The Marathon is a fixed landing gear development of the retractable landing gear equipped Mirage Celerity which was designed by Larry Burton. The design goals include high performance cross county flying at low cost.
The Marathon features a cantilever low-wing, a two-seats-in-side-by-side configuration enclosed cockpit, fixed tricycle landing gear or optionally conventional landing gear with wheel pants and a single engine in tractor configuration.
The aircraft is made from wood, foam and fiberglass. Its 251NaN1 span wing mounts flaps and has a wing area of 100square feet. The cabin width is 40inches. The acceptable power range is 150to and the standard engines used are the 1600NaN0 Chevrolet V-6 automobile conversion powerplant along with Lycoming aircraft engines, as well as Subaru, Mazda and Ford Motors V-6 automotive engines.
The factory provides some specialized parts for the construction of the aircraft, including leading edge fuel tanks, the aircraft canopy and landing gear.
The Marathon has a typical empty weight of 1119lb and a gross weight of 1825lb, giving a useful load of 706lb. With full fuel of the payload for the pilot, passenger and baggage is 406lb.
The standard day, sea level, no wind, take off with a 1600NaN0 engine is 8000NaN0 and the landing roll is 10000NaN0.
By 1998 the company reported that ten kits had been sold.
In January 2014 one example was registered in the United States with the Federal Aviation Administration.[3]