Thursday, March 31, 2011

More SNF Damage Photos

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.




(c) 2011 James Wiebe.  Please feel free to reprint these pictures.  Just provide a credit to me (James Wiebe) and a link to this blog.  Thanks!










Horrible Damage At SNF

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.
You may reprint these photos as long as you credit   James Wiebe  and provide a link to this blog

(c) James Wiebe


Hawker Beechcraft







Tuesday, March 29, 2011

New Dual Display Instruments

New Instruments and avionics for Ultralight Aircraft and Experimental Aircraft from Belite Aircraft / Belite Electronics.  More details later this week.  Now on sale.  Dual Display.  For instance, VSI+ASI with digital Pressure Altitude Out in one 2.25 inch instrument.  Bezels are CNC cut from Polycarbonate.  Instrument panels are also cut on our new equipment.  Gorgeous.  Featherweight.  Inexpensive.  State of the Art (an overused term).

Monday, March 28, 2011

Belite Ultralight Aircraft On Sale

Our Belite SuperLite Dragon is on sale during Sun N Fun!

$31,500 -- During Sun N Fun, this plane is offered for $7,000 discount.

This is the same plane that is on the April 2011 cover of Kitplanes Magazine!

Interested? Give us a call or drop us an email.  First come, first serve.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Fuel Tank Installation in Ultralight Aircraft

We've been using aluminum fuel tanks in our Belite for quite a while.  A challenge has been how to mount them.  After some experimentation, we've come up with the following technique for the lightest possible mounting technique.

We weld some two stubs on each side of the rear fuselage, which the tank will snug up and into.  The tank is then secured with lightweight stainless steel straps, with a small amount of rubber tubing acting as a chafe strip on each stud.  Hopefully all of this is clear by looking at the following pictures:

Rear View of Aluminum Fuel Tank in Ultralight Aircraft

View of Fuel tank from within cockpit (seat back removed)

Middle clamp around tank

Aluminum Fuel Tank in Ultralight Aircraft

It all works well and is very strong.  Three stainless steel straps, chafe bushings, and steel studs provide a lightweight fuel tank mount.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

closeups of 4 stroke engine on Belite ultralight aircraft

I leave for Sun N Fun tomorrow - Sunday.  If you want to follow my show twitters, please find me on Twitter, you can find me on twitter, search for (and subscribe to):  jamespwiebe.  I will be tweeting every day with what's going on, when I'm flying, what we have announced, etc.  Fun!!

If you want our news releases and information updates by email, you can sign up here.

Belite Ultralight Aircraft (Tricycle Gear) with 4 Stroke Motor

We are now flying a Belite Trike with a 4 stroke engine.  You can see it at Sun N Fun!  Here's some more closeup pics of the Verner Motors 4 stroke engine, mounted on our Belite Ultralight Aircraft. 





Thursday, March 24, 2011

Working so hard, with something to show for it (a 4 stroke engine too)

I'll be 'twittering' during Sun N Fun.  If you want daily ultralight aircraft info, sign up for my twitter feeds.  I'm jamespwiebe on twitter.

Also, you'll get our news releases by subscribing on our website.

We've been getting ready for Sun N Fun, and we're excited:  In addition to a ton of new avionics, and a major avionics announcement, we'll have a Belite Trike with a 4 stroke engine installed up front.  Yes, a tricycle gear ultralight aircraft with a reliable, quiet, fuel efficient four stroke!

Here's some photos of the 4 Stroke Belite Trike, taken during a test flight.  I've posted some further comments below the pics.


4 Stroke Ultralight Aircraft

Rolling into a crosswind at takeoff!




The photos were all taken by Gene Stratton, and they look superb.  The airplane (and attention to detail which we put into it) are also superb.  The paint job looks nearly liquid.

Here's some questions and answers:

1)  What kind of engine is it?  It's a two cylinder water cooled 4 stroke. It's from Verner Motors in Czechoslovakia, and it's a JCV 360.  I'll talk more about the engine in a future post, soon.

