Thomas M. Olson: Flying Home

The Goose was originally the SeaHawk. The SeaHawk was first shown at Oshkosh in 1984 I believe by Gary LeGare. The original prototype had a Volkswagon engine. Many pilots have a dream of owning a pleasurable, elegant and useful amphibian that will be right at home at their nearby GA airport. One that is small and will be easy to hangar, has good performance off the land and water, is good looking on the tarmac as well as on the seaplane ramp, and is easy to maintain even for salt water operations. The SeaHawk seemed to be the answer to "that dream". Well, that dream still is "out there" for many of us even after 20 years. The SeaHawk concept is a great one but it has had its challenges reaching the aspirations the dream embodied. Gary got it started but the "development" aspects of any new design plus the added chanllenges of composite construction, bi-plane pusher design, and of course the amphibious requirement, all have been there for the SeaHawk. That "developement" aspect has been "going on" all these 20 years with a good share being done by the builders and of course by the respective 4 kit manurfactures in their turn. Much having be done by Tom Scott, first as a builder, then builder/dealer, then as manufacturer of the Glass Goose. Those of us with pre-Glass Goose, SeaHawk, or SeaHawker kits have had the most to do in dealing with the building and operational issues of the design. STBEL has tried to be a place for the exchange of ideas and experiences, the sharing of which might be of mutual help to the members. It would be good to hear reports on respective SeaHawk/Glass Goose projects by members on STBEL site for two reasons: one to learn if the validity of the purpose of the site remains, and also to hear from friends gained over these 18 years for me and even 20 years for the first of you present at Oshkosh in July/Aug. of 1984. Martin Beeker and I would like feed-back and I'm sure all would enjoy/benefit from something of help or interest. STBEL is about 4 years old in activity, I think all would agree. John Talmage o Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------> Thursday- November 13. 2003 America Online: Tom5464U@aol.com

See Glass Goose under construction now!