Bearhawks at Airventure 2024

Source: 2024 Q3 Beartracks, Jared Yates
As you can tell from George’s story, this year was not an easy year to get to Oshkosh. We elected to drive, based on low clouds and rain over the mountains just north of us. There were a few folks who made it to the show to display their planes! Donna and Dennis flew their Patrols over from Oregon, and parked in Homebuilt Camping. Brooks Cone hosted another Bearhawk walk, which started at the newly-branded Bearhawk Aircraft booth Kudos to Brooks for taking the initiative to host the walk and also to get it onto the official Airventure schedule! As the words began to sprinkle forth, so did the rain, and within a few minutes we were all huddled under wings and tents waiting out a classic summer downpour. A little setback never stifles the kind of enthusiasm it takes to build an airplane, so after a few minutes we were on our way to HBC to visit Donna and Dennis.
As usual they were excellent hosts. They have around 800 hours on their airplanes, though the rate of accrual has been slower than they would like due to weather, health, and the rest of life being in the way. This year we had two special guests from New Zealand, Nev Bailey and Murray Patterson. Murray flies the white Bearhawk 4-Place originally built by the late Lars Fellman. They didn’t bring their airplanes, which we will excuse due to the unavailability of fule by-the-liter in the USA, but it was great to meet them both in person. Later that night Virgil and his team hosted a fantastic chicken dinner at the park just north of the airport. There were several Bearhawk faces, both familiar and new. On the topic of long-distance travellers, Paul O’Donnell was on hand from Ireland with updates about his Bearhawk 4-Place build and his tour of the UL Engines factory in Poland.
Our family had to leave to get back home before the weather allowed George to arrive with his airplane, but as far as we know, his Plans Champion Bronze Lindy is the most prestigious Airventure award received by a Bearhawk to date.
During the dinner Virgil shared a few words about what he’s been up to with the Bearhawk Kit business and it is all exciting and good news. He has expanded OEM relationships to include a more broad range of airframe and powerplant components, and also plans to expand offerings like cabin interior parts and upholstery.

Lamar Wallace’s First Flight – Bearhawk 4-Place N845W

Source: 2024 Q3 Beartracks, Lamar Wallace
First flight for the plane, first flight out of Merrill field. R&B io540 engine. Taxi to 25 for the Shoreline departure. Delayed for arrivals then cleared for takeoff and told to expedite. Shocking how quickly airborne. Climbed to 4500, ran the engine hard to commence the break-in. Controls rigged at 25lbs, way too stiff. Heavy left wing. Orbit around Wasilla for about 1.8 hours. Proceeded to Birchwood for fuel, 75% power really gulps gas. 1st landing, better than expected. 26″ Goodyears help absorb. After refueling, back to Merril for normal landing. No flaps used on either.
When people asked when I was going to fly it, my response was always, “Tuesday.” The year and month to be determined. It was indeed a Tuesday I flew. Work had me away for a week. When I returned, I reduced the roll and pitch tension to 15lbs. Left flap was found slightly deployed up. Right deployed down. Reversed this. Ailerons rerigged to reference wing tips. Removed cowling to verify condition and security. The next day with weather moving in, I conducted pattern work. Aircraft flew straight. It is very much a rudder airplane and need to reprogram my brain for that.
Next flight was to Palmer for circuits and pictures then back to Merrill. Drained oil, pulled both screens. Metal, rtv and Labrador’s hair all present. Cleaned screens, safety wired and added mineral oil. The following flight, orbit over Wasilla, deployed flaps. Observed normal flight. No roll. Conducted one stall clean mainly to get AOA calibration on EFIS. Conducted landings at Wasilla and taxi backs.
Last flight. Orbits over Wasilla. Conducted stalls with each flap setting. Full flaps, elevator full up, no break, just mushes. Around 38 knots. Circuits at Wasilla. Departed south executed 2 full procedure LPV approaches. I increased autopilots response time. Getting better. Trim is wickedly sensitive and the a/p has a hard time with it. Return to Merrill. 8.2 hours on tach. 11 on Hobbs. Excited to fly again. Again quick takeoff. Have been super conservative on landing. Other than the trim being sensitive, I haven’t found any bad characteristics. It is a pleasure to hand fly. Very pleased with the outcome. Added tie down rails and rings. The holes lined up with a little massaging for the fore and aft seat anchor points.