2)  What type of aircraft is it?  Why, it's a Belite Trike, featuring our new enhanced wingspan (26' 2") and enhanced wing area, thus improving climb and stall speed.  The paint job is Stewart Systems Cub Yellow, and it looks absolutely marvelous.  Please come see it at Sun N Fun!

3)  Is it available as a kit, or assembled, RTF?  Yes, both ways! 

4)  Is it quiet?  YES!

5)  Can it meet ultralight weight?  YES!  You have to build it with our carbon fiber spars and other weight saving options, but it will legally meet weight.

6)  Can it be built at a taildragger?  YES!  In fact, we had our sister aircraft featured on the front cover of Kitplanes in the April 2011 issue.

Here's a closeup of the engine.  You can see the water cooler and the oil cooler is hidden below.  I'll have more photos of the engine installation in a future post.


And yes, it will have a nice cowl on it at Sun N Fun.

See you at Sun N Fun!

Thursday, March 17, 2011

White Paint sparkles on Belite Ultralight Aircraft

I needed to take some pics from the airplane today.  The weather cooperated as temperatures hit the high 70's while the strong morning winds quieted down to a comfortable crosswind by mid afternoon.

The reliable Hirth started on the second or third pull, and I was soon airborne, flying in our Superlite Dragon.


Gene had pulled Joe's new plane out of the hangar, and as I passed over the top, I just thought it was one of the nicest views of the top side of a Belite that I'd ever seen.  So I started snapping pics.


Here's a nice one, looking nearly straight down.


Belite Ultralight Aircraft
The pictured aircraft has painted Insignia White using Stewart Systems products.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Belite Makes Significant Investment in CNC and Shop Automation Equipment

We've recently received several new pieces of equipment which we are using to improve our product and enhance our ability to build state of the art ultralight aircraft, such as our FAR Part 103 Belite 254.

We recently installed our new Roland DGA MDA 540 4-axis prototype milling machine.  This incredible machine can take a chunk of just about anything that's solid and convert it into a part.  It loves lexan, plastic, wood, and aluminum.

I happen to be working on many new avionics designs (to be introduced at Sun N Fun) and, as part of that project, I needed to turn a new bezel concept from idea to reality in less than 24 hours.

The new machine performed wonderfully, turning a solid block of Lexan into a bezel.  Here's a photo of the machined Lexan block:


After cutting the part out and painting it, the new bezel design looks like this:


The conversation with the SolidWorks designer started at 9:00am, the new part was out of the machine by 7:00pm.  (The joys of being in a small, nimble company with good design tools and equipment available!)

We've also purchased a ShopBot CNC router for large flat pieces.  New computer equipment and software (EG SolidWorks) complete the company upgrades.  The ShopBot isn't running yet, but will be in the near future.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Comments on Ultralight Aircraft from a Kitplanes reader...

Here are some unfiltered comments on our ultalight aircraft that I received via email earlier today.  This person had read the recent cover article on "Kitplanes" on Belite:

"I hope you are getting some good results from the article. Way back when, I was also on of those guys that looked at ultralights with distain. 

... I still think the KitFox Light was a delightful plane to fly even when compared to many non ultralight planes. 

To say the BeLite is a nice flying for an ultralight does not do it justice. It simply handles like a good airplane should, regardless of the weight. 

The only problem with the BeLite is if someone gets hooked on ultralights because of it, and then tries to fly one of the “lawn chair” type machines, it will scare them to death."


Belite manufactures Part 103 compliant ultralight aircraft.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Kit Getting Ready to Leave...


This Belite kit is getting ready to leave our workshop.  This is a tack welded fuselage, aluminum spars and ribs, flaperons, and all kinds of fittings, hardware, and goodies.  This one is scheduled to ship in a couple of weeks.  The next available kit shipment slot is in April.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

An Ultralight Does Wingovers? Four Belites in a row?

