Don't count yourself short. The Bearhawk was on the cover of NAFI's
magazine last month and believe me, I checked it out. No way do I have
time to build one though.
--
Jim Burns III

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"ET" wrote in message
...
"Jim" wrote in
:

Why a tail dragger? There is no good reason other than 'something to
do'
in
this pilot's opinion.

Exactly my idea. Just something to have fun in but still use to haul
the wife and kids around when needed. I have the opportunity to put a
1/2 mile grass strip right infront of my house and am currently
getting a good tailwheel checkout. I'm torn between two goals. I can
either pursue a partnership in a faster complex plane for some serious
cross country flying (which I do enough of to justify it), or I could
go it on my own and pick up a fairly nice Cessna 170 and eventually
build a hanger and a strip at my house. I'd still be able to rent a
faster larger plane for the longer cross country trips.

I have no experience here, and this IS an experimental, and therefore
probably not what your looking for (some assembly required ;-)) But
this seems to fit the bill: 4 place 1100-1300lbs+ usefull load, 40mph
landing speed, up to 160mph cruising speed depending on engine.

http://www.bearhawkaircraft.com/Bear...rhawkMain.html

Cost will be between 50K-100K depending on engine choice and avionics...
oh, plus a year or three of your life grin
(base "alleged quickbuild" firewall back kit is 28K)

I like the BIG cargo door.... better keep a scale in there, even with
the capacity, seems it'd be easy to be tempted to fill it up with
camping gear, moutain bike, cooler full of ice, 3 hunting dogs...... and
get over wieght/out of balance.

Take the above for what it cost you heh from an aviation newbie who's
never even MET a CFI... (well, yet anyway)

--
ET


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