At Belite, innovation never stops. We knew we had one of the few aircraft designs that could be easily modified to meet the stringent wing loading requirements of UK SSDR regulations. So we did it!

Belite's new product offering is state of the art, with carbon fiber spars and increased wing span, and is fully compliant with UK Single Seat Deregulated Sub-115 kg Microlight specifications. You can read the SSDR rules here.

Due to the stringent weight loading requirements, UK SSDR rules are substantially tougher than US ultralight regulations. SSDR requirements require wing loading to be 10 kilograms per square meter of wing area or less (calculated using empty aircraft weight). Converting this into pounds results in an empty wing loading requirement of 2.048 pounds per square foot.

Our conventional Belite aircraft is way too heavy at 240 pounds, and the wing area was too small at 100 sq. ft.

In order to meet the UK requirements, we did two things:

1. We cut weight out of the aircraft.

2. We increased the wing area of the aircraft.

We were able to reduce the weight of the aircraft by utilizing our existing carbon fiber wing technology, and by utilizing some common sense approaches to weight control (such as using lighter wheels). In our UK SSDR compliant aircraft, the weight is a little less than 223 pounds (101KG). While our wings are built from super strong carbon fiber and aluminum, our fuselage is constructed from welded 4130 Chromaloy steel.

All of the other technical requirements of SSDR are also met:

• Empty Weight must not exceed 115kg. Our empty weight is 101KG, so we are well under this limitation.

• Max gross weight 300kg, 330kg if it's water based. Our max gross weight for our SSDR is 500 pounds, or 226.8 KG. We are well under this limitation.

• Wing loading must be lower than 10kg sq/m (that's the tough requirement). We meet this difficult requirement, because we've increased wing area to 108.9 square feet (10.1 square meters).

• Stall speed must be less than 35kts CAS. Our stall speed is about 24 kts CAS, so we exceed this requirement by a wide margin.

There are registration and insurance requirements, but they are the responsibility of the owner, not Belite Aircraft.

Pricing for our first four UK SSDR aircraft has been set at £15,000 (approximately $24,000 US) , FOB Wichita, KS. This is a RTF aircraft with 28HP engine.