Cessna 172 Skyhawks Reborn

One of the greatest aircraft compromises — in a good way — in history is Cessna's franchise model, the 172 Skyhawk. The iconic Kansas-based airplane maker has turned out more than 40,000 of the sheet-metal birds since the model's debut in 1956, and the utilitarian singles continue to roll down the line and out the hangar doors. While the 172 has changed in a thousand little ways over the years, with new tail shapes, engines, seat tracks, radios and countless other tweaks, the shape, performance and flying qualities of the bird have remained very much the same. The Skyhawk remains a frisky runabout, a trusty trainer and a passable short-haul transportation airplane, the same today as in the beginning.

One thing that has changed a lot is the price of the 172. Nearly 60 years down the line one would expect that to be the case, but not quite like this. A new Skyhawk is hovering, flaps fully extended, around the $400,000 ­figure, a price point that pushes the budgetary limits of even successful flight schools.

There's no arguing the Skyhawk is a great training airplane. It's roomy enough to be comfortable, though there's still some elbow bumping between friends. It's powerful enough that taking off with two or even three aboard when it's a little hot or a little high is still a doable proposition, and it's famously reliable to boot. Cessna got it right with this airplane.

The emergence of the 172 into the role of primary trainer is kind of an odd ascendancy, considering the light four-seater spent its time for decades not as a primary trainer but as a personal airplane, flying short to medium trips with the family or a friend or two, helping pilots keep that proficiency going and serving as the ideal chariot for countless breakfast runs to that little country airport with the perfect buttermilk biscuits.

Cessna's nominal trainer, the diminutive two-seat 150/152, was and is a great airplane — rugged, reliable, great-flying and fun — but it was small, not to mention expensive to build by today's standards, so it was left behind when Cessna relaunched its piston single lineup in the '90s. The company's attempt to create the next-gen trainer in the form of the LSA Skycatcher was a failure, which underscores just how good those 1950s-born singles from Cessna were.

So that's how the Skyhawk has become the default Cessna trainer, and a great one it is. Still, with cost such an issue, over the years many folks have come up with schemes to take existing ­Skyhawks with good bones and make them into factory-fresh airplanes for a fraction of the cost of truly new 172s.

One of the primary assumptions behind this movement to overhaul good used Skyhawks is that there are a lot of good used Skyhawks out there. With so many airplanes type-certified as C172s produced over the years, this seems self-evident. But it's not really true. We spoke with Jerry Gregoire, founder of Redbird Flight Simulations, about this, and without going into proprietary details, he told us there are actually relatively few of those 40,000-plus airplanes that are good candidates for refurbishing. Some, he told me, have old equipment and would be difficult and expensive to retrofit with modern gear, and others, he added, are too new, and are too useful and worth too much for an extensive overhaul to make sense.

It's easy in theory to winnow the talent pool from 40,000 to a much smaller number, say, 5,000 candidate airplanes. Even that might be a stretch. After all, you need to subtract from the pool those that have been destroyed, that are not for sale, that are for sale but are in terrible shape, and that have already gotten an expensive do-over, including but not limited to a new engine or fancy new radios.

Still, 5,000 or more age- and value-­appropriate Skyhawks to work with is a good number for starters, and there are countless ways to bring a 1970s-era Skyhawk up to more modern standards. These start with a close look at pretty much all of the hardware on the thing, from spars to seats and everything in between. Electronics are a must — with a notable exception with one company's scheme — and propulsion, as you'll see as well, is a primary consideration.

When all is said and done and a lot of dollars have been spent, the end product in every case is a Skyhawk that, if not new, is at least very nicely refurbished. Is it as good as a brand-new 172 fresh out of Cessna's single-engine plant in Independence, Kansas? Not really, but in most ways it's darned close. And for some operators, the addition of a compression ignition power plant — diesel! — is a game changer, promising greatly reduced operating costs and improved ease of operation to go along with those characteristics for which the Skyhawk is already rightly famous: great flying manners and rugged reliability.