Bearhawk 4-Place C-GSOI Wins at Airventure 2024

Source: 2024 Q3 Beartracks, George Huntington
Back in 2006 I got the bug to build an airplane. Fully understanding it was a big project, but I put it on my bucket list anyway. Long story short, I persevered and 16 years later I was flying my hand crafted Bearhawk.
Building the airplane was a major undertaking that took countless hours in the shop with unrelenting commitment on my part and support and understanding from my wife, family and friends.
The pinnacle of it all being able to fly “my own” airplane to Oshkosh. That is where the aviation community meet to display their planes and see what other enthusiasts have as well.
The trip was planned out and I was flying with two other local pilots in their planes and I had a co-pilot, with me. The trio, a Cessna 170, a Cessna 180 and my Bearhawk set out on July 24, and headed from St Andrews, Manitoba for Duluth, Minnesota where we would clear customs.
In the air, we trued out at about 137 MPH burning 40 ltr/hr (10.5 Us gal/hr) at 55% hp. The AWOS in DLH transmitted that it was VFR but when we contacted the tower, they were not VFR. This weather change put us in a holding pattern and we circled for about ½ hr. Since there was no good news in the short-term weather, we decided to head back north to Fort Francis to re-submit customs paperwork and get fuel. The first leg was 3.8 hours, and we were only about 200 miles from home.
We gained customs and landing approval then flew across the river to International Falls and cleared US customs. A nice short hop of .2 hrs. We then flew from International Falls to Wautoma with airtime of 3.0 hours, fueled up and waited till OSH was open for the evening incoming traffic. With the heavy traffic of people arriving and the onset of the evening rush, there were unexpected delays, and we were put into the arrivals circuit and ended up circling with the invasion for1.1 hours, after which we decided to fly back to Wautoma where we camped overnight.
Thursday morning we packed up camp and headed to Fisk arrival, weather was below limits for arrival, so we were once again in the holding pattern for about 2.1 hours. We were pleased to see the weather lift, and we were allowed to land. We got through the maze of taxiways and parked in the homebuilt camping area where we got registered and I submitted to have my Bearhawk judged.
Later that day a team of judges stopped to inspect my Bearhawk. I was riddled with anticipation as I opened the cowl to let them look inside the engine compartment and stood back as they did a thorough inspection of my plane. After about ½ hour of checking their paperwork and making notes they left with a “thank you” for the opportunity to look at my aircraft. Now I had some free time so I went on tour through the other EAA aircraft and displays.
I was checking out the center square displays when I got a phone call asking if I was willing to do an air-to-air photo shoot of course I said yes. A briefing was set up for Saturday morning at 10 am. This piqued my curiosity so that got me wondering what was up.
When we arrived at camp later that afternoon after the airshow, I see a white flag “AWARD WINNER” on my propeller. That was an amazing surprise. Along with the red flag was the qualification form that had 14 judge’s initials on it with 3 red dots, WOW! I had been been chosen for an award.
I called my buddy Bob Matarelli from Duluth who had helped me out along the way while I was building the airplane, and he had always given me encouragement and had forecast that “you’re going to get a Lindy”.
Saturday morning, I just got started checking out the warbirds and got another call to do an interview and static photo shoot at the airplane in 15 minutes. I scooted back to the Bearhawk and met the photographer who took a substantial number of detailed photos and the completed the interview. They were very interested in my plane but did not reveal any information about awards.
We completed the photo shoot and interview and then proceeded to the briefing for the air-to-air photo shoot. The action would take place on Sunday morning as we were departing OSH.
I attended the Award ceremonies with my travelling companions at the homebuilt building at 6:30 Saturday evening. They went through the Kit Outstanding Workmanship and Plans Outstanding Workmanship plagues then to the Kit Champions bronze Lindy then to Plans Built Champion Bronze Lindy, the second Name announced was George Huntington Bearhawk C-GSOI wow I won a Bronze Lindy Plans Built Champion.
In preparation for the Sunday morning departure and Air-to-air photo shoot, we packed up camp at 6:00 am and taxied to an open area just to the south of the button of Runway 27. There, still more photos were taken prior to the flight. We taxied to RNY 27 took off and went into a hold over the bridge at Winneconne, circled for about 15 minutes. Then the C-210 camera airplane flew up to us and took the lead. We circled to the left for a couple 360’s to get the sunshine in the right area, some straight and level, up and down and a banking roll away to the left then with a wave of our wings we continued on our way to Cloquet for our first stop on the way home with air time of 2.8 hrs.
The weather was not cooperating as a line of thunderstorms prevented us from leaving Cloquet on Sunday, so we spent a night at the terminal in Cloquet. Such a nice airport with fuel and bicycles to use to go into town if need be. With time on our hands, we were able to look at Tim Tollefson Rans homebuilt nearing completion. With the help of my friend Bob, we were able to organize hangarage with Mike Ray a fellow homebuilder to park the Bearhawk overnight.
The next morning, the weather was still below VFR so waited couple hours until it cleared enough to go North with flight time of 2.5 hours and clear Canadian customs at Piney/Pinecreek, an interesting little airport which is half on the US side and half on the Canadian side.
Next leg was 0.8 hours to Oak Hammock Airpark just north of Winnipeg. Total airtime 15.5 hrs.
In my opinion, Bob Barrows has designed an excellent aircraft. He supplied a great set of plans, and was willing to sit and talk with me about the aircraft build. The Bearhawk 4 place meets all my expectations and more.
Mark Goldberg provided a sounding board and shared his knowledge and support throughout our build.
Friends of mine, Cameron Lawrence and Ziggy Smolinski were my build partners, together we have built 4 Bearhawks, so far 2 flying next one to fly this fall.
Special thanks to Jim Gile for his experience and patience helping me fly to Oshkosh as he has done this trip about 10 times already and this is my first-time flying in.
Two of us went to Oshkosh and had a third passenger “Lindy” on the way home.

