar ideally needs to sit close to the middle of the movement range. With most nanolights, if you leave the glider control bar in the standard position, you will be stretching your arms out just to reach it at trim, with no extra push out available, making it hard to take off, land and control.

In some nanolights, you sit in a very upright position (not good for drag!) and this minimises the distance to the control bar, and sometimes, if a speed bar is fitted, enough movement range and comfort can be achieved by simply reversing the speed bar so that the "belly" is toward you.

In more supine installations this is not enough, and the control bar must be moved back somewhat by changing the lower rigging. This is a job for the experienced and a professional rigger, as, depending on the wing, the side wires or control bar base tube length may need to be changed to maintain the correct anhedral. If the control bar is moved back, the speed bar should be installed as normal. This provides more pull-in when required (is safer) and is more comfortable when flying.

I don’t recommend thermalling with a reversed speed bar because of the reduced bar movement, particularly on a "floater" glider. These require more bar movement for pitch, due to the long wing chord.

If we assume that you’ll be using one of the more common engines, like the ubiquitous SOLO 210, then you’re stuck with an engine weighing about 11kg (with untuned exhaust), a reduction drive (about 1-1/2 kilos), a prop (1-2kg) plus engine mounts (about 2kg), for a total of about 16kg before you even add a frame, seat and wheels. Experience seems to show that about 30kg (66lb) is about the minimum total for engine, prop, redrive, tank, frame and wheels that you can expect for a really simple, but strong machine, before parachute and fuel. A few kilos can be saved using a lightweight engine like the Radne Raket at the expense of climb rate and (because it tends to use a bigger prop), prop clearance.