Storage

Don and his stuff, freshly moved out of storage (the stuff, not Don).

We've been planning the Bearhawk retrieval operation, and it's not going to be pretty.

Heavy Rain in So. Cal.

But not much evidence of moisture in the hangar, despite warnings from the previous occupant. Maybe it dried out before I got here.

There were two damp spots: this one by the wall and another in the corner.

Ten Years of Trade Studies

Appear to be at an end.  The deposit check is in the mail.

Uh oh.

Getting Closer

Just to indicate how close, today I downloaded the Bearhawk
Builder's Manual for the fuselage section.  I'm scanning it now for wing strut attach info.

This was the first expenditure specifically allocated to a particular model of aircraft, for building purposes.

Pothole Patching

Before we could repaint the hangar floor, we needed to repair some small potholes located right about where the aircraft nose would be positioned in the hangar.  

To do the job, I picked up this premixed patching compound at Home Depot.  It's weird stuff, but it works pretty darn well.  Best way I can describe it is like pea-sized gravel mixed in a dry but very sticky slurry, hard to stick a trowel into, the whole mess black as pitch (a close relative).  One little bucket was more than we needed.  You wouldn't think it could fill a hole nicely, and it doesn't ... until you pound it REALLY hard.  I guess it's the same stuff you see the road crew steamrollering hundreds of yards at a time.  I'm starting to appreciate the need for the steamroller!

Well, we didn't have a steamroller, but we did have Don Varner, and an 8"x8" landscaping tamper.  BANG! BANG! BANG!  Being former rock-and-roll types, we had earplugs handy, but Don went and apologized to our next door neighbor, who turned out to have his hangar filled up with old cars and a WWII jeep.

Once you really compact this patching compound, it lightens in color and gets rock hard.  The technique we ended up with was to mound up a tarball of the compound sticking well above the hole, whack it a dozen times or so with the tamper, add more little dollops around the edges and anywhere it was still black, and whack it some more.

You can see the main hole and three little ones in this picture.  The little ones appear grey, signifying full compaction, and the big one is darker because we had just sprinkled water on it to accelerate the curing process.  You can also see where the tamper handle broke!  To get the edges fairly flush, we were striking with the tamper slightly out of vertical to get more impact on the corner of the tool.  Snap!

Fortunately, we were almost done at this point and were able to finish the job (shown in the first picture) with a rubber mallet striking a metal trowel held flat against the patch.  We would have had a clean edge on that one too, but the underlying asphalt was very poor quality locally and was starting to blow out around the edges.

According to the instructions, when you're done pounding the pothole patch, it will bear full weight (even before final cure).  Lucky thing, 'cause Don almost immediately drove a car over the main pothole, to unload some boxes into the corner of the hangar.

Total time was about two hours on Saturday afternoon (I'm posting this a day late).

Now we just need an airplane!

Test Square

Back to work. Tried a patch of Glidden interior semi-gloss white. Seems OK so far, with maybe one drop-sized spot of bleed-through, possibly from an underlying oil stain.

We'll check tomorrow and try to assess durability.

We also did some brush touch-up work on the walls and conduits. Total time in hangar: about 75 minutes.

The Bearkhawk Pitch

Don and I are conducting intense trade studies on the partially complete Bearhawk up in Montana, with more questions answered by the builders, and also by the airplane's designer, Bob Barrows, who Don telephoned yesterday.  As for me, I haven't been to the hangar in four days.  My cold is clearing up, so I should be back in action (painting the hangar floor) tomorrow or Friday at latest.

This photo is from Oshkosh, July 2009.  Will and I went for a demo ride in that Bearhawk.  Will loved it almost as much as I did.  We taxied out on the main runway in front of the huge flightline crowd, many thousand aviation enthusiasts awaiting the arrival of the Airbus A380.  As we taxied by, lots of people waved and snapped pictures, probably thinking we were about to launch on an aerobatic routine, but we just did a max-performance takeoff and headed East over Lake Winnebago.  The Bearhawk took off like the Great Glass Elevator, thanks to the Lycoming O-540 under the cowl and the constant-speed prop.  The tail came up in a few seconds and then we were airborne almost right away, and climbing much faster than I am accustomed to.

The owner/builder, Mark Goldberg, made his (very nice) plane available to Avipro (the kit manufacturer) for Airventure 2009, but he was not around when we arranged for the flight with head honcho Keith Vasey.  The demo pilot chick was a 737 captain from Florida, moonlighting with this gig for Avipro.  When I asked if Will could ride along, she first asked if he was a good flier, meaning would he get airsick.  I looked at the nice upholstery and tried to sound confident when I vouched for him.  The truth is Will had never been in a small airplane before.  Luckily, he not only lived up to my billing, but totally enjoyed the flight, grinning from ear to ear even during the steep turns and stalls.  No vomit comet.

Anyway, I felt immediately comfortable in the airplane, very at ease with its handling and performance (it just FELT safe), but I definitely missed the sun roof modification, which was included in the display aircraft, but not the one I rode in (or in the published plans).  I now consider the sun roof an absolute must for my own Bearhawk, both for enjoyment and traffic spotting.