It has now been 10 months since the Bearhawk frame was unloaded into our designated shop area (Sterling IL) where we are working on constructing a new Bearhawk 5 plane with floats. It is being designed and built with the next mission that Amazon Salt and Light (ASL) has in mind. It is a more remote area than they operate from now which is Humaita Brazil. The location is 200- 300 miles further into the interior of Brazil to the next main river system. The river that flows thru Humita and the next river system are all tributaries of the Amazon river. I have had the privilege of visiting ASL headquarters and I was surprised to see that in my estimation that the river is bigger than the Mississippi river. Since there are few roads the river is the road and that is where the people are located , along the road. Now back to the plane. I have provided some pictures of what it looks like and what we have done so far and it doesn’t look like we have done very much but we have numerous hours of volunteers time. Well we were just gaining momentum and spring crop planting came along but we have about 200-300 hours of work done so far. Here is what we have done.
–All the control surfaces work except the ailerons and flaps -since the wings aren’t on- at least you can sit in it and pretend
–We have now acquired a sheet metal break and shear to do the aluminum cutting and bending
–The engine cowling is in place and we have fitted the windshield
–The dash is in place and ready for the instrument cluster
–Tire and brakes are installed with the brake lines run
–The doors and windows are in the process of being installed
These are the main items we have done but the two most exciting things are that the engine which is a 300 hp 6 cylinder Lycoming will be shipped in about 2 weeks! The other item is we have ordered the fabric and that will be coming shortly. We have picked yellow fabric so the plane will be very visible when the background is jungle green.
****We are still in need of funding to pay for the engine and fabric so if you would like to join the project to take the gospel further faster we would love for you to be apart of the team!****
The total for these items is $52,000. PTL we have $25,000 already committed!
-Dan Koster, member of Amazon Salt and Light Aviation Committee.
