We've put around 50 hours on this Bush Hawk XP, AND it's awesome. After some fun in the insurance check out, it was mostly hauling the family around on a few trips and looking at corn / soybean fields for work. Then a few times more recently I took it out to do some training at different weights. At 2800 lbs it was stalling around 42 knots vs 52 published at gross (3500lbs), this made for some much slower and shorter spot landings. Pacific aerospace is manufacturing the E-350 again and putting orders through North West Back Country. There's even talk about the tail wheel version being ready to order!

That's awesome! Good to see those kids digging it. Living the dream.

Nice family pics. Life is good!

Interesting windshield V-brace, and you don't have to remove your mittens to operate those push-to-talk buttons.

Awesome pictures and a beauty plane. Great to do family adventures, that's what it's all about. I'm envious of your 5 seats, that'd be about perfect. I'm just coming to terms with the idea of trading my 180 for a 206 so I can fit my family in the plane. Maybe I should be looking at a Found.

I thought the company went belly up in 2014. Did somebody buy the assets/tooling and start building them again?

Flyhound wrote:I thought the company went belly up in 2014. Did somebody buy the assets/tooling and start building them again?

Yes. Per FAA TCDS A7EA:

Type Certificate Holder Record Found Aircraft Canada, Inc. transferred TC A7EA to Pacific Aerospace Ltd on December 23, 2017.

and

https://www.aerospace.co.nz/dmnews/pacific-aerospace-to-build-the-e-350-expedition

TCDS A7EA is dated August 2020, and page 12 of same references the Garmin G500TXi, so there has been some recent activity.

Great pictures of a great Canadian airplane; suitable competitor to a 185/206 but I'll admit to being a bit bias. Thanks to those who are trying to keep the Found Brother's efforts alive.

We did a comparison between a brand new Bush Hawk and a well worn Cessna 185, both on floats. With the same load in each airplane, the 185 was considerably lighter than the Found.

Predictably, the 185 took off somewhat shorter, with three different pilots flying each airplane, after some practice to get the feel of the planes.

In cruise, the Found was at 24 square, burning 18 gph, and the 185 was back at 13 gph to stay slow enough to fly formation on the Found. The 185 driver pushed power up to 24 square, and the 185 walked away from the Found rapidly.

The airplane is indeed much easier to load than a 185. Big doors, flat floor, etc.

I really detested that big main spar carry through (it's a one piece wing) that's just behind the pilot's heads....see the picture above of the pilots looking aft....

I really didn't like the stall characteristics of at least the first one we bought. It rolled off really hard to the left when it broke, and it had virtually no aerodynamic indication of an approaching stall. A DER from Ontario (I think) finally came to Anchorage, flew the plane and deflected one flap to compensate for the roll off at the stall.....which of course, slows the plane down even more than it is. Only way to re rig the wing.

On floats, it was not a very good performer. Our folks in Galena kept a 185 in Alexander Lake for years. When they started flying the Found, they had to move it down to the Yukon River....they nearly took out the power line at the south end of Alexander Lake. The Founds we had were all pretty heavy. Yes, they are built like tanks, but they are heavy.

On wheels or wheel skis, I found the airplane to be one of the easiest tailwheel airplanes to land and manage on the runway. They track straight. On skis, the gear geometry is much better than Cessna's spring gear, and as a consequence the Found did really well in deep snow.

It'll be interesting to see how the new company does and if they can produce and sell many of these airplanes. The existing fleet has not had a source of parts for several years, so hopefully, the company will succeed.

I'm not a fan of the Found on floats. A good strong 206 with an IO 550 will out work the Found every day of the week on floats. But, the new 206s are heavy, like the Found, and also are equipped with the big Lycoming engines, which like fuel.

The old story applies: Whatever winds your watch.

MTV

I used to love flying 12QT. Mike you're right about slow speed and high fuel burn, Same airfoil as a DC-4 if I remember. We would resort to tricking the 206's we flew with. "Hey, come up alongside for a photo, okay now bank hard away..." and the 206 would end up miles behind and have to catch up again.

But the cabin volume, passenger comfort (stretch out in a sleeping bag on long flights), visibility and general useability was much much better than the Cessna. I love 4 doors and a flat floor! Build quality and gear toughness is outstanding, what a tank! My float experience with it was, don't overload the thing and it behaved pretty well. About 24 seconds to get off the water from throttle in. (overloading on floats = )

Miss it. (cue ennui)

The Pacific Aerospace video:

My understand is that like deHavilland did with the Beaver the Found Brothers canvased Canadian bush operator for opinion and input in the original design so that led way to some of the valued features of the original Found FBA-2. Given my unabashed support of all things Canadian and Canadian aviation if I had the budget for it my first choice would be a DHC-2 and number two a FBA-2 of some version. Thanks for all the great pictures of this airplane and I wish new manufacturer all the best as they move forward with it.

