| Silent Club | |
|---|---|
 A Silent Club towed by an Ultralight | |
| General information | |
| Type | DU class sailplane |
| National origin | Italy |
| Manufacturer | Alisport |
The Silent Club is a single seater sailplane of Italian manufacture. It is of the FAI type DU Class glider. It is sold by Alisport ready-to-fly or kit-built as pure glider or self-launching glider. The self-launching version is fitted with a single-blade propeller belt-driven by a two-stroke engine or optionally by an electric motor.
The electric version was the first production electric-powered commercially available aircraft and appeared in 1997. It is driven by a 13 kW (17 hp) DC electric motor running on 40 kg (88 lb) of batteries that provide 1.4 kWh of energy.[1]
The highly modified version, the Alisport Silent Club-J is a self-launching aerobatic jet motor glider shown on the U.S. airshow circuit and all over the world by Bob Carlton.[2] It is powered by twin AMT-USA AT-450 jet engines (200 N (45 Lbf) of thrust each) originally developed for radio-controlled aircraft.[3]
- ^ AliSport. "Silent Club>Electric Self-launch Sailplane". Archived from the original on 2009-04-20. Retrieved 2009-11-04.
- ^ "Silent Wings Airshows, jet sailplane". Archived from the original on 11 December 2006. Retrieved 2006-12-13.
- ^ "AMT-USA jet engine product information". Archived from the original on 2006-11-10. Retrieved 2006-12-13.