I received a call from my daughter earlier today. She's currently a counselor at Camp Quaker Haven and it was the first time I'd heard her voice since she left last week. She's also our 'corporate cinematographer', and has produced almost all of the videos that Belite has posted on Youtube.
"Hey Dad," she said. "Did you know that I posted another Belite video before I left Wichita?"
No, I didn't know that.
It's great having a cinematographer in the family! More video to show people what we are doing.
I had taken quite a bit of video, shot from my Point Of View, while flying the Superlite several weeks ago. It does a great job of showing the world flying by while piloting an agile single seat airplane. You can see it here:
Also, we shot some video of our Trike a few weeks ago. It's just a series of bunny hops, mostly up and down the runway, but it shows the gentle landing characteristics of the Trike.
(A little off topic: I flew both of these planes earlier today, in Kansas strong winds. They handled the wind with no difficulty).
Anyway, here's the video of the Trike doing bunny hops.
The Trike has free castering nosewheel steering. You turn the airplane by applying either left or right heel brake. I'm reminded of when I first flew a Grumman Cheetah back in 1978 or 1979: ground handling works basically the same.
"The Standard Pilot Blog"TM The Chipper and Radiant Blog for Experimental and Ultralight (Part 103) Aircraft (c) 2010 thru (c) 2020 by James Wiebe.
Showing posts with label tricycle gear. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tricycle gear. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Sunday, April 11, 2010
On the eve of four announcements
It is Sunday evening; my wife and I have comfortably settled into our rental home in Lakeland Florida. Sun N Fun starts in two days. Tomorrow, we're sending out four news releases.
We're exhausted. Our staff and us have been working nearly around the clock for the last couple of weeks, trying to get everything ready and buttoned up for the show.
Most of my time has been spent on the development of a suite of avionics -- you'll be able to read about them soon enough. I've already concluded that once you fly with our new air speed indicator, you'll never use any other air speed indicator again. Ours is designed from the ground up for slow experimentals and ultralights. But it's just one of ten or so new avionics we're introducing, and it is by no means the coolest. Enough said on the avionics, or I'll spill the beans prematurely.
I asked for feedback on the Trike several weeks ago. You responded; and we completely redesigned it. Take a look at the pictures which have been posted on flickr
and you'll see that the Trike is now identical to our conventional taildragger model. And you can switch back and forth easily!
The Trike pictured is powered by a MZ202 engine with 45 horsepower. It uses carbon fiber wings, and tips the scales at about 250 pounds. Amazing.!
That's all for now.
See you at Sun N Fun in two days!
James
We're exhausted. Our staff and us have been working nearly around the clock for the last couple of weeks, trying to get everything ready and buttoned up for the show.
Most of my time has been spent on the development of a suite of avionics -- you'll be able to read about them soon enough. I've already concluded that once you fly with our new air speed indicator, you'll never use any other air speed indicator again. Ours is designed from the ground up for slow experimentals and ultralights. But it's just one of ten or so new avionics we're introducing, and it is by no means the coolest. Enough said on the avionics, or I'll spill the beans prematurely.
I asked for feedback on the Trike several weeks ago. You responded; and we completely redesigned it. Take a look at the pictures which have been posted on flickr
and you'll see that the Trike is now identical to our conventional taildragger model. And you can switch back and forth easily!
The Trike pictured is powered by a MZ202 engine with 45 horsepower. It uses carbon fiber wings, and tips the scales at about 250 pounds. Amazing.!
That's all for now.
See you at Sun N Fun in two days!
James
Sunday, January 17, 2010
New Aircraft Models to be introduced this week
Wichita went through a real cold spell in November, December and January. It was a difficult time to develop and test new aircraft models, but that's exactly what we did this winter. We'll put out official news releases tomorrow morning, and they are chock full of information on our two new aircraft models.
One is a tricycle gear model, and we are calling it the 'Trike'. How original!
The other is a very high performance ultralight, and we are calling it the 'Superlite'. Both were developed in response to the multitudes of feedback we've received on our classic Belite 254 ultralight aircraft.
Both are loads of fun to fly!
I had the joy of doing first flights and test flights on them. The Superlite was easy -- it flies exactly like our Belite 254, only on steroids. The Trike was a little more eventful -- since it used a new tail design, I found our first rigging was off and the first test hop required constant firm forward stick pressure. That was easily corrected, and the Trike turned into a flying (and landing) dream.
I just uploaded a video to our youtube channel, with an in cockpit view of flying the new Trike. Later this week, we'll have a video of the Superlite, especially showing its 'best in the world' takeoff performance. Yes, that's a big statement, but this little airplane can compete with the many of the best certified aircraft for takeoff performance and beat them.
Our aviation publicist guru Dave watched the Superlite takeoff yesterday and tried to take pictures, but he kept framing his takeoff shot, then have the plane disappear out of frame as it shot upward. You'll enjoy reading the news release.
You can visit the youtube video post of the Trike here: and if that doesn't work, just go to youtube and search on Belite Aircraft.
Ever since the start of the year, the number of purchase inquiries on our aircraft have increased considerably. That's probably due to a number of things: we've kicked up our advertising a notch, and we've gotten good press in a variety of magazines, both here in the US and in Europe.