Welcome, Kitplanes readers!  I hope you've enjoyed reading the excellent article on Belite in April's cover article.

Tonight's a multimedia night on this blog...  pics and video.  The best pic is the very last one.

We had a day of great flying weather -- a little crosswind -- I compensated by ignoring the crosswind, then by landing diagonally across the runway.  You can see that in the video clip I've posted in this post.

First, a great photo taken by Gene Stratton:


The Belite Trike airplane in the pic is ready for customer delivery, with the customer arriving tomorrow to take it home.

Ultralight Aircraft For Sale!  Next up, a Belite 254 with 28HP CRE engine, with really wonderful fat tundra tires.  Ultralight legal at 250 pounds, as pictured, including the tires.  Includes a nice instrument panel and you can buy it now.!



And here's a plane which is going to our south coast dealer, Joe Chlup.  It's got really light wheels on it, as it is destined to be a sea plane very soon!


So let's line up four Belites in a row...


The closest plane is currently featured (April 2011) on the cover of Kitplanes magazine.

So let's hop in that plane, attach a camera to the top of the wing, and take a video, OK?

I did exactly that.  Here's a video on Youtube showing startup to landing of the Belite Superlite.

It shows the fun I have in the airplane:  wingovers (sort of), tight turns, quick takeoffs, and spot landings.

I saved the best picture for last.  Here's the little yellow trike, entering the flare:


Please subscribe to Belite's news posts here.

Please follow me on twitter as well.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Kitplanes publishes lengthy review and cover article on Belite

Finally, the Kitplanes article on Belite has been published!!!

They gave us the cover of the magazine!!!



Mark Cook wrote an editorial on us and on the rebirth of ultralights!!!

Ed Wischmeyer wrote an awesome article...  8 beautiful pages on our airplanes!!!

AOPA chief photographer Mike Fizer did all of the pictures, including ground and air to air!!!

Yeah, I'm kind of excited.

And I just sold a kit....   subscribers are receiving the new April issue right now.

You can buy the article by going here:

http://www.kitplanes.com/issues/28_4/flight_reports/Flight_Review_Belite_9497-1.phtml

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Bill of Materials for an Ultralight Aircraft carbon fiber wing kit

If you are looking to build a FAR Part 103 legal ultalight aircraft, such are Belite 254, you will want to know what comes in the kit.  This particular post covers the wing kit, which is the starting point for most projects.  A photo is at the bottom of this post.

Here's an itemized list of what you get:

a) 4 Carbon Fiber wing spars.  The load carrying part of the wing.

b) 10 Aluminum Ribs.  5 used on each wing.  They slip over the spars and are glued in place.  The glue acts as a corrosion barrier in the area of the glue joint. 

c) 4 Birch CNC cut wooden ribs (used as end cap ribs on wing).  These work better than aluminum for end caps, due to the ease of fabric attachment.  They should be epoxied or stained, so they will last a long time.

d) 0.75" x 0.035" 6061-T6 aluminum tubing, used as sail/anti-sail braces.  You cut them to length and crimp the ends of them in a vise (using blocks of wood).

e) 2 push-pull cables, low friction.  They go to the flaperons and thread out the wing, for routing to the aircraft controls.  (Flaperons are not included.)

f) 4 machined CNC 6061-T6 aluminum strut attachment fittings, for attachment to carbon fiber tubing.  They are connected to the carbon fiber spars using carbon fiber sleeves.  A corrosion barrier of flexible epoxy is used to bond the aluminum to the carbon fiber.  We do this for you!  (NOTE:  aluminum spars DO NOT use these strut attachment fittings, they use a different strut attachment methodology, not pictured)

g) 10 10" x 0.5" .025 6061-T6 aluminum straps, used for attaching ribs to front spar.  Two rivets attach to the bottom of the rib, the strap rolls around the front of the spar, then two rivets on the top of the rib.

