Bearhawk in the backcountry

[Av8rPaul]

Wow, that's really nice video work...and flying of course!

[Yadama]

Brilliant, keep it coming Battson...

[Battson]

Here's some video which we put together during the holidays - enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_ml2RZ40Wg

[Battson]

Another snap from the overnight trip.

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We have to wait for the sun to warm the plane up a little above freezing, before trying to start the engine...

[Battson]

Here's a few more holiday snaps... my kind of holiday!
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These snaps are from an overnight hunting trip with friends. Very cold out there in tents. We had extremely gusty conditions for our departure and flight home. The air looks clear, but rest assured there was feet of snow falling just on the other side of those mountains - and all the leftover winds were making aviation difficult.
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Frosty mornings on a calmer day.
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A few others out and about enjoying the calm days too!
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[whee]

I love winter flying and the new tires look fantastic.

[Battson]

Here are the first of a few snaps from our latest holiday - two weeks of winter aviation in the beautiful south of New Zealand. More content to follow.

Home away from home for NJB this winter.
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Our first venture into the outdoors for the holiday.
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Wifey standing next to the new shoes - which are almost half her height! haha.
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[Av8rPaul]

Absolutely wonderful thread. So cool to see your part of the world and its similarities to the Alaska back country I grew up in.

The real world performance of your Bearhawk is exactly what I like to see and why I ordered my QB kit.

I don't think anyone would complain if you put a pic of one of those lovely rainbows up, as your Bearhawk helped catch it. :-)

[Glenn Patterson]

Thank you. I will check out your observations.
Glenn

[Battson]

Jonathan,
Thank you. Our BH is sitting on a small borrowed tires and have a pair of 26's to install for a grassfield. What do you normally cruise at with the 26's?

You mentioned that your BH had a couple rock holes to patch. Did you put any protection on the leading edge of the horizontal stab for rocks?
all the best.
Glenn

I am running a thread about my cruise performance in the adjacent section of this forum, here's a link:

http://bearhawkforums.com/forum/flying-and-flight-testing/11168-cruise-speeds-performance-observations

I don't have any leading edge tape yet, I do need to fit some. The rocks make a mess of it, provided you do a LOT of riverbed landings. But it's mostly cosmetic.
My list of jobs is long, and my time for flying and pottering in the hanger is short!

[Glenn Patterson]

Jonathan,
Thank you. Our BH is sitting on a small borrowed tires and have a pair of 26's to install for a grassfield. What do you normally cruise at with the 26's?

You mentioned that your BH had a couple rock holes to patch. Did you put any protection on the leading edge of the horizontal stab for rocks?
all the best.
Glenn

[Battson]

Hi Jonathan. I enjoy reading your back country adventures. Your country has a lot of out back places to go to. It is funny to see your frost but your seasons are the opposite to Canada. I have friends who go to Australia during our winter and complain how hot it is there & they would rather be there for the Aussie winter. It is hard to think of someone complaining about it being too hot where they are at while avoiding winter and at home we have snow up to our belt. I was wondering if you are using the 26x10.5x 6 Tundra tires?
Glenn

Thanks for the kind words Glenn,

Yes, the hemispherical difference is a funny old thing. My sister works in snow-sport and follows winter around the world, it's a hard life.

We are using the the Goodyear 26"x6 tire (which is really only 23.5" tall).
It's the best compromise I can make, as I am based at a controlled home field with a few long taxiways - and they use rough tar-sealed chip rock over here - which would destroy the soft rubber of Alaskan Bushwheels if used everyday. We are considering getting some 31" ABWs to use occasionally. Let me explain... some times of year, we do so much off-airport flying (landing) and we're away from home base for weeks at a time. For those trips, I now think it's worth having a set of ABWs. They will save wear on the landing gear and the rest of the fuselage, increase prop clearance, reduce take-off distance a little, and my insurance cost should keep getting lower - in other words, I hope to avoid crashing into a big rock, which seems a matter of time on smaller, firm tundra tires. I can't see everything flying past at 60kts, and I've already had a few close calls in the last 300-400 landings, where a big rock had to pass under the plane. It's a risk we run.

[Glenn Patterson]

Hi Jonathan. I enjoy reading your back country adventures. Your country has a lot of out back places to go to. It is funny to see your frost but your seasons are the opposite to Canada. I have friends who go to Australia during our winter and complain how hot it is there & they would rather be there for the Aussie winter. It is hard to think of someone complaining about it being too hot where they are at while avoiding winter and at home we have snow up to our belt. I was wondering if you are using the 26x10.5x 6 Tundra tires?
Glenn

[Battson]

It compares very favorably.
My Bearhawk is faster than the red 185 with 31 inch; bushwheels. I am a little slower than the other, a 180, but it has much smaller tires fitted.
The Bearhawk will certainly land and take-off in half the space of the 180/185, with the same load of people and equipment aboard. The internal size is very similar. Really the only advantage of the 185 is the larger total carrying capacity and CG range, but that comes with the limit of only visiting larger airstrips.

[Mark Goldberg]

Jonathan - you do a fair amount of flying with the C180's and C185's. How do you think your BH compares? Mark