Calling for Good Community Examples

[jaredyates]

I'm so grateful for the Bearhawk community that we have! One of my missions this year at Airventure will be to try and make connections with other aircraft type-specific communities, to help learn about what best practices they have discovered. Perhaps some of those lessons can be applied in our community as well.

So who should I be talking to?

Which aircraft types have great communities that support owners/operators/maintainers/builders? Bonus points if you can put me in touch with someone within those groups, but if not, I should be able to find someone at Oshkosh.

If you own or have owned another type of airplane, Type Certificated or Homebuilt, does that type have a club or community? What was good about it?

At this stage, rumors, hunches, and vibes are all welcome. Please reply, send me an email (beartracksnewsletter@gmail.com) or call/text 828-308-1543.

[Bissetg]

Great idea Jared, perhaps the folks at AOPA would have some insight? I know some of the guys here that have Vans aircraft speak about their community resource, they might be worth talking to?

The concept of a community that shares the good the bad and the ugly so we don’t have to repeat mistakes but can focus on the positives to improve our experience is appealing to me.

The Bearhawk is a great plane and I wouldn’t consider owning anything else in that class but there are somethings I wish I’d known more about at the start of my build with respect to supplier choice of third party components. It was frustrating to find my bad experience in that regard had been had by others but not talked about.

I found that was disappointing given the safety implications down the track, so anything that improves that is a positive to me,

[U2fletch]

The Glasair Forums are excellent. They amount of documentation available on their site is invaluable. There is a lot of member activity. We just returned from a fly in at Smiley Creek ID with the group. 30 Glastars/Sportsman represented.

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Side trip to Johnson Creek.

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[Chewie]

I joined the Cessna 120/140 association a few years ago. The website is a relatively quiet corner of the internet but they do have an annual convention, a great calendar, quarterly newsletter, a directory of suppliers and STCs, and a forum that is a helpful landing spot for technical know-how. For example, I came across a thread that perfectly addressed a problem I was having with my door latch spring. There's some good general chatter on there as well, but perhaps not as active as here. The association includes a group of representatives across various states who serve as regional contacts. I'm not aware of any "chapters", but I suppose there could be a few.

I don't know if they will have an organized presence at KOSH. https://www.cessna120140.com/Forum2018/

[David Swartzendruber]

The Cessna 120/140 association has a table in the Red Barn at Oshkosh each year along with other vintage type clubs.

[Bcone1381]

I like "Regional Contacts" idea! I also like the "Other Vintage Type Clubs" as examples to follow. I'll be checking out the Red Barn tables.