Redbird's Redhawk: Like New at a Used Price

摘要

For at least two decades, the airframe manufacturers have relegated new trainers to the "why bother?" category. The market is so moribund that the last truly consequential trainer, other than LSAs, was Diamond's DA20 Katana, a 1995 intro that was a lukewarm seller at best. Sooner or later, this was going to be fixed and in Red-bird's new Redhawk Skyhawk diesel conversion, maybe later has actually arrived, at least as an incremental step forward. Redbird, which invented the inexpensive, motion-based simulator market, unveiled the Redhawk at AirVenture in July. Although it doesn't qualify as a new airframe or even a new idea, its execution can be called innovative: a remanufactured Cessna 172 fitted with a Centurion 2.0 diesel (now Continental, formerly Thielert), fresh paint and upholstery and a not-that-modest glass panel that isn't a Garmin G1000.