Edit: Before someone misunderstands and thinks I'm putting the DHC-2 and FBA-2 in the same class that's not the case. The point was that the features that make each unique where as a result of a similar approach to their design just at and in different times. It's worth noting that one of the early engines proposed for the DHC-2 was the inline Ranger; deHavilland dodged a bullet on that, it would have been a very different airplane otherwise.

BRD all of your photos always look so good, great colours, and so bright. The Found looks great.

mtv wrote:We did a comparison between a brand new Bush Hawk and a well worn Cessna 185, both on floats. With the same load in each airplane, the 185 was considerably lighter than the Found.

Predictably, the 185 took off somewhat shorter, with three different pilots flying each airplane, after some practice to get the feel of the planes.

In cruise, the Found was at 24 square, burning 18 gph, and the 185 was back at 13 gph to stay slow enough to fly formation on the Found. The 185 driver pushed power up to 24 square, and the 185 walked away from the Found rapidly.

The airplane is indeed much easier to load than a 185. Big doors, flat floor, etc.

I really detested that big main spar carry through (it's a one piece wing) that's just behind the pilot's heads....see the picture above of the pilots looking aft....

I really didn't like the stall characteristics of at least the first one we bought. It rolled off really hard to the left when it broke, and it had virtually no aerodynamic indication of an approaching stall. A DER from Ontario (I think) finally came to Anchorage, flew the plane and deflected one flap to compensate for the roll off at the stall.....which of course, slows the plane down even more than it is. Only way to re rig the wing.

On floats, it was not a very good performer. Our folks in Galena kept a 185 in Alexander Lake for years. When they started flying the Found, they had to move it down to the Yukon River....they nearly took out the power line at the south end of Alexander Lake. The Founds we had were all pretty heavy. Yes, they are built like tanks, but they are heavy.

On wheels or wheel skis, I found the airplane to be one of the easiest tailwheel airplanes to land and manage on the runway. They track straight. On skis, the gear geometry is much better than Cessna's spring gear, and as a consequence the Found did really well in deep snow.

It'll be interesting to see how the new company does and if they can produce and sell many of these airplanes. The existing fleet has not had a source of parts for several years, so hopefully, the company will succeed.

I'm not a fan of the Found on floats. A good strong 206 with an IO 550 will out work the Found every day of the week on floats. But, the new 206s are heavy, like the Found, and also are equipped with the big Lycoming engines, which like fuel.

The old story applies: Whatever winds your watch.

MTV

Good info, thank you. Had a look at some Founds for sale, hoo boy, that kind of money would buy one sweet old pre-h 206.

A friend of mine posted a video on FB of a Found taking off from the lake he lives on.
About 500' elevation, mild western Washington fall weather.
I don't know shit about flying floatplanes,
and I don't know how heavily it was loaded,
but that thing seemed to take forever to get off the water.

hotrod180 wrote:A friend of mine posted a video on FB of a Found taking off from the lake he lives on.
About 500' elevation, mild western Washington fall weather.
I don't know shit about flying floatplanes,
and I don't know how heavily it was loaded,
but that thing seemed to take forever to get off the water.

Yup.....

MTV

mtv wrote:

hotrod180 wrote:A friend of mine posted a video on FB of a Found taking off from the lake he lives on.
About 500' elevation, mild western Washington fall weather.
I don't know shit about flying floatplanes,
and I don't know how heavily it was loaded,
but that thing seemed to take forever to get off the water.

Yup.....

MTV

So MTV, In your opinion what is it that makes some planes take longer to get off the water than others. IE, is there something specific to consider when setting up a plane on floats? I’ve read about some planes taking a long time because of angle the floats are mounted. I’m studying up to put my Bearhawk on 2870s and want to make sure I don’t turn it into a water loving machine.

whee wrote:

mtv wrote:

hotrod180 wrote:A friend of mine posted a video on FB of a Found taking off from the lake he lives on.
About 500' elevation, mild western Washington fall weather.
I don't know shit about flying floatplanes,
and I don't know how heavily it was loaded,
but that thing seemed to take forever to get off the water.

Yup.....

