Duct Tape Airplane on Mythbusters

Please note: James' blog has moved to a Wordpress site. To access it, please visit http://jameswiebe.wordpress.com/. All posts have been transferred to the new site, and all new posts will only be accessible via Wordpress. Thank you for your interest!


Exactly two weeks to go.

Discovery Channel put out a press release on their upcoming myths.  It's been reprinted in a few places around the web, for instance, on Entertainment Weekly and on Monsters and Critics (dot com):

In the press release, Discovery Channel talked about a whole bunch of myths, but they said this about the one myth that Belite helped with:



"Can you use duct tape to fix a plane that has been mauled by a bear? (As odd as this one sounds, it’s a story that has inundated our fan site message boards for years!)"

It's gonna be big.  BIG.

Photoshop, Mythbusters, Belite, Bears, Kari and Duct Tape

Please note: James' blog has moved to a Wordpress site. To access it, please visit http://jameswiebe.wordpress.com/. All posts have been transferred to the new site, and all new posts will only be accessible via Wordpress. Thank you for your interest!


My friends at Mythbusters production company kept telling me that I would probably have four weeks warning before the big episode aired.  I actually got two weeks and one day, and the notice didn't come from them, it came from someone who read the Mythbuster's website and inquired if the episode in question involved us.

Uh, yes!  it does!

Here's a link to a video which the MB gang talks about the myth, tested with a Belite aircraft.

And here's a link to the Discovery / Mythbuster programming schedule which discloses our upcoming episode.

Quoting the Discovery channel / Mythbuster schedule:

"Adam and Jamie test three viral videos featuring the extraordinary excavator: Can it really row a barge? Be used to go wakeboarding? Perform seemingly impossible feats of acrobatics? Then -- using only duct tape -- Kari, Grant, and Tory attempt to patch up a plane that's had an unfortunate encounter with a bear."

And now, I confess to some photoshop sleight of hand. 

Check out these two photos, one of which I previously posted, and tell me what the difference is:

Grant, James, Kari, Tory, Jennifer

Grant, James, Kari, Tory, Jennifer, and something else

The first photo was on my website.  The second photo is the original; I edited it to avoid letting the cat out of the bag too early (that our myth involved duct tape.)

Nashua 357 duct tape.  Accept no substitute!

I have many more photos which I will be posting after the episode airs on the 19th of October.  Including photos of Kari acting very beary.

"Bird Dog" Utralight Aircraft for sale

Please note: James' blog has moved to a Wordpress site. To access it, please visit http://jameswiebe.wordpress.com/. All posts have been transferred to the new site, and all new posts will only be accessible via Wordpress. Thank you for your interest!


We have another 4130 Chromaloy steel fuselage Belite aircraft available for near term delivery at a substantially discounted price.  It is available in a tricycle gear configuration for $15,100 or in a taildragger configuration for $13,900.

Details are important:

a. This aircraft is brand new, and includes a brand spanking new F33 Hirth engine with new prop.
b.  This aircraft is Ready To Fly.
c.  Rear fuselage covering NOT included.
d.  Only the wings are painted, and the color they've been painted is drab olive green --- aka military green.
e.  Tricycle version includes disc brakes.
f.  Taildragger version does not include brakes.
g.  Spring landing gear NOT included.  $400 option.
h.  Includes Polycarbonate windshield.
i.  Does NOT include engine cowling.  $350 option.
j.   If you would like it completely covered and completely painted, add $4000.
k.  Instruments include ASI, Inclinometer, AGL Altimeter, EGT/CHT, and tachometer.
l.  FAR Part 103 legal in either configuration.
m.  Approximate weight is 240 pounds in taildragger configuration, 252 pounds in trike config.
n.  Deposit of $2500 seals the deal.  Call Kathy @ 316 253 6746 if you are interested.
o.  Includes electric start on engine and battery.

These are pics which we delivered of an olive green airplane a while back.  It is exactly representative of this new offering, with full covering, paint:

Belite Tricycle Gear Ultralight Aircraft takes off

Belite Ultralight Aircraft taxis in

Blatant Pitch for G Meter with Near Death experience as illustration

Please note: James' blog has moved to a Wordpress site. To access it, please visit http://jameswiebe.wordpress.com/. All posts have been transferred to the new site, and all new posts will only be accessible via Wordpress. Thank you for your interest!


I've always been interested in how strong the bumps are.  A great illustration of this is derived from a terrible mistake I once made as a pilot.

I was in my great big turbo Cessna 206 somewhere over the high plains of western Kansas and eastern Colorado.  My passengers and I were eager to get to our fishing and camping destination in Idaho.  Perhaps I was a little too eager...

Because I made a shortcut to my destination and I flew under a developing thunderhead.  I remember seeing, with some sense of awe, the cloud vapor moving from clear air below, straight up into the thunderhead.  In other words, I could see the thunderhead acting like a great big Hoover, sucking up moist (but clear) air from directly below and converting it into cloud vapor as it moved into the thunderhead at a rapid rate.  And for some stupid reason, I flew directly under this monster.

And got sucked up into it.

The plane oscillated between overspeed (well over redline -- I was staring at the airspeed indicator and I remember seeing the it *well over* redline) and something else.  The forces on us occupants varied between negative force (less than 0 G) and something else...  I'd love to have seen the G's.  But I couldn't -- we had no "G" indicator in the cockpit.  (We only had the evidence of things flying all over the cabin during negatives, then returning to the floor during the positives.)

So, many years later, I have designed an instrument that would show all of the G forces --- Belite's G meter.  It shows positive and negative G's on separate scales, up to plus or minus 6 Gs.  It keeps track of the peek values, by blinking the highest extremes observed on both the positive and negative scale.  It uses very little power, runs off 12 volts (actually anything from 8 to 14 volts), and has a tiny little microprocessor in it that keeps track of everything.  And I made it inexpensive, in 3 different configurations (1.75 inch square, 2.25 inch standard round, and portable box).  Since the LEDs are so very bright, it is also dimmable for night usage.

2.25" Round G Meter, with positive and negative scale

 By the way, the thunderhead did spit me out the other side a minute or two later.  I'd been 'flight following' with Denver center.  The controller had observed the altitude and airspeed variations I'd been experiencing, and was kind enough to verify that I was still with him.  I was, and I am still here now.

Please enjoy using our G Meter.  You can see a lot more of it on YouTube here.

And you can purchase it on our webstore, or from Aircraft Spruce, or from Wicks.