Is it possible that after ten years, there has never been a dedicated Cessna 150 / nostalgia thread here?
I love 150s. Note: only 150s. The 152, whilst objectively speaking the better aircraft, does not have as much “soul” and character, IMHO. And doesn’t sound as nice. Why I love them so much I don’t know. Possibly because my very first flights have been in a 150, when I was a few years old…
The other reason might be that I did NOT get my PPL in a 150. I think many people who got their PPL in a 150 never fly them again. I got my PPL in a Katana and have never ever flown one of those again…
As PIC, I flew my first C150 in the end of September 2001 (yes, two weeks after 9/11). It was a J (1969) model, rented from a flight school in Hamburg. This photo here is a much more recent one of that aircraft. At the time, the aircraft still had its original red and white paint job and was very scruffy.
It was as lame as you wouldn’t believe it, but it had character.
In early 2003, I did part of my FI training in this one, an L model. That’s when I learned how to fly a 150 using the doors, the trim and by shifting your weight…
The next one was in 2003, an L model available rented from a flight school in Aachen.
The most beautiful one was a year or so later, a 1966 F model that was a hangar neighbour at Lübeck at the time. The owner kindly invited me for a spin.
Fs are not so much my cup of tea, since they still have a very old panel design and the even lower cabin width. Still, this one was a beauty. A few years later, it unfortunately played the main role in a spectacular crash landing in the middle of a town in Germany.
When I lived in Nurnberg, I occasionally flew an M model from the local flight school, but it was expensive.
As an alternative, I sometimes rented Cessnas from a place about 80km from Nurnberg, EDQP. They had this nice C150L, and it was cheap.
No transponder!
A couple of years later, I went to Italy and joined Aeroclub Verona, which was C150-heaven, as they had four of them in their fleet, mostly L models.
This one was I-CENB, still going strong in the club and I flew it a lot at the time. Again, no Intercom.
I even took it to Milan Linate once, when it still cost 45 Euros to land there.
At Massa-Cinquale:
No intercom at the time!
The next one was its brothership I-CENE. This aircraft crashed a few years ago and was totalled.
This one did have intercom.
The next one was I-EBXK, an M model. I flew this one only a few times as it was always out of service. Then it somehow disappeared.
The fourth one was I-ECHH. This was a K model. I also liked it a lot. This one is also still doing strong at Aeroclub Verona today.
I also occasionally flew a J model available for rent at Augsburg at the time.
Regrettably, I have never got my hands on a very early (pre-1966) one with the straight tail.
Interestingly, I have had very little carb ice in all the hours flown.
I haven’t flown any 150s since leaving Italy ten years ago. The local flightschools here in EDFE and EDFZ still have one each, but for what they are, it’s a but pricey to rent them nowadays. Also, my back now doesn’t react too well to sitting in a 150 for any amount of time…
In addition, I can’t really fly them with a passenger, due to the MTOW limit.
Generally speaking, 150s are disappearing from flight schools and clubs in Germany. The reasons are:
Who else has got a soft spot for 150s? I don’t think there aren’t many current owners here, are there?
I mentioned elsewhere flying this one in the late 70s, soloed it in 1980 if I recall correctly…
Apparently people are still having fun with it today. I think that’s awesome, where else do find a relatively inexpensive machine that’s so durable it can provide continuous enjoyment for 55 years and counting? It’s also been flown numerous times coast to coast in the US, and took lots of people on interesting trips all over place – one couple that owned it in the 80s flew it on all their vacations for a few years.
Great history @boscomantico
C-GHCK 1971 150L based at Vancouver International and Pitt Meadows, but now in Victoria BC, was my ab initio training bird.
You pay your dues as a flight instructor in the 150/152, and the PA28 is a luxury by contrast. Looking out for traffic in a busy training circuit through the letter box windscreen removes the romance.
Haven’t flown one for some years, but probably have a few hundred hours in them. A well known CFI in the UK has over 20,000 hours on the type.
Bosco – I share your love for the C150/152! I did do my training on them, but still love them. Always thought they had much better and crisper handling than the lumbering C172’s. Yeah, cabin is tight, but it’s such a delightful little simple flying machine, you can’t but enjoy yourself. Used to hire quite a few when I lived in UK – good ole G-BIJV had 13000hrs on it and still flew straight. Been thinking of getting one to have here in LA as a little backup commuter and almost got one that was a very early model for $10K a few years back, but missed that opportunity.
I didn’t do my PPL in a 150 but have flown a nice C152 a few hours and I rent it occasionally for grass strip flying.
