UK and Ultralights

Interested in a British legal SSDR ultralight aircraft?  You can sign up here for our upcoming formal product announcements.

But before the formal product announcement comes out, I wanted to talk to you, my loyal blog readers, about a substantial upcoming addition to Belite's aircraft lineup.  It incorporates a significant design change, resulting in lower takeoff and landing speeds, along with increased climb performance.

It looks like this:

What's different about this Belite?  It has lower weight, and a bigger wing.

Installing a gas tank in an ultralight aircraft (such as the FAR Part 103 Belite!)

Another easy task is mounting our 5 gallon, spun aluminum gas tank in our ultralight aircraft, the FAR Part 103 Belite aircraft.  These tanks weigh less than 5 pounds, are extremely rugged, and are painless to mount and use.  They are clearly preferable to heavy plastic tanks used on certain earlier ultralight aircraft.

(If you are new to this blog, you'll find several other detailed construction posts on other topics [such as building carbon fiber wings].  Just poke around the search box until you find them.)

The major component of this tank installation is the aluminum tank.  We use an off the shelf 'dune buggy' style tank.  They are available from many different vendors online.

Before starting installation, consider the usage of a fuel sender -- this requires tank modification before

Attaching Flaperons to an Ultralight Aircraft (such as the FAR Part 103 Belite Aircraft)

I hope you've had a great Christmas season!

In this continuing online assembly manual, we'll attach our flaperons to the wings of our ultralight aircraft, the FAR Part 103 compliant Belite.    This assembly procedure is designed for our Belite aircraft, but the procedure is educational for any ultralight aircraft builder.

This is easy:  all we need to do is to clamp the flaperons in place using vise-grips; a couple of alignment templates make accurate alignment very easy.  After everything is lined up, the flaperons are bolted in place using AN3 hardware (bolt, washers, nylok nuts).

Here's the view looking down the flaperon, with three vise-grips already in place.

Belite Batteries demonstrate their power!

There are many things to do in preparation for the first public showing of our electric airplane. 

(I call the plane the Electric Lite.)

One item on the preparation list is a battery test.

There's nothing like a bunch of very high capacity lithium batteries to put smoke into a building when showing their power during a discharge test.  That's exactly what happened when we first tested our batteries, about a year ago.  Here's the video we made at the time, which has never before been seen or posted:

Some of the technical details of this battery test are contained within the video.

It's not much to look at -- just batteries, enormous dummy load resistors, a lot of smoke, and a room that got warmer and warmer as the test progressed.  But maybe, just maybe, you'll enjoy looking at it and wondering:  what is Belite up to?

Please watch and enjoy!

If you want to receive formal information from Belite on our electric airplane, you must register here.

If you are interested in partnering with Belite in electric aircraft development, please correspond with me directly:  james at beliteaircraft dot com

Sneak Pictures of Belite's Batteries

Earlier today, I had a conversation with my marketing manager, Kathy.  She also happens to be my wife and business partner.

"I think I'd like to start posting some more information on my blog concerning our electric airplane design," I said.  "But I won't really release any information -- I'll just create some teasing posts which show elements of our design.  Then, when we're ready to announce our progress more formally, we'll hopefully have more people attuned to what's coming."

Kathy said that sounded like a fine idea.

So, without further ado, here is a photo of a battery pack I found lying around our production facility:

LiFe04 Battery Assembly at Belite Enterprises

This particular battery is part of an electric battery system with the following selected characteristics:

Magazine Does a Photoshoot of Superlite

I enjoyed the experience of being a part of an aircraft photoshoot. It's even more interesting when you're flying an ultralight aircraft!

The photo session had several parts:

a)  Some fly-bys, down the runway, to the left and the right of the photographer.  My objective was to keep the wheels one feet off the runway, and to keep a wingtip over his head as I passed by.  I was free to start a pullup when I was within 100 feet of him.

Building a Carbon Fiber Wing with Aluminum Ribs - Part 2

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This is the second part on our online tutorial of how to build a carbon fiber wing.

Our objective is to have a truly great ultralight aircraft - our FAR Part 103 Belite Aircraft.

The first part of this assembly document may be found by going to this link. 

I have completed my online updates to this wing assembly manual.  Further updates may be obtained by purchasing a kit, and receiving the printed wing assembly manual.
Building a Carbon Fiber Wing with Aluminum Ribs - Part 2

Last Updated December 13
Updated December 7
Updated December 4
Updated December 2

16.  Installing the Sail / Anti-sail tubes

The photos in this section show the sail / anti-sail tubes without Zinc Phosphate primer.  The primer will be

Building a Carbon Fiber Wing with Aluminum Ribs - Part 1

Building a Carbon Fiber Wing with Aluminum Ribs - Part 1

A completed wing.  It weighs 20 pounds. 

