Nice pictures BHawk! Beautiful plane!

TA DA!

It is officially finished, and flown. Just under 10 hours to be exact now!

We had a bit of a hiccup during final checkout, we found that our kit's gear was one of the lucky ones that wasn't jigged properly at the factory and had significant toe-in! Over an inch front to back on an 8.50x6 tire. This concerned us about its possible handling on touchdown, and after speaking with the factory and engineer we came to the conclusion that heating and bending our landing gear clusters was the "best" solution. After that was accomplished, we met with the FAA and obtained our temporary airworthiness cert.



First flight was uneventful, aircraft flew well without many (none) rigging adjustments - we did over estimate our rudder tab needs but quickly remedied that. Burned a LOT of 100LL during these first 10 hours running it so hard, but hopefully we will get a good solid break-in.

We were given 25 hours worth of test flying hours without asking by the FAA inspector, as our aircraft engine was built to current ADs and service bulletins under the supervision of an A&P.



I applied for and received my temporary Repairmen Certificate, and I'm super excited about getting it.

Glad to be back in the air, and all the work behind us! WHEEW.....

Outstanding! Hearty congratulations!

Congrats!!!

Thanks!

Very cool, congrats.

Do you think you did the toe-in check too late in your build? I'm actually still doing a bunch of welding-- just reformed my gear leg trailing edge fairings, so perhaps now is the time to do it.

IIRC you load the aircraft to 2000 lbs on grease plates and take the measurement?

Very cool, congrats.

Do you think you did the toe-in check too late in your build? I'm actually still doing a bunch of welding-- just reformed my gear leg trailing edge fairings, so perhaps now is the time to do it.

IIRC you load the aircraft to 2000 lbs on grease plates and take the measurement?

Yes, I would totally recommend checking this at least prior to fabric.

So we bought ours as a "quickbuild" kit, and it came with the fuselage and landing gear as a matched set. Our understanding from the documentation was that these two items, since they in effect are "unique" to each other, were drilled and attached to the fuselage attach points and a "pipe" or piece of tubing was supposed to be run through both axles prior to welding the clusters on the gear. The engineer suggests that there be as close to ZERO toe in/out as possible. This factory procedure would accomplish that spec. But unfortunately, there have been a few kits that this wasn't done at the factory. 6 that are known, is our understanding. Assumptions right?

We checked it, we just checked it a little later than we should have. The rough check procedure was to roll the aircraft straight backwards 10ft (measure distance between center tread), roll it forward 10ft (and check again distance). Ours was producing 3 inches worth of delta!

Long story short, our options were:

Two new gear from factory, with the high chance that they indeed would be incorrect as well.
Heat the clusters on both landing gear to a specified temperature and bend them to get the gear to as close to zero toe as possible
Some we are told, have left varying amounts of toe alone and hope for the best

After talking it over for some time, we chose to heat and bend. We obtained the procedure from Bob, found a hangar to use (THANK YOU Soldotna Aircraft repair) and hung the airplane up once again. We cut the fabric back a ways on the gear legs, heated with a rose bud and melt stick to 900 degrees, and used an 8 foot pipe with an ID 1.5" to bend the axles back in our case a few inches (at the end of 8 feet). After letting the gear cool, we found that we were now well in spec at near zero toe.

Here is a pic of the procedure, you can barely see a chalk line travelling fore-aft of the fuselage for centerline. Notice we did in fact use grease plates for the adjustment although we did not load the aircraft beyond empty weight.


So it worked out, no biggy - we have already spent many years on this - whats another 8 hours of work not including phone calls and emails getting a procedure, right? ha

Now this won't be a problem for a person who is scratch building their aircraft, as you would hopefully produce near zero toe by accomplishing the factory procedure during initial welding of the gear clusters. But one thing we found out, is that if you damage a gear leg - chances are that you would need to heat/bend the new one to get correct toe measurements - either on a scratch or kit built aircraft. One plus we assumed by getting a factory jigged fuselage and gear leg, was we wouldn't need to modify replacement parts in the future.

Our aircraft now tracks perfectly straight and it was just another hurdle. "You gotta WANT it"

One thing that we are happy and impressed with is a 160MPH cruise speed! With 8.50 tires and no wheel pants or fairings on the struts..etc...

Our finished weight was 1526lbs, which gives us very close to 1000lbs useful using the wheel gross weight spec.

With 260hp it gets off the ground FAST, not much ground roll at all.

Rob,

What kind of vertical speed are you getting? Are there any cooling issues? Did you add a cowl flap? That's one thing I've not decided on yet, the cowl flap or which oil cooler to use.

Also, can I get a copy of your drawings for float mounts? I need to make mine and weld them on so that I can run EDO's like the cool kids!

Thanks,
schu

Hello:

Can you provide more pictures of your skylight. Specifically, the front where the windshield butts up against the skylight? I am trying to decide how to do that. I want to modify my airframe up in that area to accept a skylight.

Thanks.

I would also be interested in how you constructed the skylight. I am building a Bearhawk 4-Place Quick Build and beginning to see that the "hump" will need removed before I can install the skylight. Also trying to ascertain how to create the connection between the windshield and the skylight, as well as the fabric and skylight at the rear. Thanks!

You'll find lot of different ways of fabricating your skylight over on the Bearhawk forum.

Here's how I did mine:

https://flic.kr/p/CJLMe3
https://flic.kr/p/CJLMcE

When a friend picked up his Maule he watched them align the gear cold with 16 foot drill pipes.

The Maule gear is strong although quite flexible.

I did some serious testing of my own on skis and tundra wheels(a lot of hours), if you brake one you tried unreasonably hard.

The gear is the only part of the Bearhawk that I am a bit worried about. Not sure it is designed with our off strip abuse in mind.

The later gear is beefed up with a stronger shock strut to handle negative load better, any negative load is usually pilot induced.