[1] The Solitaire was declared the winner of the contest and its unusual layout attracted a great deal of attention.

[2][3] Like many Rutan designs, the Solitaire uses a canard layout, with a lifting foreplane with elevators for pitch control at the nose, and a rudder at the rear of a tail boom.

[2][3] The canard configuration is designed so that the forward surface stalls before the main wing, making the aircraft unstallable, and also unspinnable.

The kits also included many molded parts, including the seat pan, canopy pre-mounted in its frame, turtledeck, fuselage bulkheads, wing root fairings, wheel fairings, wingtips and the foam cores used in the wings and the canard.

In March 2011 there were seven Solitaires registered in the United States, including one in the EAA AirVenture Museum.