SparrowHawk Build Pictures

[Vance]

Re:SparrowHawk Build Pictures

It looks great Randy, when do you plan on your first flight? Your speed at dificult and complex tasks is remarkable. Thank You, Vance

 

[r.coplen]

Re:SparrowHawk Build Pictures

Vance,

I hope to have everything done late April, early May. I am going to spend a little extra work making the engine look extra nice. This will be my sales demonstrator. I am a little concerned about getting my registration documents back from the FAA before I am done. We are still going back and forth on some details of the SparrowHawk being owned by my company. It will be used in our flight training school. Hopefully registration will get completed soon.

Thanks, Randy

 

[Vance]

Re:SparrowHawk Build Pictures

Hi Randy, I admire your agressive schedual. You have certainly come a long way already. I'm not able to have fun when I hurry and I am not satisfied with the results. You seem to have defeated both challanges. I hope that I will get to see your machine in person at Mentone or Oshkosh. Thank You, Vance

 

[r.coplen]

Re:SparrowHawk Build Pictures

Did some airbrushing and put three coats of clear coat on today. I used Zolatone, black with white speckles, inside. Applied the Zolatone tday also. That is great stuff. Dries very fast and covers up all kinds of sins.

Randy Coplen

 

[KenSandyEggo]

Re:SparrowHawk Build Pictures

Randy, what kind of room is there in the pod for radios? I have a comm radio and transponder. Is there room to install these?

 

[Russell]

Re:SparrowHawk Build Pictures

Kem I know an Icom radio and a transponder will fit. The guages are all in one digital package. I know I dont have one but I have seen one first hand. ;D
Russ

 

[r.coplen]

Re:SparrowHawk Build Pictures

Ken,

There is room for those full sized insturments and the insturment package from AAI. Jim Mayfield is using a Bendix King radio and a full sized transponder in his SparrowHawk. I am using the Becker combo setup in mine. It is a lot smaller than Jims setup. I am starting to think about other insturment to put in the pod to fill it out. Except for a clock I think I have just about everything I will want. It comes with a compus and the AMPtronic GX2 class inurment package. This gives you altimeter, air speed, engine rpm, vertical speed, air temp, fuel, engine hours, battery status, and water temp. There is a seperate rotor rpm guage.

In a couple of weeks I will have that all installed and will post some photos as I go along.

Randy coplen

 

[Hognose]

Re:SparrowHawk Build Pictures

Wow, Randy!

You are building a beautiful and unique rotorcraft and I hope that you train LOTS of safe pilots and sell a TRAINLOAD of Sparrowhawks to them. Best of luck.

cheers

-=K=-

 

[asmuzsr]

Re:SparrowHawk Build Pictures

Randy
Once this one is finished what are you going to do with the Bunny Hugger?

 

[r.coplen]

Re:SparrowHawk Build Pictures

Hognose,

Thanks for the great wish. I am just a small part of a great group of people involved here (Seattle), in Buckeye, scattered around the US and a few folks in other countries that are doing everything possible to make the gyroplane a popular and safe part of the aviation world.

You great wishes are much appreciated.

Randy Coplen

 

[r.coplen]

Re:SparrowHawk Build Pictures

Hey Tony,

How you doing? (For those who don't know, I bought the Bunny Hugger from Tony and had AAI do their mod majic on this machine)

Tony, I have it down in Buckeye as the weather is spotty at best here. Scott Tinnesand is in the process of training two CFI's for me. I have renamed her Ruby (cause of her color). I will bring her back to Seattle in May and put her in our training program. I will use Ruby and my SparrowHawk full time in the flight school. We have over 400 hours on Ruby now and I expect we will put another 300 before the end of the year. Lots of interest in flight training and it is a great place to come in th Spring and Summer to learn.

How is your airplane kit comming? Good to hear from you.

Best Regards, Randy

 

[Gyrobound]

Re:SparrowHawk Build Pictures

Randy, the pictures are fantastic. What a great looking machine. If you get a chance to send others my way via email that would be much appreciated. How was your trip? Hope it was for pleasure and not all work. Look forward to building my own here in the near future. You are an inspiration to us who needed a little push.



Scott

 

[asmuzsr]

Re:SparrowHawk Build Pictures

Hey Randy
Glad to hear "Ruby's" treating you well.

We finished our new plane and it first flew last Oct. 3th. As the weather is quite windy in the winter here I still have 7 hours to finish before the 40 hour s are done. Am working right now on finding the best prop for it. It's very relaxing to fly, when it's not blowing, but it's not a gyro. I can see a new one in the furture. I miss the short landings.
Not sure what I'll build yet, but it'll either be a SparrowHawk or a Little Wing. I'm going to try and get to Bensen days and hope to see a Little Wing up close. Maybe even get a flight in one. Of course I'll have to get a ride with Terry Eiland, that goes without saying. I need a bi-annual anyway.

Tony
N267A

 

[John Conte]

Hours Spent

Hours Spent

Hello All and Randy Coplan,

Just curious if you know how much time you have spent doing mechanical work, like bolting, riveting and mounting vs painting, priming, and finishing. Not being versed in the latter, I would consider the powder coated option AAi offers. Being a dealer, do you know what painting steps their process consists of? For example, do they prime, fill holes and gel coat, or just prime and finish coat ? Also, I believe you can have the tail prefabbed, how many hours does this save roughly? Thanks.

 

[r.coplen]

John,

Most of the work has been bolting, riviting and fabrication. The cabin is really clean jell coat. Finishing the tail takes more work but with the spray primer and than some filler, it's not bad. The big benefit of the powder coated option is that AAI does a lot of the fabrication work you would have to do otherwise. I have found it difficult to keep from scratching the finished powder coated parts as we are assembling the SparrowHawk. I have repainted some of the parts as I am focused on making the cleanest demonstration SparrowHawk gyro possible. If you are not set up with metal cutting tools like band saws and drill presses I would recommend having the parts come powder coated. I did buy the tail assembly prefabricated and I would recommend that to most buyers. There is a lot of time and effort in putting the tail assembly together. It is worth the extra bucks to have either AAI do it or have assistance from you local SparrowHawk build center if you are going to have one near you. My understanding is that it takes adout 100 to 120 hours to build the tail assembly. Ken Krotzer in Oregon is just starting to assemble his tail section now. I will ask him to give us a report when he is done on how long it took him. The other part of that job is how difficult it is.

Thanks for your questions, Randy

 

[Gyrobound]

Randy, any updates? Also you said you were going to send some stuff to me via email. I know you are busy with the build so when ever you get around to it. Would love to see more of your work there.
Scott

 

[Gyrobound]

So Randy, what happened to you? No posts in quite a while. How is the Sparrow Hawk coming?

Scott

 

[Gyrobound]

Randy, I just checked and the manage attachments worked for me. I just hit the browse button and it looked in my hard drive for the pictures. They must be in a format that the browser recognizes but your other pictures are still there so I would figure you should be alright. Try it again.

Scott

 

[Gyrobound]

Randy, are you going to the post quick reply or Reply to thread? Under the Reply to Thread, I have a section entitled Additional Options where there is a section on Managing your attachments where it askes to upload pictures or what ever. I just uploaded the picture from the website showing the Sparrow Hawk at sunset. Seems to work ok for me.

Scott

 

[r.coplen]

Tail Assembly Painted

Tail Assembly Painted

Sorry to be so long posting, Thanks for the help Scott.