It is great fun for sure, and has a pleasant simple character about it. Still amazes me how these old Cessnas and Pipers plod along well past their original design life.
I do share your love for the C150. It was my first plane, I soloed on it and I owned a F150L for the first years after my PPL. I even found a pic of it on the internet.
(pic credit: AViation by AViator)
This is the plane I flew my very first flight on a light aircraft on, did most of my training and gained my PPL on the 6th of May 1983 with 36:29 hrs.
My very first flight after the PPR was on my 1971 Cessna F150L, HB-CVD, which I purchased immediately after my PPL from the school at Birrfeld.
I will have to dig for some picture material (all on paper) but I should be able to find some.
Well, this is me in front of it, screenshot of Pilot und Flugzeug issue in the 1990ties. All the rest must reside in my paper photo collection somewhere in my basement.
The F150L was a rock solid airplane to operate with no technical qualms in all the time I had it. It came quite well equipped but ended up IFR certified with an ARC Nav-Com coupled to a Narco DGO10 HSI, a Narco 121 ILS/MKR receiver, KY92 radio, ARC ADF and KT76 transponder and a Pronav (later Garmin) GPS100.
Planning speed was 92kts at 25 lph. Usually I flew it at 7500/8500 ft but got it as high as 12’000 ft on occasions.
That airplane took me on many lovely trips, to France, Germany, Spain, Austria and Italy, Destinations I recall fondly were Avignon, Perpignan, Gerona, Ampuriabrava, Grenoble (St-Geoirs), Lyon Bron, Nice, Montpellier, Salzburg, Vienna, Leipzig, Frankfurt (EDDF, yes!) and others which I can’t recall on memory. Longest flight in one day was from Zurich via Lyon to Perpignan and back via Avignon to Geneva, landing at Geneva at 2145 lt, 15 minutes before closure. Yes, these are fond memories.
I unfortunately literally outgrew that plane. It is also remarkable what a carefree time it was to fly then. None of the airports listed above had even PPR and landing and parking for 2 weeks in Frankfurt were 50 DM.
I did maybe 20hrs of my PPL in a C152 and had some flights in an aerobatic C150. The FI was a real cowboy; his favourite was to stop the engine (needed about 45 deg UP pitch and obviously ignition off as well) and glide for a minute or two. He preferred the PA28 though because – he told me with much pleasure – it enabled the FI to lean right over a girl student’s legs to reach the fuel selector; after some years and adventures he had to disappear from GA.
I liked the 152 – dead easy to fly (either full throttle or, if you wanted to land somewhere, idle) and to land (no ground effect) but along with the 150 a completely useless plane for actually going somewhere 
The cheapest PPL would be done in these though.
Great Post OP, thanks!
I heavily investigated the C150 and was planning on buying one for about two years.
The pope of 150s is Mr. Mike Arman from Florida. He wrote an excellent book on the 150 → http://www.cessna150book.com/
In the end, asking prices vs. capabilities (it’s really a single seater, short range) didn’t pan out and I abandoned the idea of owning one.
Luckily, I am allowed to fly a privately owned 1971 L model based at my local field.
Ahem… well frankly if I never set foot in a 150 or 152 again, it will be no loss AFAIAC.
My experience training in both versions was something that looked and smelled like the inside of an English telephone box after hosting not very pleasant Saturday night pub traffic.
Controls that would look right at home on my Grandfathers’ old two stroke lawn mower, and an engine at times that seemed to run like a bucket of bolts.
If I was as mechanicaly savvy then as I am now, I would probably have never gone near either one. But hey ho, ignorance is bliss and opportunities for a foreigner to learn PPL were scarce in Thailand back then, even scarcer now, so for that part at least I am grateful.
I’ll grab my coat!
E
@eal, you might consider that the C150 you flew then will probably be flying when your Diamond is long gone and forgotten, and the mechanics who maintained at great expense are also six feet under Likely you and me too.
I hope that when that time comes, there will be a 17 year old kid paying let’s say $75/hr wet, to fly a C150 cross country, com radio turned off, ForeFlight on his phone and Jackyl playing through his headset for entertainment as he flies scared, solo 300 mile legs across inhospitable terrain to gain 200 hrs… so he can get the CPL that will propel him into a ‘lucrative’ $20/hr banner towing gig, that will in due course and after a few decades more experience put him into a good flying job. That’s what C150s are for, among other things
I know a guy who went exactly that route, now flying as captain with one of the majors, with enough resources accumulated to fly an L39 as his main ride for Reno and a twin-turbocharged IO-550 powered Lancair for lower fuel burn fun. He likes C150s too.