Bearhawk 4-Place C-FDDJ Fall 2024 Update

Source: 2024 Q3 Beartracks, Dan Dagasso
In 2017 or 2018 my wife commented that we needed a bigger travelling aircraft for the West coast and the Mountains of British Columbia. I had just finished two and a half years restoring my Pitts S1S, which involved many many late nights at the hangar during the work week and a lot of my weekends.
At the time I was flying my RV6A, which was a great speedy aircraft. My better half wanted to be able to haul both of us and two roadbikes, two mountainbikes and some camping gear for trips to the coast or down to Moab/Montana/Oregon/Alberta (Yes my wife is Awesome, No you cannot have her).
My choice was pretty simple once I read about the capabilities of the Bearhawk. The one problem was that my wife forbade me from taking on another project by myself right after finishing the Pitts. After doing some research I found out that Steve Busby of the Ottawa area had built a few Bearhawks and had worked closely with Mark Goldberg representing the Brand North of the Border. Steve was also involved in prototyping the model B wings on N303AP.
Steve Busby knew that Mark had the Kit that had been intended as the new Model B demo aircraft in Storage at Bob’s place in Virginia. Mark was and is an absolute gentleman and after he endorsed Steve’s skills and quality I contracted with Steve to construct the Kit that was stored at Bob’s. I was looking forward to being in the air with the Bearhawk by late 2020. Unfortunately in the summer of 2018 Steve had a terrible motorcycle accident and spent close to a year in the hospital. It truly was a miracle that he survived.
By this time I had sold my RV and was working with a local engine builder to source and rebuild an IO-540. Ken Vike of Vike Aeromotive built up another awesome engine for me, he built the 360 in my Pitts and it is a beast. Ken knew the intended mission for the plane and he talked me out of any electronic ignition or non-certified parts, as this plane will spend a lot of its life in remote parts of BC. We kept the compression ratio at 9.2 so that I could use mogas in a pinch if I was in a remote logging or fishing camp.
By 2020 Steve made the decision that he did not think that his recovery was going to allow him to finish the aircraft. He did recommend one of his good friends who had helped him on most of hos builds over the last 10 years. In June of 2020 the kit was moved into the shop of Dale Lamport in Perth Ontario. Dale is a retired AME/Flight Engineer/MDRA inspector. Over the next two and a half years Dale made steady progress and we spent a lot of time on the phone with quite a few trips back East to work out kinks that always crop up.
My local Avionics shop helped me design and draw out the electrical system and avionics. One of my local avionics techs flew out to Ontario and spent a week installing and testing the electrical system and installing the panel. Kaine and Rob at Inland Communication Services were amazing to deal with and continue to be so on a daily basis.
In the fall of 2023 I had the plane moved to St Thomas Ontario for paint with John Gordy. My daughter who helped me fly the plane back designed the scheme. John Gordy did an amazing job executing the paint. Final assembly was completed at Purple Hill Air at St Thomas Municipal Airport, by John Goris and his crew of Johnny and Ben who were so excited to work on the plane.
Paul Ragany an octogenarian was hired to do the flight testing. Paul has over 26,000 hours in everything from J3’s. TBM avengers, turbine Ag Cats, a bunch of Boeing products 737, 777, 747 etc. and he still flies crop dusters on a daily basis. He is a legend.
George Miller was the CFI who helped fly off the 25 hours and spent three days helping me transition into the aircraft. On the last day of my checkout George noted that the weather was turning really ugly with the winds at 25 knots gusting to 30 with variable wind directions and ceilings of 800 feet. I was expecting him to call it a day but he suggested we go work on the crosswind runway with the crosswind varying from 50 to 70 degrees off runway heading. That was some of the most challenging flying I have done. We had the main runway as a backup with the wind straight down the pipe. I was so grateful to George for doing his best to make sure I was ready for the trip home. He knew that my daughter had come out to copilot the plane back home 2000 miles through some potentially challenging weather.
My daughter Emily got her license when she was 18 in my RV, but she has little tailwheel time so we managed the trip home with her doing most of the cruise flight and radio management with myself taking care of flying takeoffs approaches and landings.
Now that we are home I have managed to take the rest of the family flying and the instigator of the project, my wife, is so very excited to travel as we intended with a lot of trips back and forth through the Rockies to see our daughters who are now living and going to school on the prairies. I am looking forward to becoming current with IFR flying again and travelling up and down the west coast.
This morning my wife woke up and said, “ so, when are we putting it on Floats?” She doesn’t know that I am going out this summer to look at another Pitts that was ground-looped 10 years ago, and needs to get back in the air. I have always wanted to build a set of Pitts wings.
I had hoped to bring the plane to Oshkosh this year but that will probably need to wait until next year. My thanks to the Bearhawk community and especially to Mark Goldberg. I know that Virgil will make something great even better.

