The aircraft features a cantilever
low-wing, a single-seat enclosed cockpit, fixed
conventional landing gear or optionally
tricycle landing gear, a
T-tail and a single engine in
tractor configuration. Due to its very light weight it can qualify for the German 120 kg category.[2][3][7][8] It complies with the United Kingdom SSDR rules for single seat deregulated microlight aeroplanes.[9]
By November 2015 113 had been sold worldwide and about 41 were flying.[1]
At the end of May 2014 SkyCraft Airplanes announced that light-sport flight testing on its version had been completed. Their model has a revised cockpit, including
Dynon SkyView instrumentation, a hydraulic brake system and the 50 hp (37 kW) Hirth F-23 two-stroke fuel-injected engine.[12][13] The company's intention was that 12 aircraft would be built for the first production run.[14] However, as of 7 August 2017 the SD-1 was still not on the
Federal Aviation Administration's list of accepted light-sport aircraft.[15]
In September 2013, during a test and evaluation flight of the sole example flying in the United States, the pilot lost control while flying aerobatics not approved for the aircraft type and the aircraft crashed. The
ballistic parachute did not deploy properly, most likely due to be out of limits for deployment, and the pilot was killed.[17]
In August 2018, near Nannhausen in Germany, an SD1 crashed after engine problems during climb-out after take-off. The pilot did not survive, the SD1 was written off.
In June 2021, a loss of control accident happened in Butler, Ohio/USA. The pilot failed to maintain adequate airspeed following a partial loss of engine power during take-off, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall. The pilot survived, the airplane suffered substantial damage.