Recent content by Farfle

Big news all, the belite is going to the dark side... The Airframe is just not a good electric conversion candidate. Compared to Gabe's Gull, this takes almost 2x the power to cruise at the same speed. As an electric plane that means really short range, in this case only about 50 mins of flight...

Sadly nothing epic or anything, it got snow damaged by some snow sliding off the roof that I couldn't see was up there (21ft ceiling commercial building)

Heya all! Back at it! I finally got the courage, time and energy all lined up to open up the wing after the snow damage it sustained last winter. Looks like things aren't as broken as I thought, and it looks like its it's going to be a pretty easy fix.

Degrease, lightly hit both surfaces with a maroon scotch brite (the nickel plating on neo magnets is real thin), acetone and then bond. Loctite 331 with activator is my go-to for magnet adhesives.

Make sure that you keep the conductive materials away from the shell of that outrunner. A lot of motors oversize the magnets and under size the back iron as a weight optimization, and leak alot of flux out of the can when they do it. The flux leakage induces some serious heating in anything...

Heya all! Quick update on the Electric Belite. The Flight report so far: Three hours and 27 landings in. This last flight, the squawk list had nothing on it to start the flight, and no new entries to add at the end of the flight. Now that the squawk list is clear, it is time to start filling...

Yup! the coax went thru the composite tail into the cabin via the left rudder cable sheath, A friend of mine who is much skinnier than I helped me out: image-20181120_164518 by Jackson Edwards, on Flickr 20181120_183842 by Jackson Edwards, on Flickr 20181120_183854 by Jackson Edwards, on...

After re-weighing the airplane with a set of automotive corner scales, I got an identical result to the scales that the EAA had. So I moved the rear battery 8" rearwards, and replaced the elevator pushrod with a slightly less bent :shock: and slightly thicker walled tube that was slightly...

Some onboard video of the Electric Belite! Not quite enough authority on the elevator to flare for a proper three-point landing. I have a list of fixes to apply: Move the CG rearwards by moving the rear pack to the rear of its tray. Adding some oratex to the elevator to act as a gap seal...

The CG range is 34.5" to 39.1" from datum, and my CG sheet shows the CG at 36.25" so it is for sure towards the front, but my measurements may not super accurate (amazon digital crane scale and a forklift picking up each corner until level). I bet that the CG needs to move aft, as this behavior...

Heya all! Tossing up an official flight report here for the zero powered Belite. It's a bit of a saga, so hold on. After a day of slow taxi, a big teardown and inspection, a day of fast taxi and another inspection, finally yesterday 10-30-18 was the first flight at Madras airport from 16 in the...

Woot woot! Still downloading and an official flight review to come, but it did the flying thing, and it did it really well. pyBbXtBnoIQ

Making more progress! Fast taxi was a success, and first flight will be today! Headed out to the airfield now! wNtRn3qVxCw

The front gear legs are as-supplied in the kit, but the tires are tundra tires for landing on "unimproved" runways.

If you need a Zilla I have one for cheap. Shoot me a message.