MTV

So MTV, In your opinion what is it that makes some planes take longer to get off the water than others. IE, is there something specific to consider when setting up a plane on floats? I’ve read about some planes taking a long time because of angle the floats are mounted. I’m studying up to put my Bearhawk on 2870s and want to make sure I don’t turn it into a water loving machine.

Greg,
There are a number of factors that affect how an airplane’s performance on floats. I’m no expert on the subject, but I have flown and worked a number of seaplanes.

The angle between the wing and the floats is one significant factor, that affects both takeoff and landing performance, but cruise flight speed as well. Generally, many float installations use something between one and about five degrees nose up on floats vs bottom of wing. The good news here is this angle is generally adjusted by cutting off length of aft struts, so as long as you start sorta nose up, you have the option of fairly easily reducing that angle once you’re outfitted and flying.

Our outfit got a number of brand new EDO 3430 floats, rigged for C 190/195 from the military. Spreaders were 11 inches wider than rigging for 185, and vertical struts were long. We had a few 185s on these floats, and they worked great. I was assigned a 185 that had no floats, so they drug a set of these out of the yard and rigged them. Problem was, the tribal knowledge of how long the aft struts should be had retired, and nobody asked.

I met the plane and just looking at it, it seemed pretty nose up. But, I’m just a pilot..... I took it for a maintenance test flight, though..... Right after takeoff, there was the most horrendous vibration I’ve ever encountered. I considered putting it in Cook Inlet, but flew it around and landed. Had a chat with maint. Who had a chat with Ops., who determined from their vast float experience that the plane was fine. I told the Ops “expert” to go fly with me in it. We didn’t get far before he decided there was an issue.

Phone call was made to old time Maint. Chief, now retired, who provided proper length of aft struts, new struts cut, and perfection. My theory was the angle of the floats put the heels high enough that prop power pulses were hitting them.

Make the angle too high, and you have to touch at a high AOA to avoid “snubbing” or “snatching” on touchdown, which can get exciting.

So, I’d start at one or two degrees, and go from there.

The next parameter is fore and aft location of the floats with reference to the airframe. That’s critical for several reasons. With the plane too far forward on the floats, the plane runs nose down in taxi, and the floats are pushed down at the bows. That’s made worse with power, so you compensate with elevator back pressure, to a point. Again, this can cause the floats to snub some on touchdown. The Maules on Aqua floats are exhibit this tendency....get busy with checklist during taxi, look out and toes of floats are under water, and waters running over the decks.....oops! Get that yoke in your gut!

I’m no expert on how the fire/aft location is determined, but I’ll PM with a couple sources and a phone #.

Another issue is the float bottom design. That’s already decided for you, since you’ve chosen the EDO 2870, which is an excellent performing float. But float bottom designs vary widely. Nuff said on that.

There are other factors that involve the aircrafts design. For example, a/c designers try to limit the size of the empennage to tat which meets minimum airworthy standards. Think of the wind vane: the tail (empennage) must be enough larger in surface or side area than the area forward of the pivot point for the thing to point into the wind. Make the tail too small, and stability of the vane decreases.

When you mount floats to an airplane, you always significantly increase the side surface area forward of the center of lift. Simply put, the front of floats is always larger than the aft bodies. So, if your airplane was well designed for speed, addition of floats WILL decrease longitudinal stability. In fact the plane may be just as happy flying sideways. When I put PeeKay B2300 floats on my 170, it was significantly unstable in yaw, till I installed a ventral fin. Even then, it was significantly unstable. You never relaxed on rudders. Big floats, and lots of area fire the aerodynamic center.

So, you’ll see ventral fins on lots of seaplanes: Beavers, C206, C180/185 on some floats, Maules, Huskys, Scouts, etc. I don’t know how the experts determine this in design, but you’ll know it quick on your first test flight. A ventral fin can help with getting a plane to go straight on floats too. But they don’t like docks or steep banks. Many deal with this by adding dorsal fin, or “finlets” attached to the outboard ends of the horizontal stabilizer. Scouts and many Beavers use these, look at some photos on line to see what they look like.

Then there are factors you have no control over. The Found, for example, uses a Douglas airfoil. Obviously a great load hauler on the DC 4 and 6, but maybe not the best choice for a seaplane. That’s my theory why the float performance lags some on those.

I assume that the Bearhawk airfoil is optimized for high lift, so should work fine on floats. I’m sure someone has done so, so I’d contact them. Always better to follow a proven path than pioneer one of your own.

MTV

Great "intel" MTV, I always seem to learn a bit more every time I cruise through one of your post even when your chastising me a bit