[1][2] The LSG-1 was specially designed by Farrar for research purposes as part of a Vanderbilt University project into how birds fly and was supported by the US National Science Foundation.
The aircraft's design goals included a stall speed of 20 mph (32 km/h) and a 60-foot per minute (0.30 m/s) sink rate.
The fuselage is made from a sandwich of balsa and fiberglass, while the wing is of wood and Kevlar, built on an aluminium spar.
Its 61 ft (18.6 m) span wing employs an unusual Wortmann FX 05-H-126 airfoil, which was originally designed for helicopter use.
This airfoil section was chosen because it has zero pitching moment, which thus allows moderate torsional loads despite the resulting glider's relatively large wing area of 230 sq ft (21 m2).