h) 6 channel 6061-T6 right angle aluminum, for flaperon atachment.  These bolt to the ribs, and also accept the flaperons, when you install them later.

i) 36 false ribs, constructed of CNC cut plywood.  These slip through the 'false rib spar', which is 0.5" aluminum tubing.  They are then glued in place.

j) 4 root spar doublers (2.75" x 0.125 wall x 1.50" length).  These slip over the root of each tube, and are epoxied and riveted in place.

k) Plastic pitot tubing line, runs from pitot tube to your airspeed indicator.

l) Bent aluminum pitot tube  (straight pitot tube also available).

m) left and right machined CNC 6061-T6 flaperon dropper brackets.  They bolt to a rib.

n) 5 various aluminum trim pieces (0.016" 6061T6).  These go around flaperon cable exit points, etc.

o) 4 CNC cut 6061-T6 jury strut attachment fittings.

p) 6 0.75" square x 0.035 6061T6 hard point attachment tubes (for sail/anti-sail attachment).  These rivet to the aluminum ribs, and bolt to the sail / anti-sail tubes.

q) 6 trim pieces for flaperon right angle trim (0.016" 6061T6).  These go around the right angle pieces.

r) 24+ feet of prebent trailing edge aluminum.  These rivet to each rib.

s) 24 feet of 0.50" x 0.035" 6061T6 aluminum tubing, for false rib spars.  These slip through all the ribs and false ribs.

t) Blue print for wing.  Accurate measurements for the entire wing.

u) 5 bags of hardware, with all rivets, AN nuts, bolts & washers.

This is EVERYTHING you need to build two wings, with the exception of glue, fabric and tools.

WING KIT with aluminum spars --- $1430.
WING KIT with Carbon Fiber spars --- $3630.

Crating on a wing kit is $150.

Truck delivery to your location is by quotation.  Let us know where you are and we'll get a quote to you right away!

Here's another photo of that wing kit:

Monday, February 14, 2011

Carbon Fiber Ultralight Airplane Wing Kit

I've often wished we had a good photo illustration of what is contained in our wing kits.  Today, we finally took the picture.

Shown below is a wing kit complete with carbon fiber spars.  The kit with aluminum spars is identical in almost all respects. 

The wing kit has everything except glue, fabric and paint.  In a future post, I'll run through the list of contents in this kit.

With aluminum spars, this kit costs $1430.

With carbon fiber spars (as pictured), this kit costs $3630.

A complete description, with many, many pictures, of how to build a wing from this kit is included in this link.

And here is the photo of the wing kit:

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Hirth F23 twin has a redundant cylinder

After reading this, some of you will shoot me down.  It's OK -- I'm vowing to share what I know, no matter how embarrassing.

On this two cylinder engine, one cylinder is optional.

It seems like months ago -- but in fact, it was only two weeks ago:  we had two days of glorious weather.

Our airport was alive with activity.  72 degree high temperatures (in January) brought out one helicopter, some gliders, along with their towplane, our ultralight, and a buzzing crowd of powered paragliders.

My crew was working hard on getting another plane ready for delivery; we'd just swapped a brand new F23 Hirth twin boxer into one of our Belites.  (This particular plane is headed down to Texas and Florida to be a dealer demonstrator on floats... stuff for another post...)  The F23 had already been running for a couple of hours, as we slowly cranked up the power and prepared the engine for first flight.

(Another person was performing the extended runup).

I did a careful preflight, ensuring that everything was OK.  The airframe had already flown, (briefly), but it would be a first flight for this particular brand new engine.

The electric start on the engine kicked it to life very easily.  A check on the 4 point safety harness, and I taxiied out to the active.

A quick runup, and I was accelerating down the runway -- albeit slowly.  I shut it down and taxied back to the hangar.  Realizing that power was low, I quickly (and incorrectly) concluded that the propeller had the wrong pitch.  I had Gene fetch another with a better bite from our inventory of props, and a few minutes later it was torqued down and ready to go.

