| Author | Message | ||
     Xl1200r |
A good friend of mine just got his PPL yesterday and bought his plane a few weeks ago - 152. We're going up today! This will be the first time I've flown in a small plane in years. I can't wait. | ||
| Strokizator |
You're a good friend. I wouldn't go up with a new pilot until he had a few hundred hours and dozens of landings under his belt. That said, I've flown around with my brother a few times. He got his license, then an IFR rating and just recently a commercial license. It's an addicting habit so bring lots of money. | ||
| Whistler |
Hope you enjoy the flight! | ||
| Brinnutz |
I've got a lot of studying to do and about 7 hrs left before I can get mine... | ||
| Kenm123t |
Great I never get to fly enough 152s are great slow but honest airplanes and will always outfly thier pilots if the pilot will listen. Oh and Erik told me NEVER fly with Court! didnt get details but he looked like he was having a flash back when he said it. | ||
| Xl1200r |
We made it back to the ground and not in a fireball. His plane is kept a small-but-tower-controlled county airport, so it's rare that you get any interesting instruction, but we got a whole slew yesterday. Holding short on the ramp while a helicopter was doing some hovering tests, requesting a different runway to take off on than we were assigned, asked to do a 360 on our approach for spacing. The air was hot and storms coming into the area, so the plane climbed like poo and couldn't see much from all the haze, but it was fun none the less. We did a couple stalls, looked around and headed back. We're thinking of going up Monday night to watch all the fireworks. Oh, and he has about 182 landings at this point. | ||
| Jumbo_petite |
Just remember the definition of a good pilot is an equal number of good landings as there is take-offs. I have a pilot friend that I have lost contact with. I miss the time I spent flying with her to small remote locations for lunch or an afternoon. GOOD TIMES indeed. | ||
| Syonyk |
Watching fireworks from the air is amazing. Just make sure someone is paying attention to the airplane & other traffic... A 152 climbs like crap on a good day... much less a hot day with two people. You're lucky to get halfway to pattern altitude by the time you're turning final. :-P 172s are a ton nicer for multiple people. | ||
| Dwardo |
I took my lessons in a 152 because I was too cheap to pay the extra for a 172. When I did my first solo, I thought that thing just JUMPED off the ground. My instructor and I were both big guys and him not being on board made an amazing difference. | ||
| Xl1200r |
They climb well enough for the airport he flies out of - it's under the shelf of an int'l airport not far away. When he's on his own, he has to actually level off to get past it before 2,000 feet before he can continue to climb. I know they're slow, but it was amazing how fast you could cover ground. We had a tail wind and were doing 125mph ground speed. Combine that with a straight line and no stop lights and you get places pretty quick. At the same time, we flew for a bit on the stall indicator, full flaps - looking at the ground, it just looked like we parked the damn thing. He decided to buy a 152 after running some numbers. The vast majority of the time, he'll be flying alone or with one other person, and if he needs more seating, he can rent a 172 and still save money with the lower operating costs of the 152. | ||
| Court |
One little problem and my wife and pals never forget! Court's an excellent pilot ...... Dad used to let me back the airplane out of the driveway :-) Enjoy the flight ...... You'll love the 152!..... It's a classic from my old TKE fraternity brother at Kansas State University....Clyde Cessna. You'll have a ball! | ||
| Court |
>>>>172s are a ton nicer for multiple people. True that . . .I had a 172RG. The 300HP, retracable gear and variable pitch prop made it a delight. We also had, back when I was in business, a Piper Saratoga. The 152 however . . remains the icon of small aircraft and is many, many, many 10's of thousands less than, say the 172RG. Nothing quite like the "fighter pilot" feeling you used to get with a great Kansas tail wind . . on the other hand . . if was just as exciting (and a heck of a lot more frustrating) to "dirty" the plane (full flaps on a Piper Tomhawk, into a 70 MPH head wind and watch the trees appear out from under the front of the wing as you fly backwards. It's a lot less fun . . however . . when you have left LaCynge, KS trying to get to Wichita and, during the 100LL days, decided to wait to get to ICT when you could get the proper fuel. On the other hand . . . had that never happened . . I'd have never