SparrowHawk owners, lets hear from you!

Okay, here goes. A biased opinion because I am indeed a SparrowHawk
owner.

Flying the SH is a blast! Good roll rate, but not twitchy. Speed
control very easy. Get a little slow thermalling and looking around?
Nothing happens. No break, just a little loss of lift and all the
typical signs of slow airspeed. Reduce the angle of attack slightly
and you're back in business. All controls remain effective throughout
this regime which in most anything else I've flown would result in a
break, wingdrop or worse requiring some type of "recovery". Not in
the SH.

Before flying it I thought it would be slow to accelerate because of
its low mass and therefore low inertia. I forgot that there is also
very low drag. It accelerates just fine. It also retains speed on a
pull-up. (For example after an exuberant low, not too low please,
pass and pullup to enter the pattern for landing)

The light weight and consequent ease of assembly is a much bigger plus
than I had counted on. I almost never ask for help assembling unless
it is windy. Just roll the fuselage out on it's dolly, set out
wingtip stands, grab a wing (all 37 lbs. of it) stick the spar in its
slot in the fuselage, do the same for the other wing and then hook
everything up. Preflight, critical assembly check, and you're good to
go.

Another big plus in the light weight department is the ease of pushing
it from assembly point to launch point. It's as easy to push it as it
is to walk the wing on other ships. We occasionally have towed it
with a bicycle. (I'm looking for a strong bicycle rider to try a
launch.)

I've aerotowed behind 260 Pawnees down to ultralights. It's quite
happy on tow at speeds from 40kts to 80kts. One ultralight tow was
somewhere around 35-37 knots and the only thing I had to do
differently was to fly a little to the side to keep towline in sight
because of high deck angle.

I've had some folks express concern about it in strong surface winds.
As Eric Greenwell pointed out in an early article, that is no more of
an issue than for any of the older design ships. There just isn't
that much surface area for the wind to have its effect. Probably the
same as a 1-26 which I think was Eric's comparison. I've had it in
surface winds up to around 35 kts and yes, I was concerned, but no
more than everyone else with their much heavier ships.

One of the truly amazing things about the SH is just how strong it is.
The carbon fibre seems extremely damage tolerant to me. I've landed
in gravel with pretty good rocks and had other bangs and bashes and
there is nothing but paint scratches on the wheel fairings.

Now--the biggie--Who will and who won't tow it or allow it to be in
their sight. I have been around quite a bit of the country with mine
and I know for sure there is at least one other that has been around
much more than I have. I have had two commercial operators say they
do not want to even talk about it because they know it's an ultralight
and therefore they want nothing do with it. In one case I asked if
they would like to look at it in the trailer and was informed that he
did not want to even see an ultralight anything. (I think there might
have been a prejudicial attitude there.) The good news is that
everywhere else I've been, both commercial operations and clubs have
been happy to have it around. They have examined the FAR's and their
insurance, my qualifications, experience, etc. and have been
satisfied.

A final point. If the "ultralight issue" is an issue for anyone,
register it. Put an "N" something on it and do the legal EXPERIMENTAL
thing. It's not that hard. No more so than any of the imports that
require it. There have been all sorts of comments on RAS to the
effect that the imports may in some cases have a foreign airworthiness
cert. The truth is, "If it doesn't have an FAA airworthiness
certificate, then it doesn't have an airwortiness certificate.
Period. (Obviously I'm referring to registration under USA FAA rules.
Certainly no offense to any political entity outside the USA)

Regards, Stan Taylor