Redbird Redhawk

To understand the story of the ­Redbird Redhawk you really need to understand the story of Redbird Flight Simulations. The brainchild of ­Gregoire, an aviation force who exists so far outside the box he can't even find the box anymore, Redbird started life as a company dedicated to creating affordable full-motion training devices.

There was a problem, however, in fact a number of problems, that the launch of the Redbird family of flight sims brought to the fore of Gregoire's efforts. For one, in order for flight schools to make best use of the sims Redbird was manufacturing, they had to have a viable flight training program. When Gregoire's team looked behind the curtain, they saw that many of their clients were challenged by the unavailability of affordable high-value training aircraft.

Gregoire's dramatic solution was to have Redbird start building airplanes themselves, at least rebuilding them. The "new" planes, dubbed ­"Redhawks," would be late '70s-, early '80s-era Skyhawks that Redbird would tear down to the frame and rebuild, getting rid of any corrosion, repainting, rerigging and putting in new glass, new doors, new interiors, a new panel and a new power plant, including new engine mount, Hartzell advanced composite prop and Hartzell composite spinner. The price for the one-size-fits-all Redhawk is $249,000, a lot less than that of a new Skyhawk but with a few hours on the airframe. Redbird has been ­operating its fleet of four Redhawks at its San Marcos, Texas, Skyport flight training center, and the birds are kept busy. The high-time airplane has more than 1,000 hours on it, and it is popular with Redbird's students.

That's thanks in part to the turbo­diesel engine that Redbird selected for the Redhawk, the Continental Centurion/Thielert TAE 125-02-99, a 135 hp engine that uses jet-A fuel, a kerosene-based fuel that's available worldwide and will continue to be.

The engine is a costly addition to the Redhawk, so as everyone else has learned, a like-new Skyhawk is not going to be a $100,000 airplane. The engine/prop package alone pushes that figure. But the airplane will be able to do things the original Skyhawk can't, like fly on a few gallons per hour when operating at reduced power, a typical profile for a trainer aircraft flying practice maneuvers. The savings per year in fuel can be nearly $40,000, claims Redbird, compared against the costs of the conventional gas piston Lycoming engines in the original 172.

The engine brings greatly reduced complexity of operation too. There's no mixture control, and start-up is easy, even when it's cold, unlike on gas piston engines, which can be cantankerous when the mercury dips.

The 135 horses the Redhawk's ­engine puts out are less than those of the original Skyhawk. The effect is noticeable on a standard day. The Redhawk doesn't climb as well as a vintage 172. There is now a model of the engine available that puts out 155 horses, which gives a converted Skyhawk more power but also uses a little more fuel. Redbird plans to offer that engine as an option soon.

For avionics, Redbird tried a little bit of everything before going with a panel that, while a little more expensive, made sense. The Garmin G500 panel gives pilots the look and feel of an integrated flat-panel design, like the G1000, at a fraction of the cost.

Redbird has gotten a lot of interest and a growing number of sales for its Redhawk conversion. It has now rebuilt eight of the airplanes. It recently booked an order for six airplanes from Cochise College in southern Arizona. With a field elevation of 4,000 feet, an altitude at which the Redhawk's turbodiesel still easily makes full power, the fuel-sipping Skyhawk sounds like a perfect fit for the school.

Premier 172

Like Redbird, Premier Aircraft Sales in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, is revamping used 172s by swapping out the original Lycoming engine with a smooth-running compression ignition diesel that burns jet-A, which in Premier's case is the 135-horsepower Continental CD-135.

For the upgrade, Premier starts with a donor airplane that can be a 172F through non-G1000 172S model and gets to work with a total makeover. Besides the Continental diesel engine, new MT prop and G500 glass panel, Premier also adds a Garmin GTN 750 touch-screen navigator and new paint and interior to go along with a complete inspection that includes a full corrosion check.