Here's a little bit of weight information on the new Superlite.
SUPERLITE Weight in Pounds, then Kilos:
Aircraft with CF Wings: 142.2 64.9
Windshield: 4.5 2.0
Brakes: 6.0 2.7
HIRTH 50HP 2 Cyl: 78.0 35.5
Engine Mount: 4.0 1.8
Wood 2 blade 60 x 36: 4.5 2.0
BIG Tires: 15.0 6.8
Standard 5.0 gallon: 4.3 2.0
BRS Parachute: 21.0 9.5
Weight Totals in pounds and Kilos: 279.5 127.0
The astute reader and follower of Part 103 regulations will notice two things:
1) The weight is 1.5 pounds more than the maximum for a Part 103 ultralight with a parachute (277.99 pounds). Yes, I know. We've got a few things left to do before this new airplane is ready to deliver: swap the elevator to carbon fiber, swap the tail spring to composite, perhaps remove the tubes from the tires. This will shave the necessary weight. We could also swap out the BIG tires to smaller ones and achieve the weight saving objective, but the big tires look awesome and must be kept.
2) The engine is a 50HP powerhouse, and as a result, the aircraft cruises at greater than 62mph. The legal solution per part 103 is to reduce the engine power via a ground adjustable power stop, and we will do this for our Part 103 customers. But anyone who builds and registers it as an experimental can ignore this and fly it full throttle. When configured this way, you have a 50HP engine with a 280 pound airframe. Do the math, it's an amazing power to weight ratio.
Tomorrow morning, I get in a truck and will be driving these two new aircraft designs down to Sebring, and they will be on display at the airshow there. Hopefully we'll fly one of them as well.
I will also be posting pictures of both aircraft to my Flickr account:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/beliteaircraft/
BTW, we've also changed our production from the red plastic fuel tanks to really good looking spun aluminum tanks. They are more durable than plastic, and weigh about the same. We like them a lot!
One is a tricycle gear model, and we are calling it the 'Trike'. How original!
The other is a very high performance ultralight, and we are calling it the 'Superlite'. Both were developed in response to the multitudes of feedback we've received on our classic Belite 254 ultralight aircraft.
Both are loads of fun to fly!
I had the joy of doing first flights and test flights on them. The Superlite was easy -- it flies exactly like our Belite 254, only on steroids. The Trike was a little more eventful -- since it used a new tail design, I found our first rigging was off and the first test hop required constant firm forward stick pressure. That was easily corrected, and the Trike turned into a flying (and landing) dream.
I just uploaded a video to our youtube channel, with an in cockpit view of flying the new Trike. Later this week, we'll have a video of the Superlite, especially showing its 'best in the world' takeoff performance. Yes, that's a big statement, but this little airplane can compete with the many of the best certified aircraft for takeoff performance and beat them.
Our aviation publicist guru Dave watched the Superlite takeoff yesterday and tried to take pictures, but he kept framing his takeoff shot, then have the plane disappear out of frame as it shot upward. You'll enjoy reading the news release.
You can visit the youtube video post of the Trike here: and if that doesn't work, just go to youtube and search on Belite Aircraft.
Ever since the start of the year, the number of purchase inquiries on our aircraft have increased considerably. That's probably due to a number of things: we've kicked up our advertising a notch, and we've gotten good press in a variety of magazines, both here in the US and in Europe.
Here's a little bit of weight information on the new Superlite.
SUPERLITE Weight in Pounds, then Kilos:
Aircraft with CF Wings: 142.2 64.9
Windshield: 4.5 2.0
Brakes: 6.0 2.7
HIRTH 50HP 2 Cyl: 78.0 35.5
Engine Mount: 4.0 1.8
Wood 2 blade 60 x 36: 4.5 2.0
BIG Tires: 15.0 6.8
Standard 5.0 gallon: 4.3 2.0
BRS Parachute: 21.0 9.5
Weight Totals in pounds and Kilos: 279.5 127.0
The astute reader and follower of Part 103 regulations will notice two things:
1) The weight is 1.5 pounds more than the maximum for a Part 103 ultralight with a parachute (277.99 pounds). Yes, I know. We've got a few things left to do before this new airplane is ready to deliver: swap the elevator to carbon fiber, swap the tail spring to composite, perhaps remove the tubes from the tires. This will shave the necessary weight. We could also swap out the BIG tires to smaller ones and achieve the weight saving objective, but the big tires look awesome and must be kept.
2) The engine is a 50HP powerhouse, and as a result, the aircraft cruises at greater than 62mph. The legal solution per part 103 is to reduce the engine power via a ground adjustable power stop, and we will do this for our Part 103 customers. But anyone who builds and registers it as an experimental can ignore this and fly it full throttle. When configured this way, you have a 50HP engine with a 280 pound airframe. Do the math, it's an amazing power to weight ratio.
Tomorrow morning, I get in a truck and will be driving these two new aircraft designs down to Sebring, and they will be on display at the airshow there. Hopefully we'll fly one of them as well.
I will also be posting pictures of both aircraft to my Flickr account:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/beliteaircraft/
BTW, we've also changed our production from the red plastic fuel tanks to really good looking spun aluminum tanks. They are more durable than plastic, and weigh about the same. We like them a lot!
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