Question for ALL flying Bearhawks

[Baloo]

Bear is a Russian bomber that makes occasional appearances on the west coast.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-95

[alaskabearhawk]

NATO designation

[Ed.Meyer]

I looked up the designator for the Patrol and found BPAT.

[Flygirl1]

Ed, interesting, where did you look that up? How goes the flying? We can't seem to stop. Just yesterday we turned over 182 hours and after this morning it will be 183. ;-)

[Battson]

I believe the ICAO designation is officially "Bear"

That is about as good as ICAO designations get, so I make full use of it whenever possible!

[DemoDollCate]

I like to say a mouthful so people get familiar with the Bearhawk brand, and say "exp bearhawk 12345 however that's all lost on the ground due to the plane not having any Bearhawk labeling on it......"nice Maule" is what I hear. Argh!

[Mark Goldberg]

Sounds like DemoDollCate needs a couple Bearhawk decals. Mark

[Flygirl1]

If you like ours, I can get you the file for the Bearhawk without the Patrol on it. I believe it works so you can take it to your place of choice to have decals made in the size you want.

[Flygirl1]

Looking over the old posts, I see where you thought of a red circle with a line through it that says " Maule" :-) We had originally thought I would have a Hawk standing, pointing and laughing towards my partner plane who had a Hawk without feathers. standing covering important parts. ;-)

[Jayson van Schalkwyk]

reviving an old thread - here in South Africa, our CAA uses "Bear" but since there are 5 different models now (LSA through Bh 5) does anybody have an idea if the 5 has a designator of its own?

[jaredyates]

As far as I know, BEAR and BPAT are the only two. I sent a message to the ICAO committee people some years ago to ask about the LSA and received a non-answer along the lines of "we'll look into it.". I think it would be a hard case to make a distinction between the 4-place and Five for ATC performance purposes. There is more difference between a 170hp and 300hp 4-place than there is between a 4-place and a Five with the same engine.

[Jayson van Schalkwyk]

Thank you Jared. Appreciate the feedback. I also found those same two designators.

Here in South Africa, our CAA licensing system requires that we are "type rated" on each type, not just by SEL, MEL etc. and this is reflected on our licenses. When a new aircraft type comes to SA, there is a bit of a process getting it all approved with CAA and having a similar designator might help.

Am trying to establish what the Five place designator might be (we don't have any Five's in SA yet)

[kestrel]

If you stick with BEAR for the Five, then the same "type rating" will work for both variants.

[kuss]

Not alot of towers near us, but the favorite (before the restaurant burned down) is Felts Field in Spokane. Its a fairly busy Class D off the end of the Spokane Intl Class C and Fairchild AFB is right there too.

I call Bearhawk N5046 Experimental but often get asked for further description, I assume for their sequencing needs they need to understand my speeds and whether or not I can take the little runway. I used to answer "Supercub type" but that's not entirely accurate. I have started saying ICAO BPAT ("eye-kay-oh Bravo Papa Alpha Tango) and wowza do they love that! I think they can get all the airplane specs from there.. Ed or some ATC can probably answer that?

At our uncontrolled field, I'm Bearhawk 5046, I like hearing tail numbers because I can see them on the Skyview via ADSB. If things are getting close and I feel unseen, I will say Gray/white taildragger or whatever else is needed.