5/6/07

I have been through a very difficult time these last few months, but I am now almost ready to resume this project.

Updated Sections:

These are links to the portions of the project already underway. 

More links will follow in the future.

Hello, my name is Carl Peterson and I am creating this web page as my Builder's Log for Bearhawk serial number 819.  I purchased the plans in the beginning of March 2005 and started actual work at the end of that month.

Although this will be my first homebuilt aircraft project, I have worked in the aircraft maintenance field for a number of years now, both in the military and later in civilian aviation as an A&P technician. 

All my life I have wanted to be a pilot, yet at the same time I had grown up on stories of my father's adventures in the Navy. As such, it is no wonder that  when I was close to graduating from high school, I naturally sought the military recruiters as a means to satisfy both the flying and military dreams. 

My desire had been to fly for the Navy but when I decided to embark down the military path, the Navy recruiter assigned to my high school was out of town for a few days . The Army recruiter was present and I am afraid it was not too difficult for him to convince this young, eager, 17 year-old to join the Army with the "promise" of flying helicopters without the need of obtaining a college education first. 

What was not mentioned was the fact that being accepted into the Army's flight school would have been far easier had I  placed my application for a "high school to flight school" route rather than enlisting and then applying for flight school. In the end, I served seven years as a helicopter repairman, received a lot of valuable experiences and learned the aircraft maintenance trade. The flying bug was finally satisfied through civilian flight schools. 

Today, the love of flying is still as strong as ever but the financial ability to purchase a certified aircraft with decent cruise speeds, good lifting capacity, and off-airport capabilities is simply not there. After considerable research, I decided that the Bearhawk met all of my  requirements with it's best feature being that I could build it from scratch!

I hope this web page might serve as inspiration and perhaps some assistance to other prospective homebuilders just as I have greatly benefited from other builder's websites. Perhaps the one web site I have frequented the most is the excellent site created by Eric Newton which can be found at http://mybearhawk.com/. 

If you are interested in purchasing the plans and/or a kit for building the Bearhawk, please visit the official Bearhawk Aircraft web page at http://www.bearhawkaircraft.com/