BushCaddy
Bushcaddy is a Canadian company located in Quebec. It offers five kit plane designs, from an ultralight to a four seat design and all are designed for STOL and the bush. Being homebuilt, the builder has a wide choice of engine options and Bushcaddy even provides some help in specifically tailoring an engine to a specific design, unlike many kit plane suppliers. Rotax, Jaribu and Franklin can be used on some models and more traditional engines such as Lycoming are compatible with others.
The Bushcaddy kits are metal design and the company claims they can be constructed in 800-1,000 hours of construction time. As is always the case with build-time figures, these numbers are just guides and the mechanical aptitude of the builder must be considered. To allay some kitbuilder fears, Bushcaddy offers quick-build kits for all their models. Less complete kits come with jig-aligned pre-drilled holes, greatly facilitating assembly, especially for the first time builder.
R-120 Model BushCaddy equipped with a Continental 0200A Engine
The owner of the above BushCaddy is Glenn Bishell of Carstairs, Alberta who explained how he completed his plane, "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" Here is a short video of the BushCaddy flying over Alberta, Canada. It is the same plane as the photo above with it's pilot owner, Glen Bishnell, who lives just north of Calgary.
Marin Alderacres, a sport pilot from the U.S., wrote in to tell us the Bushcaddy LSA is his dream plane and the best bush plane and it was at his urging that we featured the plane on this website. At the time of his email he owned a Merlin GT (an Aerocomp ultra light homebuilt) and was in the process of building his Bushcaddy. Hopefully he will finish his plane and let us post some photos. If you've got a home built plane you'd like to rant and rave about. Please do so here.
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