A pilot builds his own

Walter Extra, born on 27 April 1954, trained as a mechanical engineer and learned to fly in gliders before turning to powered aerobatics. He built and flew a Pitts Special, and competing in the 1982 World Aerobatic Championships convinced him that he could do better. Taking the layout of the Laser 200 he had been flying, he designed the Extra 230, which first flew on 14 July 1983. He had founded Extra Flugzeugbau in 1980, at Dinslaken airfield in Hünxe, on the edge of the Ruhr.

The Extra 300

The breakthrough was the two-seat Extra 300, which first flew on 6 May 1988 and received German type certification on 16 May 1990. Combining a steel-tube frame with composite construction, it had the strength and roll rate for unlimited competition while carrying an instructor or passenger. The low-wing 300L became the most-produced variant, and the family grew into the 330LX, the single-seat 330SC and the touring 330LT. His designs, his biography notes, still dominate world competition.

Teams, records and an electric tug

Military display teams adopted the type: Chile’s Halcones have flown Extras since 2003, and the Royal Jordanian Falcons and Malaysia’s Kris Sakti team followed. Extra also tried to break out of aerobatics with the six-seat EA-400, first flown on 23 April 1996, but only 27 were built before the company ran into financial trouble. On 24 March 2017 an electric Extra 330LE became the first electric aircraft to tow a glider aloft. Production runs at about three aircraft a month.

Fabrieken

• Dinslaken airfield works · Hünxe, North Rhine-Westphalia — Headquarters and production

Mensen

• Walter Extra · founder, designer, aerobatic pilot — Born 1954; competed at the 1982 World Aerobatic Championships

Records en primeurs

• Extra 330LE: first electric aircraft to tow a glider, 24 March 2017