Source: 2024 Q4 Beartracks, Brooks Cone
I started building a Bearhawk Patrol in 2017. I named her “Miss Goulet” to give tribute to my my wife. She was a math teacher once upon a time. The students loved her because she is welcoming, always smiling, hard working, very smart, and can make any subject fun. I think the Patrol will reflect her attributes beautifully.
The project started with a quick-build kit from Mark Goldberg and she is almost done. A theme that gave me peace about the build can be summarized with a few key words: Efficiency, Utility, Reliability and Maintainability. These goals drove the build decisions and added weight to achieve them. I wanted my boot cowl easy to remove, and working upside down under the panel when I’m 75 years old (15 years to go) seems not far off. I can remove the entire boot cowl and windshield in forty minutes I call that “No Pain to Maintain.”
I want low fuel flow at a fair cruise speed, no issues and easy repairs.
Paint: I painted Miss Goulet myself (except the cowl is still bare Aluminum). It was the first time I ever used a paint gun or designed a scheme. Paint Scheme: My fourth son is a college-educated artist. When I asked him to help me design the scheme he had me fabricate a coloring book of the three view drawing on Plans P.1 minus the inner tubes. I used colored pencils and made 35 drawings. I decided against swoop lines to keep the job simple. I know I need simple if it’s not going to look like crap. I tried various things and the simpler prevailed. I thought about a gray base like I see on some SUV’s, but My Wife said the color was not a “happy color”. I ended up with a white fuselage, using Bob’s “Thrust Line” on the plans to locate a gray strip. Every control surface is gray. Why not Red? Blue? Yellow? To be honest, an interior decorator chose our GRAY kitchen floor matching it to the existing wood cabinets and it looks great. The best match on the Stewarts color chart to match the Smoked Plexiglas side windows was Boulder Gray. Honest!
The Instrument panel is basic VFR. I didn’t have a budget limit for it, but as I felt peace (like my paint scheme) about simple and less peace about the very elegant capable big screen offerings to EAB builds. I also liked separation of various instrument/avionics elements for trouble shooting and service life. So I installed a compass, a Garmin G5, an analog airspeed, a CGR-30P engine monitor, a Trig Comm Radio and Transponder. For navigation I followed Bob’s advice and went with portable, choosing the Garmin Aero 660 docked on the instrument panel. All antennas are internal except for the transponder. The COM is a long 1/2 wave antenna in the vertical stabilizer; the 3 GPS antennae are mounted just under the skylight in the spar compression tubing support area.
I designed, fabricated and installed the electrical system but contracted out most of the avionics wiring harnesses. I submit to Bob Knuckolls teachings in a book titled “The Aeroelectric Connection”. (a modified Z101 architecture. http://www.aeroelectric.com/PPS/ Adobe_Architecture_Pdfs/Z101B.pdf)
The engine is a Bob Barrows/Lycoming IO-360, call it 180 hp. It’s a narrow deck case, has parallel valve cylinders, new cam and a balanced crank. Alone it weighed 270lbs; 304lbs with alternators, exhaust, fuel Injection, engine mount, and oil screen. (missing oil cooler, hoses, and I forget about baffling.)
My four goals led me to Bendix Fuel Injection, Surefly Ignition, and a Hartzell Trailblazer prop controlled with a Jihostroj governor. The fuel and spark are not anything special or exotic, middle ground and I’d say efficient. The ignition system has dual power feeds from from three sources (two alternators, one battery) and the engine keeps running with the master off until she runs out of gas.
She hasn’t flown yet, but we started it. Warning: Don’t sneeze if the mags are hot. The OAT was in the low 20’s (it was preheated) and we think fired on the first blade of the first attempt without priming. We duplicated it every time. (point of education: gravity feed primes nicely. The engine pump takes over when she’s alive.) The second benefit will be reliably tunable deep lean of peak operations.
When I look at my firewall forward, I see a lot of hoses. Fuel Injection is not the best choice for everyone. A carburetor is so simple….I knew that but now I see it and built it. I also wonder about my Mag choice…Just one self powered Emag would have given me peace about a single alternator. Consider that stuff. But like I say, she starts if you look at her cross eyed.
The FAA paperwork for the airworthiness inspection will be submitted before this goes to press. She weighs 1190lbs, CG 10.3”, and she flow tested beautifully. Her CG can’t be thrown out of limits no matter how she is loaded down and it’s tough to get her overweight.