A1Skinner wrote:Beautiful bird and build Jay. Just curious about the color choice. Is it hard to pick up for other planes in flight? Not questioning or condemning your choice, just curious as I start thinking about paint choices for my bird.

Firstly thanks.

Honestly my wife picked the color, I gave her 3 Oratex color choices and she liked the blue.

I have flown with quite a few others in groups and several friends in the pattern at my home airport have all commented how easy it is to see my blue plane. The premise of your question was in my mind as well, would blue be hard to see in the air. So far the answer has been a resounding no. My polished wings also seem to be pretty easy to see as well.

Utah-Jay wrote:

A1Skinner wrote:Beautiful bird and build Jay. Just curious about the color choice. Is it hard to pick up for other planes in flight? Not questioning or condemning your choice, just curious as I start thinking about paint choices for my bird.

Firstly thanks.

Honestly my wife picked the color, I gave her 3 Oratex color choices and she liked the blue.

I have flown with quite a few others in groups and several friends in the pattern at my home airport have all commented how easy it is to see my blue plane. The premise of your question was in my mind as well, would blue be hard to see in the air. So far the answer has been a resounding no. My polished wings also seem to be pretty easy to see as well.

Awesome. Thanks for the info Jay.
I had a polished C150 that I started my flying with and everyone always commented about how easy it was to see in the air. Great to know the blue is also easy to spot.

Last good day of fall colors in the Wasatch Mountains

Here is Day 1 of a trip to the Idaho backcountry. It was a fun time and my wife’s first foray into the backcountry which she loved. Part two will be out next weekend


There is some drama next in next weekend’s video

Jay, is the Companion dimensionally the same as a BH4? Or more like a wide Patrol?

Curious where you are at in your GC range? There are a couple bearhawks local and I have plans to build one someday. The ones I have seen appear to land quite a bit faster than I would think or hope they should and all seem to have to carry a lot of up elevator trim, more than I am used to seeing. Are you more on the forward range of your CG?

Zzz wrote:Jay, is the Companion dimensionally the same as a BH4? Or more like a wide Patrol?

Z

The Companion fuselage is the exact same as the 4Place just without the rear doors. And it’s 25 pounds lighter

akavidflyer wrote:Curious where you are at in your GC range? There are a couple bearhawks local and I have plans to build one someday. The ones I have seen appear to land quite a bit faster than I would think or hope they should and all seem to have to carry a lot of up elevator trim, more than I am used to seeing. Are you more on the forward range of your CG?

I am more rear CG as my nose is a bit lighter without the CS prop

I agree, seems like many are landing fast compared to my speeds

I average 39 mph IAS at touchdown and I’m still flying. Slowest was 32 mph and that was still flying too

Who knew the day would have so much drama?

Sorry all of the horrendous audio on that video, I have tried my best to get it sorted out and will post a new link in the morning 

Bearhawk in Idaho Emergency Declared Audio Fixed

Glad to hear all went well Jay.

skyward II wrote:Glad to hear all went well Jay.

Thanks, it is never good to be up in the air and uncertain of mechanical stuff

Glad it went well and was nothing major Jay. It is always interesting to think about how you handle your first real "emergency". Cool that you have that on video.

Utah-Jay wrote:

skyward II wrote:Glad to hear all went well Jay.

Thanks, it is never good to be up in the air and uncertain of mechanical stuff

Almost a curse knowing too much about the airplane

Very interesting video, it looks like you are crabbing into a serious x-wind

Here is some cool stuff from FlySto.net 

It is generated from your flight data, the realism is out of this world

The color of the oratex definitely stands out well against winter grass. Nice!

Formation Flying