N84573, A Cessna 172K; and a general ode to Skyhawks.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Some of you may remember last year when I almost bought a 40-year-old Hughes 269A helicopter – but was put off by the high insurance costs.

Some of you may remember a time in 2000 when I tracked down the airplane I “earned my wings” in.

Well, I haven’t been flying for a while because I either have the money but no time or the time but no money. It’s been killing me. I can’t stand being ground-bound. So today I contacted a local FBO to enquire about getting back into fixed-wings. Eighty-five bucks an hour for a C-172! Unbelievable! (I can rent cheaper 20 miles away, but I’d really like to hone my abilities in the crowded airspace of the L.A. Basin.)

I’ve been looking at Kitplanes magazine. Of course I don’t have the time to build my own. (But there’s a sweet-looking single-seat, turbine-powered Helicycle helicopter for $22,000.) So I went over to the FAA aircraft registry site and verified that the owner of old '573 was still who it was in 2000. He never replied to my letter, but what the heck? I may as well try again.

Cessna changed the 172 around 1973 or so. It got a new tail “skeg” and tubular steel maingear struts. It really looked – and looks – rakish. '573 is a 1970 model. It has the short skeg that I never really liked back when I was flying it. Being young, I liked the sleek look of the newer planes. But a couple of years ago I saw a '70 172 up at VNY that was parked next to a newer one. Ya know what? The older design really looks jaunty perched up on its flat spring steel landing struts. Yeah, that’s just the word: “Jaunty”.

There are faster planes than the 172. Face it: The Skyhawk is the Honda Civic of the airplane world. Not especially pretty, not especially fast, common as dirt. The 172 is not a sexy airplane.

But you know what? There’s a reason there are so many of them. They’re good, solid, simple airplanes. Gobs of lift in those thirty-six foot wings, and 40° Fowler flaps in the older models that extend like aluminum barn doors for a nice steep descent. They’re forgiving aircraft with a good useful load. The high wings shield pilot and passengers from the rain.

'573 took me on several trips from the arid Mojave Desert to the green of southern Oregon. It numbed by hindquarters with its notoriously uncomfortable seats. It took me aloft on a see-forever day and let me say, “I am King of all I survey.” It entered sounds and smells into my sensory catalogue. It took me several times to Las Vegas for lunch. It gave me Quality Time with my father. It gave my sister’s dog a ride.

So what if the paint was ugly and the non-matching interior was tatty? It flew! And that’s the important thing: to “leave the planet, if only for an hour”.

I don’t know if the owner will sell '573 to me. I don’t know if I will ever fly that old friend again. I don’t know if I’ll ever own my own aircraft (but I suspect I will once I set my mind to it).

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds – and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue,
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew.
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
– RCAF Flight-Lieutenant John Gillespie Magee Jr.
(1922-1941).

2

I know the feeling. The trusty 172 I did most of my primary training in is gonna be sold and gone soon, her and her sisters being replaced by a fleet of 25 shiny new Diamonds and Pipers.

I have wanted an airplane since I was 19, and lately the wait is becoming intolerable.

3

My first 172 and I had a sweet but all too short friendship. I met N53118, a 1981 172P, when I was about seven hours into my primary training in August 2000. Compared to the 152 I had been squished into, ol’ 118 was roomy, climbed like a demon, and always flew straight and level. Of course, she had the audacity to get those amazingly effective flaps stuck during our first flight, and my instructor nursed her 15 miles back home at a blazing 65 knots.

She was my first solo a month and a half later, yielding the three best landings I’d ever made, and was an incredibly enjoyable cross-country machine; the true rigging and DME receiver did a lot for my confidence when I only had 25-30 hours of total time. Sadly, events beyond my control cut things short. I didn’t do any flying over winter break, and when I came back in January 2001, my instructor broke the news: N53118 was no more. Another student had caught a wing on a snowbank during solo flight, and flipped her flat on her back, crushing her tail and bending wings. Though there was talk of repairing her for a while, she was ultimately scrapped, and an inquiry to the FAA aircraft registry reads like a death warrant:

Reason for Cancellation Destroyed
Cancel Date 02/10/2003

I finished my training in the Archer II, which felt more solid and powerful. I’ve flown the new 172R, which was even more solid and stable than the Archer. I’ve even logged five hours a piece in a J3 Cub and a C140, which were more fun than a 172 could ever be. But like a first love, there’s just something about the first airplane you really get to know.

