The story of our Bearhawk started back in 2008, as an adventure with a family that hadn’t even been fully populated with its humans yet. It ended in August 2021, with, shall we say, liquidation. What follows is a long story that perhaps nobody else will read, but sometimes one finds that there is a…
Category: Commentary
Often-opinionated posts that aren’t directly related to building techniques
Bearhawk Pedal Planes
For our girls one of the highlights of going to Oshkosh was seeing the display booth for Aviation Products, the company that sells plans and kits for plywood pedal planes. These planes are usually set up to drive around, using a left-right stick input for steering. The fancy ones even have propellers that turn. During…
Using WordPress as a Building Log
Who doesn’t like WordPress? It’s fast, stable, and ubiquitous. I have used WordPress to power this building log, and it does a great job. There are so many folks using WordPress in so many ways that online help is abundant- which is part of why I’ll direct you to those sources for questions about how…
An RV Builder’s Guide to Building a Bearhawk
I love the RV series of two-seat airplanes. They have revolutionized home-building, recreational flying, and perhaps even the overall world of GA. As far as airplanes go, they are pretty useful in that they go fast, handle well, and don’t have any bad flying habits. While they are useful as far as airplanes go, they…
Installing the Wings
The timing of this whole relocation effort has worked out pretty well. Tonight was the EAA meeting, so we made it a project visit. Before the meeting, I spent a few minutes checking out the cowl clearance problem, and installing the rigid tube portion of the engine breather line. Lots of folks came out to…
Moving the Wings
After the harrowing fuselage move, we left town for a few days of vacation. Now that we are back, it’s time to move the wings. These should be easier to move than the fuselage. The process included taking each wing off of the rack and putting them on saw horses. Then we put the rack…
Moving the Fuselage to HKY
Our little airport is going to be a great place to base our Bearhawk, in part because it is really close to the house. It’s a small airport though, and not really well suited for a safe first flight. As such, the plan has been to move the airplane to the municipal airport about 5…
Visit with David Bice
Today was a real treat- I was able to visit with David Bice while on a visit to ABQ. David’s Bearhawk is of particular interest to me because it is so similar to mine. I even used the same paint colors as he did! His has an angle-valve 360 with slightly lower compression than ours,…
Visit Mike Bundy
Today I was in southern California for a little while, so I contacted fellow Bearhawk builder Mike Bundy. Mike spent most of the afternoon with me, including transportation from the hotel I was in. He’s a very nice fellow, and has an especially interesting engine for his Bearhawk. He’s using the 409 cubic inch 4-cylinder…
Visiting Graham Meise
I was in Orlando for a while this April and May to learn a new airplane at work, and while I was there I had a chance to catch up with Graham Meise at the KISM airport. Graham has a 4-place Bearhawk kit and he’s jut now starting to have time to work on it….
Dave Lenart Visit
Today was a real treat- I was able to catch up with Dave in Vermont to spend some time talking about his Bearhawk. The weather was perfect and it was a great way to spend the morning. Dave let me pick his brain with all sorts of questions about his construction. We’re using almost the…
Tech Counselor Visit
This afternoon our technical counselor came for an official visit. It’s still very early in the process, but it was certainly good to get his input now when it’s still easier to change things.
Picking up the Seats
Today and yesterday I have been driving over to Mississippi to pick up our seats from our upholsterer. When I was younger I flew model airplanes with Russell Wood, and he’s been an upholsterer for a long time. Since our seats were already in Mississippi, I dropped them off with him a few months ago…
Patrick Visit
Today our friend Patrick stopped by for a visit. He’s building an RV-7A.
Front Baffles
Today my friend Hari stopped by from the other side of the state. He is scratch building and had an extra sheet of .020″ aluminum. He stayed for a little while and we had a good visit. The front area of the engine baffles are pretty complicated. I started by setting the angle of the…
Russ Erb Visit
Today I had a special hangar visit from fellow Bearhawker Russ Erb. He lives in the desert but happened to be in town on his way to Oshkosh. That’s not a very direct route, but if I had an airplane like his I probably wouldn’t take the most direct route all of the time either….
