Why did someone who has no tailwheel experience and no plans to do back country flying decide to build a Bearhawk Model 5 from scratch?
It is said that the decision of airplane (whether to build or buy) is always a series of compromises. My journey is no different. When I thought about my mission, it is mostly going to be local and mid length (200 NM) cross country flights with a few 500+ NM trips per year. The cross country trips will be with my spouse and my 50+ pound service dog, so I automatically want something with at least 4 seats and baggage capability. I will almost exclusively be going from paved airport to paved airport, so a tri gear would be the preference. I want a decent cruise speed, and my spouse wants high wings.
At this point, the almost perfect airplane would be a Cessna 182. However, I don't like the prices of purchase or ongoing maintenance with certificated planes. Besides, one of my personal goals is to earn my A&P. I have thought of buying a fuselage with a data plate from a scrapyard and doing a complete rebuild, but I think the need for the certificated parts would make the project cost prohibitive.
So the question I had to answer was how to fulfill most of our mission. I excluded any 2 place planes (a dog who is the size of a young child needs her own seat). There aren't a ton of options left at this point. Van's RV-10 is nice, but it has low wings and the price of the kits is staggering. The RV is going to land at 60 -70 kts. Sling's Highwing plane looks nice, but from what I've been able to ascertain, it's even more expensive than the RV and the kits are still pretty new. I don't want to be a first builder. And to be honest, I like the idea of building from scratch. Let's just call it my version of arts and crafts.
The Bearhawk line has been around since the early 90's with the four place model. The line has several models that have been added over the years, but they all share common elements: tube and fabric fuselage, all metal wings with a Riblett airfoil. They carry a good load at reasonable speeds. Doing some research on the Bearhawk yeilded a video with Budd Davisson talking about the Bearhawk kits. In the video, he says the Bearhawk isn't a bush plane, it's a real honest plane that just happens to land and take off short. He continues with saying the Bearhawk can be anything you want it to be.
Well, that's what I'm going to try for. My Bearhawk is going to be a traveling machine with more emphasis on comfort than on creating a STOL machine. The Model 5 has roughly the same interior space of the 182, but I can build it from scratch, so I think it's the best compromise. The biggest hurdle is I'll need to get a tailwheel endorsement.