The CD-135 yields an all-around performance improvement of about 4 percent compared with the 160 hp Lycoming IO-360 it replaces. Jeff ­Owens, vice president of sales at Premier, says the company is also considering a conversion using the 155 hp Continental CD-155 diesel engine, FAA approval of which is expected soon. That engine will boost performance by an expected 11 percent over the original Lycoming for a price of about $10,000 more than a CD-135-equipped airplane.

The upgrade to diesel power, obviously, is attractive to customers in parts of the world where 100LL avgas is prohibitively expensive or simply unavailable. Price for the diesel conversion varies depending on the exact specifications a buyer chooses (options include air conditioning, air-bag seat belts, vortex generators and more) as well as the euro conversion rate at the time the airplane is ordered (Continental diesel engines come from the company's Technify subsidiary in Germany).

The airplane we flew for this report is priced at $259,000. If a customer wanted only the CD-135 diesel for an airplane he already owned, that upgrade would cost around $85,000 including installation.

Compare that with the $435,000 list price of the diesel version of the newest factory-built Cessna 172 JT-A with the Continental CD-155, and there's a compelling case to be made for opting for a refurbished airplane over a brand-new one.

In the United States, though, the shift to diesel power has yet to gain meaningful traction due to the high availability of avgas and additional price premium of the engine. Unfamiliarity with compression ignition engines is also probably preventing some flight schools from abandoning the dependable Lycoming IO-360, while memories of the Thielert diesel engine debacle with Diamond Aircraft are still fresh in some would-be buyers' minds. The CD-135 also currently has a TBO of just 1,500 hours.

Superior Skyhawk

If you're in the market for a refurbished Skyhawk that'll run on good old-fashioned 100LL (or mogas), Superior Air Parts, a manufacturer of PMA replacement parts for Lycoming and Continental engines, has launched the Vantage engine as a direct replacement for the Skyhawk's original 180 hp Lycoming IO-360. The company says the replacement engine is significantly less expensive than a new or refurbished Lycoming, and even costs less than some overhauls.

Price for the Vantage engine is $25,000, which includes a discount buyers receive for turning in their old engine core. Approved for installation in R and S model Skyhawks, the Vantage engine uses the identical case and all the same parts as the original Lycoming, providing the exact performance of a new IO-360 from the factory at half the price, said Scott Hayes, vice president of sales and marketing at Superior.

"The idea with the Vantage engine was to offer flight schools and individual owners a less expensive alternative to buying a new engine but with all new parts," Hayes said.

The Vantage engine's mogas STC is an important selling point, he added. One downside, however, is that TBO for the engine, like the Continental diesel, is 1,500 hours. Hayes said that should rise to 2,000 hours once more experience with the engine is gained. FAA certification, he said, is expected soon.

Sporty's 172LITE

Sporty's started turning heads last year with the introduction of what the Ohio pilot supply shop and flight school calls the 172LITE. It's a program designed to offer flight schools completely refurbished Cessna 172s with overhauled engine, new paint and interior, a new instrument panel, upgraded LED landing and taxi lights, new brakes and tires, overhauled prop, and much more, for an out-the-door price of $132,900.

Sporty's began with the premise that a primary trainer should include only the bare necessities required to learn how to fly, namely a basic six-pack instrument cluster and comm radio. There's no GPS receiver, no VOR, no shiny glass cockpit displays, or anything else to distract the ­student from the number one task at hand: mastering the stick-and-rudder skills of flying a light airplane.

There aren't even back seats, which Sporty's pulls out to save on weight and avoid the cost of refurbishment. Everything else in the airplane — ­cables, pulleys, sidewalls, windows and more — is thoroughly inspected and replaced or refurbished as needed.

