Source: 2024 Q4 Beartracks, Rod Smith
After a very long time coming, December 17th, 2024, was the day my Bearhawk finally took to the air. As a very rusty tailwheel pilot with just 6 hours of tailwheel time in the past few weeks, I wondered how it was going to handle and how I would react to any problems that might pop up. Fortunately, the flight went very well. The EAA flight test card #1 says to make your first flight without flaps, I chose to takeoff with 2 notches and land with 3 notches. That’s how Virgil Irwin had me taking off and landing in his beautiful Bearhawk 5 during a 2 hour checkout.
The flight went very well, and I was in awe of the performance. I found my plane to be light on the elevators, a little heavier on the ailerons. As a bonus it flies level with hands off the sticks. The only issue I had was way too much angle on my rudder tab and I was having to use an awful lot of pressure on the left rudder pedal to stay coordinated. So much so that after about 20 minutes my left leg went numb and I thought I better land while I could still move my leg. My first landing wasn’t pretty, didn’t get fully stalled and bounced it. I now have made 3 flights for a total of 2.7 hours. It gets better every flight.
My plane is the original 4-seater with the modified 4412 airfoil. It is scratch built, except I did buy the quick build wing kit from Avipro in 2004 for $9900. I have a modified parallel valve 300HP IO-540 and a 3 blade 83” MT prop. My panel is Garmin G3X with 2 10” screens and set up for GPS IFR. Some modifications I made are carbon fiber gull wing doors and Hoerner wingtips. I moved the trim wheel to the floor, just left of the flap handle and have a console covering the flap and trim wheel mechanisms.
I think I may have the unfortunate record for the longest build time of a completed Bearhawk. Life does get in the way at times. My first build log entry was June 1, 1999, a quarter century ago. That first flight made it all worth it. God willing, I will see many of you at Oshkosh this coming July.