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The Sea Hawk has a long, long sad history. The problems with the Seahawk began with the very first original design. The Seahawk as originally envisioned by Gary LeGare of Aero Gare, Mojave Ca, was to be a MUCH lighter aircraft than that which it became. For instance, it was originally intended to utilize a Volkswagen engine! When LeGare determined that the plane was too heavy and would require more horsepower, he went to the 150 HP Lycoming. That was just the beginning of a long series of modifications to the original design, which added up to a substantially higher empty weight. As do a lot of designers, LeGare did not anticipate the effects of each modification on the rest of the overall aircraft. As a result, such things as the landing gear components were incapable of handling the additional stresses. Since that was not figured into the overall modification or redesign process, Seahawk builders experienced many landing gear failures. In addition, the plane would not get on step or off the water well with one person, let alone two. It was seriously short of wing and hull area. Another area, which required substantial change, was the overall aerodynamics of the plane. The original design simply was not capable of flying over 100 MPH. The relatively short and wide pylon area was a source of almost insurmountable induced drag, especially over 85 MPH. The required aerodynamic modifications to the design to correct that problem added even more weight. The design flaws which must be corrected in the Seahawks in order to make the plane a safe and viable aircraft are entirely too numerous to try to go into all of them in detail in this letter, but a few of them are discussed briefly to give you an idea of the seriousness of the problem. All the hardware is different, as is the canopy, sponsons, spray rails, pylon area, landing gear and of course, the wings and entire control system. Flapperons are made of carbon fiber, combining added strength with a lighter part and are balanced. Wing Spar Bonding- Due to a shortcoming in the assembly instructions for the Seahawk kits, it was very common for the upper spar caps to not be adequately bonded to the top of the spar. This is equivalent to the rivets being left out of the wing spar in a metal aircraft. As a result, there have been Seahawks that have had at least one wing break off in flight! These were always upper wings (right or left) and to the credit of the plane, a number of those planes were flown to reasonably safe landings. One plane landed 7 miles from where the wing was found! But that is not to say that all that experienced this failure were successfully landed. The bonding of the spar cap to the spar is referred to as a "blind" bond because it is difficult to observe the actual bonded area. Inspecting the spars for proper bonding is not simple, and it took years to develop the procedures. If the wings fail the inspection, there is no fix. The wings must be replaced. Even if they pass the inspection, they still require extensive modification in other areas. Control System Design Flaws- The control systems throughout the Seahawk were rife with shortcomings.

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