got to see Eureka Municipal Airport. Aviation . . . like construction . . . yields a lifetime of great stories and adventures. The one that sticks with me to this day . . . well, kind relates to the thread about how cheap Buell rides are. We finished a job shooting some pole holes in Paducah, KY and headed home in the Saratoga about 8:30pm. I had 2 boxes of blasting caps and about 2/3 of a case of DuPont 80% Hy-Drive dynamite . . . that looking back . . it may have been prudent to give to the local power company guys . . . all was well into we go into REALLY deeo thunderstorms over Missouri. Very distracting when you are in the "why the hell didn't I drive?" mode and sticks of dynamite, mixed with those loose Jeppesen approach plates you meant to file in your binder and didn't. Many of us are chickens in our old age not as a result of great wisdom but rather great stupidity. The funniest flying story was, without a doubt, my Uncle (yep, the one who was an Astronaut) on his first solo cross country. It's a bad sign when your instructor gives up waiting and goes home.  We need pics of the 152 . . . . I'm getting sentimental ! | ||
| Kenm123t |
Love the Saratoga one of my neigbhors is an engineer at Piper.Its cool to fly into Vero for lunch and see the new planes on the apron. He's a Brit biker new cafe and a Sprint Rs Flew a Superviking for a while fast but crude compared to a Saratoga | ||
| Nik |
I miss my 140  | ||
| Xl1200r |
Another regular at the airport has a Piper Mirage... talk about disposable income. No good photos of the 152 itself but here are a couple from the flight. Just after take off:  Looking up Sacandaga Lake:  ...and my ugly mug in the... we'll call it the instructor's seat, lol:  | ||
| Road_thing |
Many of us There. Fixed it for you. As Bomber related to me the other day, "the lack of digital cameras and the internet explains why we are still married and out of jail" rt | ||
| Court |
>>>> "the lack of digital cameras and the internet explains why we are still married and out of jail" That is an accurate statement. Bomber is wiser than your average Woodstock vet . . . | ||
| Lemonchili_x1 |
...and my ugly mug in the... Very cool, looks like you're having fun We need pics of the 152 . . . . I'm getting sentimental ! +1! More pics when you can would be great. | ||
| Xl1200r |
There will be tons more pics to come. I'll bring my good camera with me for the fireworks flight - might be hard to get photos but I'll try. He's asked his instructor to go with him and get him used to flying from the right seat so he can let me fly from the left - he's into trying to show me a few things and thinks I'll be landing it in no time. | ||
| Xl1200r |
Found a pic of the plane - it's a 1982 (1981 if you ask the FAA) 152 II. I think there's about 600 hours on the thing. I've been in a few small planes and for the age, this thing is in pretty good shape.  | ||
| Moxnix |
Flying. Gotta love it. Working out the weight and balance on my '48 Clipper in Alaska, 135 hp, 48 gallons of fuel, 7 hour range (longer than my bladder), my buddy Webb says to the expert, "Doc, if I'm in this plane with my wife, two kids and a couple of sacks of dog good and we stall, what should I do?" Doc says, "Tell everyone to lean forward and fart." Flying as a passenger into Fort Yukon at about -10 in a King Air, a clear night, when the stall warning goes off with the lights of town about 20 miles away, and wondering if the de-icing is working. Or, leaving Cold Bay for Dutch Harbor in a Grumman Goose with a guy who the week before had landed in the water with the wheels down. Or, landing at a town on the Lower Yukon in a Stinson Reliant on skies, a little fast, putting it into a shallow snowbank to stop. Worked good. Or, loading lots of salmon into a 206 with a milk carton under the tail to keep it off the ground, idling it up to bring the nose down, grabbing the milk carton and climbing in for a very long take off toward the Yukon with the strip ending at a cut bank about 100 feet to the river and a very gradual turn for town. Don't try this at home. Or, the same bad weather story above, but flying out of Fairbanks through thunderstorms with dynamite and blasting caps, heading downriver to blow a trench through some permafrost. Only did that once. We did make it rain ice chunks from hell to breakfast and used up the rest of the materials blowing up junk cars at the Tanana dump. Can't leave it for the kids to find. Or, landing on a bar in the Nowitna River with a state constable, two big guys, good fishing, but dragging the tailwheel through the water on take-off and wishing for more horsepower. In my opine, a stick and rudder makes flying a bit like riding a motorcycle. |
