For Those Who Have Built an RV

[jssaylor2007]

How does the Bearhawk compare as far as a time investment? I know RVs typically get into thousands of hours of build time, but wasn't sure how the build process on the Bearhawk clocks in. I've seen the numbers on the website, but have assumed they are optimistic. Would love to hear from some people who have built both.

[Mark Goldberg]

Mr. Saylor - I built a slow build RV8 before there were QB kits for it. It took a couple thousand hours. Finished in 1998. The new QB kits from the Bearhawk factory - the consensus is about 1,000 hours to build with the steps now done at the kit factory. Full disclosure - you might not think me an objective responder since I have a little to do with the kit factory. Mark

[jssaylor2007]

Ha! I figured you would be quick to respond here Mark. I don't remember if you told me about your RV experience on the phone yesterday. Good to hear about the ~1000hr timetable though. From what I've gathered on VAF, the RV-10 is an extremely conservative 2000hr build estimate.

[BravoGolf]

My RV-7 was QB wings and and SB fuselage. I logged over 2,000 hours to build it. I expect the Patrol to be a lot more (scratch build) If you are really tracking your time.

[svyolo]

My experience with RV's is, I bought a few things from Van's, including an engine baffle kit. The quality of the baffle kit was fantastic, including the instructions, which I only read when I needed too. I probably only looked at about a third of the instructions. The quality of the Bearhawk kit is also great. But there are no official instructions. Building it is a combination of your own experience first, and then adding in this forum (the best) and a couple of different sources of aftermarket instructions. "AD's" are dealt with in something called "Beartracks".

The Bearhawk kits are very high quality. The kit does not come with step by step instructions, if that is what you are looking for. I am not an instructions guy. I usually only refer to then if I have a question, or realize I screwed something up. Sometimes i spend a bit more time trying to figure out how to do something, and wish there were instructions.

The Bh kit is not a Glastar TWTT, or CC all inclusive kit. Or an RV. But the kit components are of very high quality, as good as any.

[James]

I don't know about how it compares to an RV - but I can say that the latest kits that Mark offers are at least 500hrs quicker to build than the original kits were - they've done many of the more complex steps for you (especially drilling the wings). If you talk to another BH builder who owns an older kit, make sure you're comparing apples with apples.

To be honest, the greatest factor influencing build time for a kit plane is the builder. I see lots of people sprinting ahead with their builds on these forums, but I go much more slowly. I enjoy building stuff, so I don't count the hours, but it must be almost 1500 hrs so far, and I feel I'm about half way there.

If you've built another plane before, especially another bearhawk, I'd divide all of the above figures by two. My next plane will be twice as quick, and half as heavy!

James