CFM Shadow

For a description of the format and data included in Production Tables, see here.

Contents

Type Description

• Shadow 01
• Prototype. Simple single seat "Trike-Type" microlight of pod-and-boom layout. Open, unfaired, cockpit, tailplane, single rudder and ventral fin supported at the end of the boom. Slightly tapered cantilever wings. The boom tube was folded up from fibrelam, changing from a rectangular section at the front to square at the rear. The main spar caps were aluminium strips. The ribs were made of foam, the wing 'D’ box was covered in 1.2-mm plywood, and the rest of the wing was fabric-covered. For the rudder, it used the proven design of the Volmer VJ-24. The engine was an ex-snowmobile Kohler 35-hp twin-cylinder two-stroke. After test flying, problems emerged with boom flexing and flaps needed to be fitted to give high lift for landing.

• Shadow B/BD
• Tandem two seat high wing, pod and boom aircraft with a pusher engine and tricycle undercarriage, supplied in kit form or factory finished. The airframe consisted of slightly tapered braced cantilever wings with downturned wingtips, of mixed aluminium, wood and composite construction, with a plywood formed leading-edge built on spar with a plywood internal shearweb and aluminium extruded section caps. Styrofoam formers provide both leading- and trailing-edge structures. Trailing surfaces covered with polyester cloth. Frise ailerons and three-position flaps are fitted. The forward fuselage/cockpit was fabricated mainly from Fibrelam (honeycomb board) with moulded composite fairings. The sweptback tailplane was supported on an aluminium alloy tailboom, and featured two vertical stabilisers above the tailplane tips and a and a large fully flying rudder centrally below, all the surfaces being polyester cloth-covered aluminium frame. One 40 h.p. Rotax 447 two stroke air-cooled powerplant.
  Although the Shadow B was offered with pilot controls only, most buyers opted for the dual-control Shadow BD version with added flight controls for the rear seat passenger.

• Shadow C/CD
• Shadow with the more powerful 50 h.p. Rotax 503 two stroke air-cooled engine together with streamlined struts, providing a significant improvement in take-off performance. Most produced as the dual control Shadow CD

• Shadow DD
• The Series D used the same 10m span wing as the earlier Shadow BD and CD models, but with shorter ailerons. A 2 in. wider cockpit with 3 in. more headroom added more comfort. The type was available either as an LAA kit or as a BMAA factory-built microlight. One 65 h.p. Rotax 582 two-stroke powerplant.

• Streak Shadow SA-I
• The Streak Shadow featured new foam/glass fibre wings with a shorter span and thinner wing section. It was available as an LAA kit only. Installed engines included the Rotax 532, 582, 618 and 912. The use of the heavier Rotax 912 engine found in some later examples resulted in the aircraft generally being single seaters. Later models featured the wider body of the Shadow DD.

• Streak Shadow SA-M
• (aka Streak Shadow Series M) Single-seat microlight version of the Streak Shadow that was available prior to the change in the microlight definitions and had a MTWA of 325 kg. Standard engines were the Rotax 503, 582 or 912. The aircraft was available as an LAA kit only. The type was largely made obsolete as the later microlight rules allowed most Streak Shadows to qualify as two-seat microlights with minor modifications.

• StarStreak SA-II
• The Star Streak was similar to the wide body Streak Shadow but with wings of further reduced area (narrower chord) for higher speed, and a shorter fuselage boom than the Streak. It was available as an LAA kit only and the standard engine was the Rotax 618 although LAA administered examples have been completed with Jabiru 2200A, Rotax 912 UL and 582 engines.

Projected Variants

• SBS
• Two seat, side-by-side variant, similar to the Laron Wizard.

Production Tables Index

UK Built Aircraft - CFM Factory Built plus Kits
Shadow Lite (South Africa) Built
Laron (USA) Built

Foreign Derivatives

Production Summary

Notes

1. The number of Shadow aircraft built would appear difficult to determine. Cook [1] quotes "21 years of service by 450 of the type worldwide". The CFM Shadow web page [5] shows a photgraph captioned "The First Shadow (02) built in 1982 and flown in 1983 . . . the last Starstreak (415) built in 1999", the same photograph being reproduced (uncaptioned) by Aspinall [2]. Unfortunately the serial for "415" is not visible. As seen in the main table, the highest c/n that this author has found is 363 (see table), and this number includes 2 unbuilt c/ns, the unbuilt Shadow SBS and 12 unidentified.
2. Possile serials for the three unknown aircraft are ZU-BFO, ZU-BHD, ZU-CJR.

Production References

1. Flying From My Mind, David G. Cook (Pen & Sword Aviation, 2007)
2. http://www.davidcookaviator.com/
3. Jane's All the World's Aircraft 2006 (online edition)
4. Ultralight and Microlight Aircraft of the World, Alain-Yves Berger and Norman Burr (Haynes Pubns, 1986)
5. https://cfmshadow.weebly.com/