Standard Pilot Blog

Friday, April 1, 2011

Old Glory is Still Glorious

Photos by Gene Stratton. Plane Ownership: Joe Chlup. Pilot: James Wiebe

You can also see Old Glory takeoff like a scalded cat (like a bottle rocket?) in this video on youtube

Belite Introduces "Water in Fuel" detection technology

Today we introduced our newer technology which alerts aircraft operators to the presence of water in their gasoline. Unlike so many announcements on April 1 (April Fool's Day), this announcement is real. No joke. The announcement had been timed to the time slot given to us by Sun N Fun for our news conference earlier today.

BTW, if you are looking for the Sun N Fun damaged airplane photos, just keep scrolling down the blog.

To follow Belite's news announcements, subscribe here.

To be first to know of what's happening with James, follow his tweets: @jameswiebe on twitter. James tweeted several times as the extent of the damage at SNF unfolded yesterday.

The text of our announcement is as follows:

BELITE ELECTRONICS INTRODUCES WATER DETECTION TECHNOLOGY

Wichita, KS -- 04-01-11 -- Belite Electronics announces a new, patent pending technology that is capable of detecting water in the fuel tank or fuel line. Belite is an innovator in ultralight flight technology, designing both aircraft and lightweight avionics.

Through the use of a small probe, the new technology discriminates between water and fuel and provides an alarm signal to the aircraft operator when water is detected.

“While doing research on fuel level probes that were pertinent to our avionics, I stumbled across a newer technology that would help solve a decades old safety problem,” said James Wiebe, CEO of Belite Enterprises LLC.

“The presence of water in fuel has caused many significant accidents in aviation history,” Wiebe said, “and the use of auto fuel with ethanol content continues to exacerbate this problem because water will precipitate (settle) out of ethanol blended fuel as temperature drops, for instance, overnight.

“Aircraft manufacturers have worked on resolving water contamination issues over the years by providing multiple sump points and by industry wide pilot training and education. Even so, the opportunity for accidents and anxiety caused by water contamination in fuel continues,” Wiebe continued.

The new technology provides a warning signal which may be used in simple applications to trigger a alarm on the instrument panel. In more sophisticated applications, Wiebe noted that the warning signal might be used to drive automatic tank switching so that water is not fed to the engine.

“We believe this technology can be integrated into aircraft systems by aircraft manufacturers to provide pilots with warnings that water is present or in route to the engine from the fuel tank. Water detection probes may be placed, for example, at low points in fuel tanks, or inline (between the fuel tank and the fuel selector or in the engine compartment).

Belite is licensing this technology to OEMs, and will also offer simple water detection probes and warning displays for experimental aircraft.

Price points have not yet been set. Usage and inquiries from non-aviation markets are invited. Interested parties may contact James Wiebe at Belite Enterprises: 316-253-6746 or james@beliteaircraft.com.

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Thursday, March 31, 2011

3rd Set of Damage Photos at Sun N Fun

(c) 2011 James Wiebe

I have posted FOUR sets of damage photos at Sun N Fun. This is one of the four sets.

The links for all four damage photo sets, including this one, are:

http://jameswiebe.blogspot.com/2011/03/horrible-damage-at-snf.html

http://jameswiebe.blogspot.com/2011/03/more-snf-damage-photos.html

http://jameswiebe.blogspot.com/2011/03/3rd-set-of-damage-photos-at-sun-n-fun.html

http://jameswiebe.blogspot.com/2011/04/4th-set-of-damage-photos-from-sun-n-fun.html

You can follow James on Twitter: @jamespwiebe
You can subscribe to Belite Aircraft here.
You can see some pretty cool takeoff and other videos on Belite's youtube channel.

You can see Belite's Flickr photos here.
These pictures may be reprinted by crediting James Wiebe and linking to this blog.

Lots of long faces.

'I spent six years building this plane.' -- overheard comment, damaged aircraft owner?