Silent by Alisport

The Silent is an ultralight sailplane sold by Alisport in Italy. You can find some information in English here.

Here is some more information on the Silent:

WPLiscomb wrote:
I just discovered this ultralight, 32:1 sailplane on the web. The only problem is the web pages are in Italian. The specs are interesting- 12m span, 120 Kg empty, 200 Km/hr, +6g -4g. I don't recall anything about this bird in either Soaring or Hang Gliding magazine and was wondering if anyone out there knows more about it such as cost and if it will be imported here. - Bill

Miriano Ravazzolo writes:

As an Italian, I'll be happy if I can be of any help. (I'm not involved at all with the makers).

I've seen the ship in the last Bassano Meeting, and it is indeed looking very nice and very interesting. It's by all the respects a "real" fiberglass glider, just costing 35 millions lire (just something over 20K $).

They have made also two "self-launching" version, one with a fixed engine on the top of the fuselage (not so nice, the specs gets down) and another one with a retractable engine. Just like the Big(bucks)Germans for something around 38K $ !!!

The story is that these people went out a little too late for the "world class" competition, so they didn't lose, they simply didn't compete. There have been a comparative test with the PW5 in an early issue of the italian magazine "Volare", with the partecipation of a former world champion, and all the characteristics seems to be at least comparable while not exceeding the ones of the PW5.

For the moment there's only one drawback here in Italy: the ship is in the "ultralight" cathegory, and there are no rules for the towing of the ultralights from normal airplanes. So, normally you can't get it airborne...