Bearhawk Camping at Creighton Island, Georgia

Source: 2024 Q2 Beartracks, Tyler Williams
“So, is there anywhere to go around here where you need a plane like that with those big tires?” This is the most common question I get from the classic plane peepers at the fuel pumps. And I don’t even have real Bushwheels yet. The Bearhawk draws a lot of attention. It is a cool looking airplane compared to the flock of sheep on the ramp. Just looking at it conjures up thoughts of adventures far and wide and nights spent under the stars. So, my response is always, “No. Not around here. But I didn’t spend two and a half years building a big, family hauling, off airport capable airplane to stay around here.” Here in the east, the mountains and ocean are several hundred miles apart. I love being in both places and the Bearhawk gives us more access to it all. I live in Charleston, SC, near the ocean and love it. Once in a blue moon, we get some good waves and there’s great salt marsh fishing to be had just a short walk down the street from our home. Charleston is also FULL of people and is lacking in wide open space to get away from it all. But, I can fire up the old Lycoming, load up the family and in an hour or two, we can be saddling up the mountain bikes, or pitching a tent in the grass.
The closest place we can fly into where the people are few and the stars are many is a little barrier island on the Georgia coastline called Creighton Island. It is a short 115 nm flight and though it is close to the mainland, being there feels far away. It isn’t “around here,” but is accessible for us on any good-weather Saturday. Flying along the coast at low altitude is always a treat. We follow miles of waterways, marshland and tidal creeks curling around the barrier islands that dot the entire Carolina and Georgia coast. We dodge pelicans and seagulls, spot dolphins and the occasional shark cruising the beaches. No magenta line is needed for a trip like this.
Creighton Island’s grass strip is supported by volunteers in the Recreational Aviation Foundation and all the info for visiting pilots is in the airfield guide on their website, www.theraf.org. The strip, lined with old growth oaks and palmetto trees, is a fun and fairly easy place to land, with a beautiful approach over the lowcountry marsh. Once in a while, a low pass or two is required to run the animals off the strip before landing. There are no roads out there and the island has been privately owned by one family for several generations. Over time they have made the place an easy place to camp. If you prefer a roof over your head, there are a few hunter’s cabins that have been built out there for the bow hunters who frequent the island for wild hogs. There is good well-water, a big cast-iron fire bowl, an outhouse, and even a weather station to check before you go. This isn’t the backcountry, but it is a beautiful quiet place to get the Bearhawk away from the pavement and spend some time outside with the family. Donkeys, pigs, cows, and armadillos roam free, making my 5 and 7 year old kids feel like they are on some kind of safari of the American South. Plus the fishing is great. Really great. The east side of the island has a little sand causeway out to a small sandy island on the waterway where bald eagles were nesting this past winter. On the other side, there are spartina grass flats that flood at high tide and offer access on foot to sight-fishing for spot tail bass. These fish are super tasty, fun to hunt and fight, and we are always hoping to score a few. If that’s not enough, there’s a boat dock where you can access some deeper water. It is hard to beat pitching a tent under the massive oak trees and Spanish moss, cooking dinner over the fire after a day of fishing, roaming the woods, and flying over a beautiful coastal landscape. It is almost close enough to home to consider it “around here” and we are thankful to have access to such a beautiful spot.
This would be a fun venue for a winter Bearhawk fly-in.