James Wiebe and his Belite Aircraft team wanted to build a strong, lightweight airplane that would demand a minimal amount of labor to complete. In the early days of 2017 he created a clean-sheet aircraft with great short-field performance that he called the Chipper. It moved from the CAD system he and his team used to design it to a working prototype in just 90 days, barely missing North American’s 88-day record for creating the P-51 Mustang.
Chipper Leaps Into the Air
Key Takeaways:
- James Wiebe and Belite Aircraft developed the Chipper, a lightweight, strong, and easy-to-build light sport aircraft, progressing from a clean-sheet design to a prototype in just 90 days.
- The Chipper is a side-by-side taildragger featuring excellent short-field performance (less than 400 ft takeoff run), a top speed of 100 mph, and long endurance powered by an 80 hp Rotax 912UL engine.
- Its innovative construction uses honeycomb aluminum for strength and lightness, combined with pre-painted Oratex fabric, designed to simplify assembly and reduce builder completion time to an estimated 800 hours.
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