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Skip Holms Bear: Affordable Warbird
If money were no object and you could afford a hangar full of airplanes, would one of them be a warbird, say a P-51 or an F4U Corsair? Probably. Just as likely, the airplane would sit in the hangar, kept airworthy by an expert mechanic, but rarely exercised. Why is that? Its one of the natural laws of vintage aircraft ownership and also one of the reasons the airplane pictured above-the Bear 360-was designed and built. The Bear is, as far as were able to determine, a unique animal indeed: a newly manufactured military-feel aircraft built by a foreign industrial power, formerly a Cold War enemy. Eastern bloc imports like the L-39 and the Yak trainers have similar antecedents, but they arent new and they arent purpose-built to be high-performance fly-for-fun airplanes, which the Bear is. We stumbled upon this airplane at EAA AirVenture this year vaguely thinking we had seen it before (we had), but now the company thats marketing the airplane is taking orders for U.S. deliveries. Interestingly, as new airplanes go, its not especially expensive and as warbirds go, its a mere pittance. At a distance, the Bear looks not unlike its namesake, the Grumman Bearcat, a late World War II Navy fighter thats a relative rarity on the warbird circuit, compared to the P-51, at least. The design springs from famed air racer and combat pilot Skip Holm, who paired with Russian designer Sergey Yakovlev to build a modern, robust military-like aircraft, but with operational costs that don't envision 60 GPH fuel burns and $100,000 engine overhauls.
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July 29, Oshkosh, Wisc. / Chance Vought F4U-4 Corsair, Chance Vought F4U-5 Corsair and Grumman F8F-1 Bearcat
At 15:00 CDT, an F4U Corsair collided with a Grumman Bearcat on runway 18 at Wittman Regional Airport. The F4U-4 Corsair was destroyed and the pilot seriously injured. The Bearcat was substantially damaged but the pilot suffered no injuries. The pilot of the F4U-5 Corsair suffered minor injuries. At the time of the collision, the Bearcat was stationary on the runway about 1,400 feet from the departure end with its engine at idle power. The F4U-4 was at full power on takeoff roll and struck the Bearcat from behind. The F4U-5 was on takeoff roll in formation with the F4U-4. It sustained substantial damage when the pilot saw a second Grumman Bearcat on the runway in front of his aircraft and el...
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Air Compare: Grumman AA-5 vs. Mooney M20 Series
Moving four seats from point A to point B as quickly and efficiently— as possible.
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