DNeuf
New member
We, the wife and I bought our 172A back in 97. I had about 15 hours of flight training at the age of 36. My father was an A&P so that was one heck of an advantage. We found and inspected the 172 at High Desert Airport, gone now, in southern CA, and bought it for $19K. Our new family members' home was at KWJF Fox Airport CA. I trained out of KWHP Whiteman Airport. The first year, I flew over 200 hours. My dad said I was half the operations counted at Fox that year. LOL My dad didn't care to fly anymore by this time. He said he was tired of planes, but I do believe secretly, he did enjoy working on it with me and I treasure that father-son time with him. He's with the Lord now. I think he just hated to see me blow money on it, and he did know a few people who were killed in crashes over the years. I do remember when I was a little kid, he came home after work disgusted (this was in the '70s, he probably had to work on a Mooney that day) he said, he was going to hang a prop on his back, take a long walk, and the first place somebody asked, what's that? That is where he wanted to live. LOL He always came up with funny stuff about life. As a now-retired Ford mechanic of 38 years, I can relate! He talked me out of going into aviation as a mechanic, probably a good thing.
Back to the plane. The engine had about 1850 hours. TBO on the 0-300 is 1800 hours but ran good for a little while until a compression ring broke after 100 hours. We popped a rebuilt jug on it and kept going for another 100.
Just after buying the plane, my friend found a 50 SOH 0-300D that was making bronze. The engine was out of a 62 172. Anyway, the bronze was from the wrong exhaust guides that were installed in his rebuild. New guides and a hone were all the cylinders needed. The pistons were like new, re-ring, cylinders done!
So I continued rebuilding the 0-300D. An IRAN really. We went through the whole thing. Turned out to be a good engine for 17 years and 1100 hours until an exhaust valve started to burn. With the 0-300's reputation, I went ahead and replaced all the cyl's with new Millenniums in 2015. It was more of a feel-good thing. I'm sure I could have let the old cyl's go longer. The Millenniums in 2015 were a little over $680 each. Now they are $1200. Thanks Joe. Been running great ever since. It gets 15 hours to a quart.
I have 1400 hours in that good old plane myself and I am now 62, wow, what happened?
In the early years, every weekend we packed our two boys in the 172 and they got to see so many things. We had fun as a family and we usually had at least 4 planes going in formation somewhere. And back then, there was so much to see at SO-CAL airports. Santa Pala, Flabob, Chino, Camerio, Isabella, Bakersfield... flying the LAX corridor in formation... teaching the kids to fly. So much fun!
When I started flying, 80/87 Avgas was $1.20 a gallon at California City CA. Flying was cheap! How the US has gone to hell in the last three years is unbelievable! But at least I escaped CA back in 2003 and live in God's country now but the disease is spreading. We'll see how it goes in 5.5 months.
I now have an RV6 with an IO-360 and constant speed prop added to the heard with the 172 and finishing up a M14P radial powered Moose I've been building. Hope to fly the Moose in less than a year. My brother built a Harmon Rocket and has been flying it for a while now. He tried to talk me into a Rocket, but I thought I wanted to fly in the backcountry. Not anymore. I'd hate to screw up and lose all that work and money. I should have built a Super Six, which is a modified RV6 with an IO-540 that John Harmon came up with. Oh well, not going to happen. I'm done building after the Moose.
So that boring story is some of my life. I just started writing and thought maybe somebody had gone to the same places years ago and had a good time too.
I hope somehow, aviation comes back to being more affordable so more average folks can enjoy it as I did.
Back to the plane. The engine had about 1850 hours. TBO on the 0-300 is 1800 hours but ran good for a little while until a compression ring broke after 100 hours. We popped a rebuilt jug on it and kept going for another 100.
Just after buying the plane, my friend found a 50 SOH 0-300D that was making bronze. The engine was out of a 62 172. Anyway, the bronze was from the wrong exhaust guides that were installed in his rebuild. New guides and a hone were all the cylinders needed. The pistons were like new, re-ring, cylinders done!
So I continued rebuilding the 0-300D. An IRAN really. We went through the whole thing. Turned out to be a good engine for 17 years and 1100 hours until an exhaust valve started to burn. With the 0-300's reputation, I went ahead and replaced all the cyl's with new Millenniums in 2015. It was more of a feel-good thing. I'm sure I could have let the old cyl's go longer. The Millenniums in 2015 were a little over $680 each. Now they are $1200. Thanks Joe. Been running great ever since. It gets 15 hours to a quart.
I have 1400 hours in that good old plane myself and I am now 62, wow, what happened?
In the early years, every weekend we packed our two boys in the 172 and they got to see so many things. We had fun as a family and we usually had at least 4 planes going in formation somewhere. And back then, there was so much to see at SO-CAL airports. Santa Pala, Flabob, Chino, Camerio, Isabella, Bakersfield... flying the LAX corridor in formation... teaching the kids to fly. So much fun!
When I started flying, 80/87 Avgas was $1.20 a gallon at California City CA. Flying was cheap! How the US has gone to hell in the last three years is unbelievable! But at least I escaped CA back in 2003 and live in God's country now but the disease is spreading. We'll see how it goes in 5.5 months.
I now have an RV6 with an IO-360 and constant speed prop added to the heard with the 172 and finishing up a M14P radial powered Moose I've been building. Hope to fly the Moose in less than a year. My brother built a Harmon Rocket and has been flying it for a while now. He tried to talk me into a Rocket, but I thought I wanted to fly in the backcountry. Not anymore. I'd hate to screw up and lose all that work and money. I should have built a Super Six, which is a modified RV6 with an IO-540 that John Harmon came up with. Oh well, not going to happen. I'm done building after the Moose.
So that boring story is some of my life. I just started writing and thought maybe somebody had gone to the same places years ago and had a good time too.
I hope somehow, aviation comes back to being more affordable so more average folks can enjoy it as I did.
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