If I were building an ultralight, I would have to give serious consideration to one of the Belite models. (https://www.beliteaircraft.com) Probably the most "professional" looking UL I've seen. They make some very cool electronic gauges, too!

The Belite UL's also have have the price to go with it. $11,000 for the kit and Kitplanes has the completed cost between $15-20,000, that's outside of sierra_bravo's price range. Where as the Legal Eagle can be built for less than $10,000. In a EAA webinar a man that built a LE said that you could easily build a LE for a total cost of $7,000.

I do like the look of the belite aircraft. But like ExperimentalAviator said they are definitely way out of my budget, especially for a first ultralight.

On a side note, I've recently found a local scrap yard that deals specifically in aircraft parts, engines, and materials, that may be a massive help in sourcing reasonably priced equipment, like the instruments.

I'm planning on calling them tomorrow to see if they'd be willing to let me visit but in the meanwhile, does anyone here have experience with local small aircraft scrap yards?

-Sam

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If you subscribe to their mailing list, they periodically send out notices about special deals that are available. Can't remember the exact price, but they had a kit special recently that I'm pretty sure was well below their normal kit price, which for the UltraCub is ~$6500 for everything you need to fly. You must be looking at either the ProCub or the SkyDock, which are their higher-end products.

I'm probably going to use their fuel quantity gauges and senders in my Bearhawk Patrol, and some of their other gauges look very interesting as well.

And right on time, this morning's email included one from Belite, offering their last available "Black Friday" special deal: an UltraCub kit for $4,995. (http://www.beliteaircraftstore.com/ultr ... y-special/)

In addition to the $5,000 "Black Friday Special" kit, you would need an engine, prop, and fuel tank. These can be purchased from Belite, or sourced on your own. They recommend the Poloni Thor 250, which runs about $3,200 - $4,000, depending on single- or dual-ignition, electric start, etc. Their recommended Tennessee Prop is about $250. For the budget-minded, you can build your own 1/2 VW engine and save some bucks. (But the Poloni looks really nice, and seems to be the best weight/power/reliability combination out there.)

Yep, I was looking at the ProCub. Oops...

One thing I remember reading about (on a discontinued model from Belite) is the Belite uses flaperons because the stall speed is too high for part 103 with out flaps, thus the flaperons.

A deference between the Legal Eagle and UltraCub... I will give the UltraCub a hat tip for the folding wings.

sierra_bravo wrote:Well then, looks like I'll be starting a build thread once I get the plans. Progress won't be very fast as mentioned above, but I'll do my best keeping everyone updated.

-Sam

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You have quite an adventure ahead, this is in your future, and easily reachable in your aircraft choice….



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5EpKHcYvuQ

I've done a pretty solid amount of research ont he Kolb aircraft. Based on numerous positives and very few negatives, I settled on the Kolb Firestar 2 for an off-road, low-budget, fun-only airplane.

Bought a partial kit project, was working on building it happily, and the wife started getting irked at the time commitment to build it. So I bought a completed one. Haven't flown it yet because I am upgrading to a 4 stroke HKS engine... I'll be flying it over the Los Angeles metro city area where a typical 2-stroke problem will have some difficult consequences. Our friend Joey (C-5 Engineer or Avid Flyer on this forum) knows how to operate a 2-stroke with excellent reliability, and has done so for years, but I don't have the faith that he does.

Basically my research determined the Kolb is the best of the "ultralight style" light aircraft by a fair margin. Lots of reasons, just ask if you want to hear them.

One Kolb "guru", an old retired military pilot, has flown his Kolb for 6,000 hours, been from Alabama to Alaska and back twice, and has been to just about every corner of the lower 48 with it.

Hi everyone, I know it's been a while since I've posted anything on the legal eagle project but I, like a lot of other people, got caught up with the holidays and haven't been able to do much besides look over the plans. A quick note on the plans, I absolutely love them. They're really clear, straight-forward, and well made, very much worth the cost.

Anyways I spent some time studying the plans and construction manuals and decided to start off with something quick and simple, the wing rib jig. Simply found a good straight piece of 3/4" plywood, made copies of the wing rib templates, and glued them down to the plywood with some super 77 making sure they're as perfect as I could get them. After that, I cut a gallon tub of 3/4" x 1 1/2" x 1/2" plywood blocks making sure at least one edge was nice and straight. Then just screwed them down to the main plywood sheet following the template and used a 1/4" piece of MDF to make sure the jig would work.

As of now that really all I got done. I've spent much more time searching for local reasonably priced places to buy the material. So far I have one possibly good place to get the 4130, they sell to the public, don't have a minimum order quantity, and sell scrap pieces which would be great for the smaller pieces like gussets. Oh and they offer welding service if I decide to not do the welding myself, so that's a plus.

As of now, I won't be starting a build thread just yet. Going to wait till I have more done before I do.

Hope everyone has a great new year,
-Sam

Might want to start that build thread because that's your first post about the build.

ExperimentalAviator wrote:Might want to start that build thread because that's your first post about the build.

Well, I guess your right about that. I'll try to start it by the end of today.

-Sam

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