4

Ah, yes. We each have our own loyalties… Here’s to:

Schweizer SGS 2-33AK C-GCLR

Cessna 152 II C-FZKL

CLR was the first aircraft I soloed in, a two-seat glider. The 2-33A was a production model, but you could get it as a kit, and that’s what the Cenral Region Gliding School did back in 1973 (I think). It just went through a rebuild this past year. And it’s pretty as ever. This year, I was instructing on gliders, including that very aircraft. On the anniversary of my solo, I spent some quality time with CLR and its journey log.

FZKL was the airplane I did the first half of my power training on. It was on lease to Empire Aviation (Centralia) from some little place in Sault Ste Marie. The most rugged of the Empire fleet, it was equipped with long-range tanks, an in-panel radio/intercom, and two-tone stripes on the fuselage. I did my first solo in FZKL, but not many flights after that. I can still remember the way the fuel and the interior upholstery smelled.

(I’d provide links, but the TC site seems to be down.)

Ahh, the good times in old ZKL. Ahh, the sweet caress of the plywood seat in CLR. Ahh, the thrill of teaching students to fly in my own solo plane. Ahh, the pride of using the new-style radio installed in CLR in the last GSIRP.

Wonderful aircraft, those were. ^^:)^^

5

Guys, what you said, it’s a snifffff just so beautiful, really, and sniff, sniff, hooooooooooooonk! snort I am really moved.

I like the pre-1964 C172’s, the ones the manual flaps and the lower panel. Gosh, they ain’t fast and they ain’t sexy but they are fun!

6

Well, I just discovered that the Cessna 150 I soloed is living in Tehachapi, Ca. I wonder when it left the flying club? I also discovered one of the 172s I flew in San Diego is now owned by someone living 20 miles or so from me!

I’m going to dig out my old log book and see what happened to the other planes I flew. It’s been 25 years since I was a pilot in command - sometimes I really miss it. But I can only afford one expensive vice at a time, and the boat won out over the plane 20 years ago.

7

Broomstick and FairyChatMom: Have you ever read Women and Flight: Portraits of Contemporary Women Pilots by Carolyn Russo? (I’d post the Amazon link, but I can’t get it to stop displaying my name.) Nice B&W photos, and a 172 on the cover.

8

Here’s the cover.

9

Ahh… even tho’ I’m not licensed, I got it in my blood. My father was a pilot and I did do my share flying :slight_smile: I remember the 172 fondly, as well the cub (joystick and front/back single seating), the Moonie, Bonanza, and my all time favorite, Cessna’s 185 Skywagon with the baggage undercompartment. A tail-dragger bush plane extaordinaire. An incredible STAL machine that was.

More recently in life, the Piper Seneca, Navaho and the beautiful Citation V Ultra. A truly amazing limo of the sky. Nothing like being slammed back into a leather seat as you’re jetted to speed by two Pratt & Whitney JT15D-5D’s

But what I really want to do is paraglide; it’s something I don’t think I’ll be able to rest without trying at least once in my life!

10

Not so much the first, no large accumulation of flight time in one particular one, and having flown 58 different types so far, I won’t try to be agog about them.

The ones that stand out are the ones that carried me through the hard flights, the ones I have thousands of hours in that particular airplane, the ones that I should not have been in, the first one that taught me the outside the envelope was not a good place to be…

But most of all, open the door on a C-180 and smell that particular smell with an over lay of cigar smoke as it was when I was not even aware I was flying with my Father, and later, the hours with my Father, the things that were adventures to me, … when I sometimes run into that smell, I am transported back to the beginning where it was all fresh and yet to be done.

11

I wonder whatever happened to N5801L? That’s the plane I got my first five logged hours in, when I was too young to qualify for a license. The registration has been cancelled, reason unknown.