Diesel powered 337

[hharney]

The Golden Hawk also is amazingly quiet -- another result of its original military design goals. The new Hartzell props provide lower noise signature and the engines are so quiet that it is said that it makes less noise on a take off roll than a Cessna 150 taxiing by on the ramp. Skymasters are usually noisy inside, so this will be welcome -- I don't know if the plane's ability to land nearly silently at midnight on a desert strip in the middle of nowhere half a world away is of interest to anyone, though....

TF Hawk said that the costs of operating the Golden Hawk Skymaster are extraordinarily low -- first, the engine maintenance is less than half of an IO-360 powered aircraft; second, the fuel is much cheaper than 100LL; third it burns less than half the fuel per hour and, when at altitude maybe even 1/4 the fuel; and fourth, it flies higher and faster TAS as a result, so you get there quicker. Based on that, the Golden Hawk is likely that your flying costs will go down by as much as $200 to $300 per hour or even more, depending on where you live and the price of fuel at your airport (I imagine that this conversion will be very interesting for European customers, where fuel prices are four to five times higher than they are in the USA).

Thinking about it, this means that if you fly 300 hours a year, the conversion will pay for itself in less than four hours as a result of the cost savings you will enjoy.

More to come.... I am arranging a phone call in the next week or so with one of the top team at TF Hawk, where I intend to confirm this and learn more yet, which I will pass on. When I discussed this with them, the company did state to me that the above is fairly accurate, though they're not confirming anything yet pending the launch of a new civilian conversion announcement on their website. They did confirm that they will deliver an aircraft in as little as six months from date of order and that they can handle up to six aircraft at a time in the shop. This is their first venture into the civilian market, despite nearly four years of development work underway for exclusive military uses, so they are excited about it.