I taxied out again.  I applied full throttle, and the engine powered up smoothly.   Something was still wrong; RPM was quite low (at 800 RPM below full power); but the bird still wanted to fly, and I did to.  So I let it take off.

I made a couple of circuits of the field, enjoying the perfect weather, and also enjoying harassing the powered paragliders that were hanging around the east end of the pattern.  I sure wasn't happy with the power, though - it just didn't have nearly the snap I'd come to expect from our F33 installations in our Superlite models.

I landed the bird and taxied in.  As the bird rolled to a stop, I told Gene I still thought we had a real problem with the engine.

He pulled the top off each carburetor in turn, inspecting the linkage.

Well, it turns out one of the ball swages on the twin carburetor cables had failed (they'd passed a pull test in the vise!) and one of the two carbs wasn't advancing past idle.

So I'd been flying with one cylinder.  With a F23 Hirth, the second cylinder is not necessary for a good flight.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Wiring an ultralight instrument panel into an Ultralight Aircraft

Interested in more info from Belite?

Subscribe to our news announcements here:
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And subscribe to James' tweets here, for the latest sneek information.

Let's wire up an instrument panel, using Belite' featherweight avionics.  Our completed panel will weigh about 12 ounces (0.35KG), and it will look like this:


That's a lot of functionality.

Anyway, let's build it.  We're starting with our precision machined aluminum panel,

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Belite formally introduces UK SSDR ultralight aircraft

We've just announced a UK aircraft:  A "SSDR".



Hi res photos can be found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/beliteaircraft/ where you can see a new set  of photos labeled SSDR
 
The website has a lot of information, www.beliteaircraft.com


And here's some additional comments from James:

The plane that we produce weighs less than 101KG, and the wing area is 10.1 square meters.  It comes with the following features:


* Carbon Fiber wing spars
* Aluminium internal ribs
* ChromAlloy steel fuselage -- the operator is surrounded by super strong 4130 aircraft steel, helping protect significantly in the event of an accident
* Very basic instrumentation:  Airspeed Indicator;  Engine EGT/CHT; Engine kill switch
* 28HP engine with wood prop (pull start)
* 5" Wheels with lightweight tyres
* Full windshield
* Enhanced wing span -- 26' 2"

We have a price (available for a limited amount period of time) of £15000, FOB Wichita, KS.

The plane, as delivered, has a 5 gallon gas tank.  In addition to being a legal SSDR, this makes it legal as a US FAR Part 103 Ultralight Aircraft as well, which aids our flight test procedures.  The tank capacity may be increased to a larger size, after delivery to England, at the option of the buyer, as long as weight limitations are observed.

The plane is light as a feather and very maneuverable.  It is a joy to fly.

You could have received first word of this announcement, by doing these two things:

Sign up for Belite Aircraft's announcements here.

Sign up for James Wiebe's twitters here.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Notes about James Wiebe and Belite Aircraft

Please subscribe to Belite Aircraft here.  You'll get our news releases and announcements.

Please subscribe to James' Tweets here.  You'll get first notice when something's happening.

I am a serial entrepreneur. I started a computer company, specializing in
storage devices. The company developed a very successful niche in computer
forensics, and I became heavily involved in selling and supporting our products
to the federal government. My largest customer was the FBI, although I had

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Cantilever (no struts) Carbon Fiber Wing shows greater than -4G test load

Please subscribe to Belite's news updates here.  You'll receive our customer mailings and news announcements. 

Please follow James' tweets here.  You'll receive advance peeks as to what James and Belite are doing.

Belite R&D Ultralight Aircraft sneek peak:

Here's what you can do with a one-off carbon fiber / titanium wing design (combined with some great chromaloy steel work on the fuselage).

What I am showing you is a Belite research project:  a fully cantilevered, strutless wing design, built using a 24 pound carry through carbon fiber spar (a fully custom, 4 inch diameter monster carbon fiber tube, with about

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

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.