RECENT COMPLETIONS

BushCaddy L162 "Max"
"I've had a lot of family and friends questioning my sanity when they found out that I've been spending 8-12 hours almost every day since the first of Nov '06 building a "Bush" plane. Here it is Aug 22nd, with hangar temps ranging up to near 100 for the past 2 months, and I'm closing in on completion day. So here are some pictures attached. A lot of sweat has flowed through the pores. I need to finish painting the striping on the engine cowling  bringing the green and yellow to a point. The gear leg fairings also need to be painted white. Adding some brake fluid, to keep it from running away, and fuel in the tanks is all that we need before we fire up the engine. The humidity is going up with the coming of the monsoon season so the project is in storage until the latter part of September. We are leaving on Monday with our motor home going north, out of the heat of the desert, through Colorado and on to the Northwest to visit our children and grandchildren. With this project it has been a long time since we have seen them as well as other friends. When we get back in mid September the interesting part will happen--TEST FLIGHT!!  My friend and expert helper will be back from hiding in the high country out of the heat to help with the final details to get this "work of art" in the air.

Rose Marie and I wish you all a cool and wonderful Summer. Stan  

 "Sean and Marlene...excellent product and such a pleasure to fly.  I will send some performance stat early next spring.  Till then keep in touch., Scott"

Gidday Sean,

 

Last weekend I attended the Snowtown Flyin and met up with John Birrell  with his recently completed Bush Caddy.

 I was very impressed with his aircraft. He is using a EA 81 subaru with a redrive ( Bolly Prop ). I asked if he wished to sell it but he declined...!

 I was very impressed with the design and overall aircraft. I had never heard of them before.

 Here are some photos I took for your interest.

 regards Arthur Withy

    
 

I thought you may like to hear that BushCaddy 19-4564 is alive and well, after nearly two years and 200 hours in the air. It has recently undergone surgery, as right from day one I realized that I had been unduly pessimistic about the size of radiator required to cool the Subaru. It now has a smaller, off-the-shelf Alfa Romeo radiator and a much more streamlined and aesthetically more pleasing engine cowl. Cooling is still the same - it sits on thermostat temperature in cruise, and remains under 100 degrees C on full power climbout (tested at 38 degrees C - it is summer here in Sth Oz!). Cruise also improved by about 1-2 knots as a bonus.

 As an indication of my confidence in the BushCaddy, I am soon to spend 3 weeks flying to our big Easter fly-in at Narromine in central New South Wales, but going the long way round through our remote north and outback Queensland, and then down Australia's east coast.

 Could I please ask a favour of you, in that you replace the photo of 19-4564 in the Completions section of your website with the attached update? I think it does better justice to the BC!

 Regards from Beetaloo Valley, South Oz

 John Birrell

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Owner	Burkhard Bluemke,  L164-A
	SN CA004-084  Durham Ontario.
	June 30th 2005.  Burkhard dropped by in C-FELI to see us at the  Canadian Aviation Expo. He is very happy with his plane.  Burkhard is  flying out of his farm strip, and claims that the aircraft is performing exactly as promised, with exceptional short field capability.

Owner	Denis Louiseize
	Sturgeon Falls, Ont.
	" On October 20th after one and a half years of building, I finally got my flight authority and taxied the float equipped aircraft on Lake Nipissing to warm up the engine for it's first flight.  The float plane came in at 1683 lbs. empty, plus 25 gallons of fuel and myself at 175 lbs for a total 2047 lbs. The 220 HP Franklin was very responsive and pulled the plane onto the step after only approximately 5 or 6 seconds, then accelerated very quickly to lift-off the water at about 57 MPH in about 16 seconds with 10 degrees of flaps. I climbed out at 75 MPH indicated with the VSI showing 900 FPM.  I levelled off at 3000 AGL, raised the flaps, and the plane quickly accelerated to 115 MPH.  I then cut back on power to 24 MP and 2500 Prop RPM to get a cruise of 110 MPH. The L164 BushCaddy flew flawlessly with superb visibility even on take off (over the dash).  The all around visibility was the best I have ever seen in all the float planes I have flown in the past 5000 hours.  The aircraft performed flawlessly in all aspects, - it flew straight with no rudder input and no trim tabs.  I flew around for close to 2 hours  just having fun and monitoring all my flight and engine instruments. My landing approach was a little fast at 80 MPH and 10 degrees of flap, but better safe than sorry, because when I flared I did not touch down until I was at 65 MPH with no power input. I really enjoyed the flight and will get back to you after I do more testing at heavier weights up to 2700 lbs. Denis" RE : BUSHCADDY MODEL L-164 UPDATE Jan 13, 2004 Float season is long behind us and we never had a chance to really put the BushCaddy through all the proper testing on floats. I was only able to put in a little over 28 hrs last fall, just enough to fly off the 25 hr restriction. In the little time that I spent on floats I can honestly say that so far this is a great flying machine with outstanding take off performance, the best forward visibility I ever seen in a float plane for take off and landing, very spacious and quiet cabin, plenty off elbow room, very comfortable seat, very responsive controls in all attitudes and importantly at approach speeds , a fairly docile stall and a pleasure to land . Now I have since then removed the floats and installed a set of hydraulic wheel skies but was only able to fly 6 hrs before the real cold set in ( -30 and colder ) I like to draw the line at - 15 after that its not fun any more. So I will wait for things to warm up a little then I will be able to give you an accurate evaluation at that time . But so far so good. Denis" See performance update.

Owner	Glenn Bishell
	Carstairs, Alberta
	"I purchased this BushCaddy R120 from George Minchau in Edmonton in March 2003, as a partially assembled kit.  The pre-cover inspections were complete.  The workmanship was top quality and the inspection report confirm this. The kit had been purchased from the factory in 1999 by George, and the assembly was done in his back yard machine shop.  His machining skills were applied to the finishing and assembly of components. I installed all components and built from the firewall forward.  The cowling was built to accomodate the Continental 0-200A engine. I built landing strut fairings of aluminium .032.  The tailwheel I used from a Cessna 180. I pre-wired all the instrument panel and switches on the work bench and installed it on a hinged mount for easy access.  The upholstery was done by Jacques Upholstery on .020 aluminium panels that I cut and provided for them. 2 coats of white Endura provided the base color and 2 coats of red Endura was applied for accent trim.  Aircraft SPruce in California supplied an alternator for the Continental engine as well as firewall insulator and wheel covers. An Odessy 2200 w dry cell aircraft battery provides storage.  Trimline in Calgary made up the call letter decals.  The 5 point seat belts were provided by Guyon Racing. Glenn"

J'en suis  "follement amoureux ".

Martin Sirois