EAA Chapter 309 Visit
This evening the EAA chapter from Charlotte came up for a project visit. I’m a member of the Charlotte chapter too, and I was glad to have so many folks drive so far to see our Bearhawk. It’s always great fun to talk about our project with other airplane builders, and of course the pizza…
Visit with Wayne
This isn’t really a building entry, but I was in Rochester and got to visit with Wayne Massey. Wayne and I work at the same place now, though we first met back in the spring of 2008 at the Bearhawk Cookout before Sun-N-Fun. Wayne is scratch building for the purpose of scratch building, and he…
Visiting Matt and Stacey
I had another visit to XNA (x-treme northwest Arkansas) and was able to visit Matt Kunkel and his wife Stacey. It’s always great to visit with them, and we got to spend some time in their hangar. Matt keeps things clean, which is one of the few differences between us. Matt was making a rotisserie…
Hard Decisions Series: Panel Backup
I’ve spent quite a bit of time thinking about whether or not to incorporate backup instruments in the panel. My primary reasons against adding them are the cost, weight, complexity, and the already redundant Dynon installation. My primary reason for wanting to include some kind of backup is to be able to have enough information…
Hard Decisions Series: Props
I’m getting to the point where it is time to decide on a prop. My assumptions so far are that it will be a constant speed prop, and that low weight, low initial purchase costs, and low recurring maintenance costs are all good things. The first assumption comes from flying with Eric in his fixed-pitch…
Visit with Joe Lisanke
Today I was able to catch up with Joe Lisanke in Gainesville Florida. Joe has a set of wings that he built from scratch and one of the first Avipro fuselages. He has a Continental 470 with a propeller and is in the process of installing all of the stuff that goes into the airplane,…
EAA 731 Cookout at E40
Today we hosted a cookout for the members and friends of EAA Chapter 731. This event was a great opportunity to talk with several people who we have heard about but hadn’t met yet. These included Ben, Jim’s Wife, John, and others. This was the first time that Tabitha had seen a Maule since she’s…
Visit to Matt Kunkel’s Bearhawk
I was visiting Arkansas and was able to catch up with Matt and Stacey Kunkel. We had a Thai food dinner that couldn’t be beat and Matt and I spent a while looking over his project. I only took this one lousy picture, but it was a great visit. Matt and I are close to…
Picking Up Our Engine
Today I drove up to Bob’s to pick up our engine! My day started very early in a hotel near the Tri-Cities airport. In a rare work schedule fluke, my day ended when we arrived in CLT at around 6:15 in the morning. I drove down to the south part of CLT to get to…
Burn Testing Nautolux Decco Dot
I have been looking for some good material to use as a floor covering. Bob uses bare aluminum, and that method certainly has some merits. It is light, simple, and durable. Tabitha would rather have something that looks a bit more finished, but also something that dampens vibration a little bit better. She says that…
Allowing for Headrests
I should add some background information here about why I would want to mess up a perfectly good set of Avipro seats. In my research about how to make safe seats, I read about how important headrests are. Most pilots and builders that I talk with about this disagree. They say that most impacts in…
New Goodies
Today I spent an additional 1.5 hours on the wingtip, but the more exciting news is that an order came in from Wicks. I ordered some 5052 Aluminum to make fuel lines out of, along with some foam for the seats. My plan for the seats is to use tempur foam for the bottom layer…
Visit to Bob’s Again
Today I made a trip up to Fincastle to Bob’s. We’re going to be taking over the Bearhawk logo shirts and hats and the trip was to pick up Bill’s inventory. While I was there I asked Bob a few questions and took some pictures of his airplanes. I’m glad to live within a 3-hour…
Exhaust Tunnel and Barts RV
I only had a few minutes to work today, but I got the exhaust tunnel attached and the little pieces clecoed. Last night we went to visit Bart’s RV-8 Project. He had the whole EAA chapter over and cooked some burgers. Bart’s project is coming along nicely and he’s going to put the engine on…
Step 1: A Hangar
This summer we worked on a place to work on the Bearhawk. Since there is an airport that is very close to our house, we decided to locate the project there. This is what the hangar looked like before: And here is the “after”: Patrick and Bradley came to help us move the airplane from…
Ordering the Engine
Since most engine companies require some lead-time, my first goal after securing the purchase of the kit was to start deciding on an engine. I knew that we wanted a Lycoming 4-cylinder, but that only narrows it down to a few hundred variants. I also knew that we didn’t want fuel injection, and that we…
A Change in Plans
Buying and Moving the Kit
Visiting Eric Newton and the MS Mudbug
 On March 15th 2009, Tabitha and I went to the Mississippi Coast to visit Eric Newton and his Miss’ippi Mudbug. I had seen a few completed Bearhawks, but Tabitha had not been able to sit in one yet. On this particular visit, I was going to be in Gulfport for work, and my Dad…
Visiting Patrick’s RV
Visiting Patrick’s RV Project
First Log Entry – Prerequisites
Reading the Books, Getting the Plans