Last Updated December 13, 2010

I have finished my online edits to this revised wing assembly manual.  Further edits are contained within the latest version of the builder's manual, included with each kit.  No further online edits are planned at this time.

Updated December 7, 2010
Updated December 4, 2010
Updated December 2, 2010
Updated November 30, 2010
Updated November 28, 2010


0.  INTRODUCTION

When you are done with these wings, you will have state of the art ultralight aircraft wings utilizing carbon fiber and aluminum.  They will work well with our FAR Part 103 Belite Aircraft!  The weight of the left wing (without flaperon or covering, but including the flaperon control cable and pitot tube/tubing) is slightly less than 20 pounds (9.1KG) when complete.  The weight of the right wing is 19 pounds (8.6KG).

Construction is straightforward, requiring only the ability to accurately place and glue parts together, with minimal riveting and absolutely no welding.

If you are building with aluminum spars (instead of carbon fiber) and wooden ribs (instead of aluminum ribs), you will only need to make slight modifications to the build instructions to complete your wings.


1.  VERIFY CONTENTS, YOUR WORKSPACE, AND YOUR TOOLS.  

First of all, check your materials.  For each wing, you should have the following:

a) QTY 2 Carbon Fiber spars, with pre-attached CNC Machined lift strut hard points
b) QTY 5 Aluminum ribs
c) QTY 2 Birch Ply ribs, CNC machined from 1/2 inch Birch plywood (for root and tip caps)
d) Aluminum Tubing - 6 inch (length) used for doubler for spar roots
e) Aluminum Tubing - 1.5 inch (length) tripler used for spar roots
f)  Aluminum Tubing - 0.5 inch OD x 0.035 wall thickness, 6061T6, used for false rib spar and sail/anti sail braces.  A total of 5 tube lengths of varying lengths are needed for sail/anti-sail tubes.  12' is needed for false rib spar.
g) Aluminum Tubing - 0.625 OD square x 0.035 wall thickness used for rib stiffeners and sail/anti-sail hard points
h)  Aluminum Sheet - 0.025 thickness used for front spar strap, you will cut to 10" by 0.5" straps.
i) pitot tube - 1/4 inch aluminum tubing, prebent to shape.
j) plastic tubing for pitot tube
k) QTY 2 machined jury strut attachment fittings
l) preformed trailing edge aluminum, 12' per wing
m) LEFT and RIGHT CNC machined flaperon control cable dropper
n) one 3/16" rivet for trailing edge attachment to wooden root rib
o) 1/8" rivets for rib strips and for trailing edge attachment
p) 1/8" rivets for spar doubler/tripler
q) Carbon Fiber rope for securing jury struts
r) cotter keys
s) wing blueprint


You will need the following materials to finish your wing kit:

a) Glue (3M 2216) is NOT SUPPLIED.
b) Zinc Phosphate primer is NOT SUPPLIED.
c) Epoxy (West Systems or equivalent) is NOT SUPPLIED.
d) Acetone for glue cleanup is NOT SUPPLIED.
e) Sandpaper / Scotchbrite is NOT SUPPLIED.

Also note that flaperons and flaperon cables are NOT SUPPLIED with this kit.  You will need to order them separately.  (Or hopefully, you bought a complete kit.)

Also verify that you have a flat, absolutely flat workspace for building the wings.  The workspace needs to have easy access to a complete wing assembly, which has dimensions of about 12 feet by 4 feet.  You'll also need all of the usual tools (aviation snips, sandpaper, rivet squeezer, mixing trays, small paintbrushes...).  Having a large quantity of right angle squares and small clamps is essential for building a square wing.

DO NOT START WING ASSEMBLY UNTIL YOU HAVE READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS AND UNDERSTAND THEM.


2.  Spar Assembly.

Using very light sandpaper, clean and rough up six inches of the root portion of each carbon fiber spar, in preparation to glue on the 6 inch aluminum doubler.  Ensure that the doubler will fit over the spar.  This is what it will look like after the doubler and the tripler and the root rib are glued together, but don't glue anything yet:

Doubler, Tripler, Rib and root rib, along with some sloppy glue.  Don't glue it yet!

3.  Wood Rib Preparation.

Paint each of the two end cap wood ribs with a very light coat of epoxy.  This will ensure decades of life.  Lightly sand as necessary to remove excess epoxy and for better appearance.

Root Rib, in place.  It has been coated with a layer of clear epoxy.

4.  Aluminum rib strap preparation.

Cut 5 strips of 0.025 aluminum to dimensions of 1/2 inch x 10 inches for each wing.  These will be used to attach the front of the aluminum ribs to the leading edge spar.  A total of 5 straps are needed for each wing.  Clean and rough up using Scotchbrite, then spray coat with Zinc Phosphate primer.