"We want everything the customer sees and touches to look and feel like new," said Charlie Masters, vice president of sales for Sporty's. Once a 172LITE joins a school's flight line, the goal is to be able to offer it for instruction for $99 an hour. The first proof-of-concept airplane is flying on the line at Sporty's now, and a second one undergoing refurbishment will join it soon.

Sporty's starts with an L or M model Cessna 172, which has the 150 hp Lycoming IO-360-E2D engine preferred by many schools. It's overhauled by Signature Engines at Lunken Field in Cincinnati. While that's happening workers re-cover the front seats, install a new headliner and vinyl floor, and fit a metal instrument panel to replace the plastic original.

Sporty's has stirred interest with word of the 172LITE program, but so far has yet to receive any orders. It could be that flight schools are crunching the numbers to see if they can achieve similar results for less money using a local engine over­hauler and paint shop.

It's a potential hurdle for all of the firms seeking to launch formal refurbishment programs, which risk being viewed as middlemen looking to make a buck. Whether that's a fair assessment is open to debate. There's considerable labor involved in taking an airplane completely apart, inspecting absolutely everything and replacing worn parts to bring it all back up to like-new spec. "It always costs more than you think it will," Masters cautioned would-be do-it-yourselfers.

Cessna 172 JT-A

For the past 50-plus years, people who flew Cessna Skyhawks have been dragging the avgas hose up to the plane, clambering up and pumping in the petrol. It simply worked. Yet despite its vast experience with gas piston power, Cessna has recognized the global shift in thinking on aviation fuel and has put its development dollars behind new compression-ignition initiatives, though those efforts have not been as easygoing as it had hoped. The two programs, to create diesel-powered versions of the 172 Skyhawk and 182 Skylane, have been plagued by technical and vendor challenges, most notably the insolvency of the original engine manufacturer, Thielert, several years ago.

Happily, the Skyhawk diesel, now called the 172 JT-A, is closing in on approval by both the European Aviation Safety Agency and the FAA. The 172 JT-A is equipped with a more powerful version of the same engine, but one that is far more reliable and better supported than the original.

There are several key advantages to buying a new diesel Skyhawk, most notably that you're buying a new airplane and not one that's merely "like new." You also get the integrated G1000 avionics with all of the engine management tools built in, an advantage aftermarket converters are unable to offer at this time.

Buyers also get all of the latest safety improvements that Cessna has made to the Skyhawk since it restarted its production in the early 1990s after a 10-year hiatus. From seats to flaps to glass to the fuel system, Cessna ­addressed numerous safety concerns with its new production 172, and all of those enhancements are built into the Skyhawk JT-A.

Brand-New 172 Diesel Retrofits

The number of companies jumping into the market for Cessna 172 diesel conversions continues to grow, but the idea is by no means new. A partnership among the ­Africair Group of Companies has been converting avgas Skyhawks to diesel birds for more than a decade, meeting growing demand for the jet-A-powered 172 around the world, particularly in locations where 100LL has become increasingly scarce.

To date Africair has made more than 60 conversions, in most cases replacing the Skyhawk's Lycoming with a Continental CD-135, although the company has recently completed a number of conversions using Continental's more powerful CD-155. The venture is particularly popular with flight training providers, thanks to the enhanced fuel economy of the jet-A engines. Its customers include such clients as Ethiopian Airlines, for whom Africair has recently converted four new 2015 Skyhawks with the G1000 suite into diesel fliers, as well as the Angolan air force, which took delivery of six brand-new Skyhawks with diesel engines from the company in 2013.

While the company has performed retrofit installations in locations throughout the world, including Germany, South Africa, Egypt and Guadeloupe, the retrofits are more often completed in Miami, Florida, by Propel Aviation Sales & Services and then exported from the United States.

Matt Lee, regional sales manager for Tropical Aviation Distributors, part of the Africair Group of Companies, says the conversions are particularly useful for those looking to log a significant amount of hours on their airplane.

See all of these many Skyhawks in our photo gallery here.