Club Homepage Forums Classified Ads Buy & Sell - Everything But Airplanes Is the SparrowHawk really worth it?

The SparrowHawk conversion looks attractive to me from what I've been told. More climb rate and cruises towards the 125 MPH range on 7.5 GPH.

The cons I've heard is that the engine is under more stress due to the higher compression pistons. I've also read that MOGAS is not approved for the Sparrowhawk.

Is it worth it? How long did you go before overhauls if you've owned one and how was the performance?

The TBO for the O-235 engine (with genuine Lycoming pistons) in a 152 is 2400 hrs. I believe the Sparrowhawk conversion reduces it to 2000 hrs.

Hung is correct. The TBO is 2000 hrs for the Sparrowhawk.
The climb performance is greatly improved.
The Prop AD is no more.
I still flight plan for 6 GPH Hobbs time and cruise at 2450-2500 rpms
at 95 to 105 kts.

I am very pleased with mine, but can't comment on the cost, because my upgrade was basically free.

My O-235 was nearing TBO, but had been rebuilt 3 times, and I thought if I could find a runout lower time engine, to be rebuilt while I still have a good engine in the plane to keep it flying, I wouldn't have any downtime.

What I found, was a wrecked 152TD with a low time Sparrowhawk conversion. The accident was in the snow with the airplane on skis, where the airframe spun around on it's vertical axis, damaging the gear legs and wings, but the engine and tailfeathers were untouched.

I bought the wreck for a good price, I got all the STC paperwork and excellent logbooks and other paperwork. I got the Sparrowhawk STC transferred to my airplane, paid for an engine installation, and then parted out the rest of the wreck for more than I paid, plus all expenses.

In short, I ended up with an 800 hour Sparrowhawk engine in my plane and some extra spending money in my pocket. I did spend several hours of my time hauling things around, removing the engine from the wreck, advertising parts, and shipping parts, but instead of any out-of-pocket expense when all was said and done, I put a little cash in the bank for upcoming maintenance.

Gosh Terry,
I'm giving you a call nearing overhaul time! Hope you finder's fee isn't too steep.

Well played!