Budd Davison, Russ Erb

[SandersonDavis]

I haven't really used the forum since the days of Yahoo Groups.
Are Budd Davison and Russ Erb still around and active?
Thanks-Sanderson

[jaredyates]

Welcome back! Erbman is a member but we don't see him much on the forum. He's busy with still working and with his young family but does still fly his Bearhawk. Budd has transitioned away from the community but we do still hear from him regularly in the Sport Aviation magazines. There might be a few others around from that era.

[SandersonDavis]

Thanks! I need to get my GF a tailwheel endorsement and I can't think of anyone better than B.D,

[DBeaulieu]

I've always enjoyed Budds' articles/column in the EAA magazine. I read that he was instrumental in helping to get the BH factory in Mexico up and going...would be nice to have a short chronologcal background history of the BH development as a sticky for us newcomers!

[SandersonDavis]

Yes, Budd was instrumental in getting the Bearhawk off the ground as a vibrant enterprise.
IIRC, He also wrote a couple of free builders that are buried somewhere on my computer. One day I'll look for them.
I thought all the Yahoo Group posts were going to be archived here. If not, I'm sure someone here has them
I have a great many of them buried somewhere within MS Outlook. There is a lot of good information in those posts.

[jaredyates]

I do have the messages from the Yahoo groups in an archive but have not yet been able to find an easy way to publish them. Unfortunately the Bearhawk group will require some effort to remove the off-topic content. There is indeed some good worthwhile info there.

As far as I know Budd is still active in his instruction in Scottsdale AZ, give him a ring and let us know what you find out!

The manuals that Budd started on are still available on the Bearhawk Aircraft website in pdf form, but in the past few years Mark and I went through those manuals and updated the content, which is now on bearhawk.tips.

[Dpearson]

Russ Erbman was kind enough to give my wife and me a tour of Three Sigma (his scratch-built 4-Place) about 18 months ago. He was just finishing up the condition inspection and answered the millions of "newbie" questions I had about the plane's features, performance, capabilities, and the build process. I'm really grateful for the time he spent with us - it really "set the hook" and got me started on my build.

[alaskabearhawk]

Budd (last name spelled Davisson) and a small number of us from the old Yahoo group still correspond with each other on another informal chat set up years ago. Everyone is doing fine as far as I know and Budd is busy as ever. I still have hundreds and hundreds of emails pertinent to the Bearhawk, along with some pictures that I saved from the old group that I categorized and refer to as needed.

The BH group culture has certainly changed since the “old” group disbanded, but the love for the Bearhawk design and subsequent variants hasn’t.