Heather Poe
Gold Supporter
- Joined
- Jun 10, 2004
- Messages
- 665
- Location
- Redmond, WA
- Aircraft
- Building a Sparrowhawk II
- Total Flight Time
- 35
I have 16 hours of flight instruction in a RAF 2000 with AAI conversion with the drop-keel, and one hour in a Sparrowhawk. I would like to share my personal impressions, and I hope I don't get into a religious war comparing the two machines. I am also not trying to analyze whether the differences I notice are due to design, build quality, or maintenance.
When I would pull the aircraft in an arc from the hanger, the RAF nose wheel would stay straight, but the Sparrowhawk nose wheel would angle to assist the turn.
The Sparrowhawk seemed to require much less effort with the rudder and differential brakes to keep on track while taxing. The RAF 2000 required much more attention to keep it going straight down a taxiway.
The airport I use, S50, has a string of high power lines just past the north end of the runway that crosses the flight path. Especially as a student pilot, these always made me a bit nervous. With the carbureted 2.2-liter RAF 2000, I always had to be careful with air speed and rate of climb to miss them. The Sparrowhawk seems to have almost 50% greater rate of climb, with the fuel-injected 2.2-liter engine, an airport elevation of 57 feet, at 60 degrees F, and carrying (the same) 400 pounds of crew. I am usually well above the height of the power lines while still over the runway in the Sparrowhawk.
The Sparrowhawk seems to cruise best at 70 to 75 mph, instead of 65 mph in the RAF 2000. Without attention, the Sparrowhawk seems to want to go even faster than those speeds.
The flight controls (cyclic and rudder) seem to be "tighter" in the Sparrowhawk, subjectively similar to the difference between the looser feel in a Detroit car, and the tighter feel of a German car.
With my body shape, I usually felt that my knees were bent too much while flying, and I usually had a backache at the end of an hour of flying the RAF 2000. I could easily choose to comfortably fly in a seat-forward position in the Sparrowhawk because it has so much more legroom. I was also not shoulder-to-shoulder in the Sparrowhawk, as I was in the RAF 2000.
I like to fly with a cap with a visor on it. In the Sparrowhawk, it was inconvenient to look up and adjust the ceiling-mounted switches with the cap and visor on.
The fiberglass Sparrowhawk instrument pod is on a metal pedestal. In the Sparrowhawk that I was flying, the compass is mounted on top of the pod. Probably due to the harmonics of the instrument pod, rotor system, compass, and wind, we had the compass continuously rotating around while flying straight.
I was very under-impressed with the legibility of the standard Skydat Electronic instrumentation. I found the indicators to be small and dim.
When I would pull the aircraft in an arc from the hanger, the RAF nose wheel would stay straight, but the Sparrowhawk nose wheel would angle to assist the turn.
The Sparrowhawk seemed to require much less effort with the rudder and differential brakes to keep on track while taxing. The RAF 2000 required much more attention to keep it going straight down a taxiway.
The airport I use, S50, has a string of high power lines just past the north end of the runway that crosses the flight path. Especially as a student pilot, these always made me a bit nervous. With the carbureted 2.2-liter RAF 2000, I always had to be careful with air speed and rate of climb to miss them. The Sparrowhawk seems to have almost 50% greater rate of climb, with the fuel-injected 2.2-liter engine, an airport elevation of 57 feet, at 60 degrees F, and carrying (the same) 400 pounds of crew. I am usually well above the height of the power lines while still over the runway in the Sparrowhawk.
The Sparrowhawk seems to cruise best at 70 to 75 mph, instead of 65 mph in the RAF 2000. Without attention, the Sparrowhawk seems to want to go even faster than those speeds.
The flight controls (cyclic and rudder) seem to be "tighter" in the Sparrowhawk, subjectively similar to the difference between the looser feel in a Detroit car, and the tighter feel of a German car.
With my body shape, I usually felt that my knees were bent too much while flying, and I usually had a backache at the end of an hour of flying the RAF 2000. I could easily choose to comfortably fly in a seat-forward position in the Sparrowhawk because it has so much more legroom. I was also not shoulder-to-shoulder in the Sparrowhawk, as I was in the RAF 2000.
I like to fly with a cap with a visor on it. In the Sparrowhawk, it was inconvenient to look up and adjust the ceiling-mounted switches with the cap and visor on.
The fiberglass Sparrowhawk instrument pod is on a metal pedestal. In the Sparrowhawk that I was flying, the compass is mounted on top of the pod. Probably due to the harmonics of the instrument pod, rotor system, compass, and wind, we had the compass continuously rotating around while flying straight.
I was very under-impressed with the legibility of the standard Skydat Electronic instrumentation. I found the indicators to be small and dim.
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