It’s good some people like em 150s…
Hadn’t flown one in years until about 10 years ago when I was in desperate need of an aircraft… well, it was even worse than I remembered: lousy performance, terrible vis, rubbing shoulders, flimsy control wheel, and soapy flight controls.
What’s to like about it? Best flaps (at the time) in the business, the shade provided by the not so hi wings, and the training resilience.
The 150 is actually the only plane I ever flew where I was totally unable to feel the landing flare. I had lots of flying experience already before starting my PPL. Well I put the Cessna 150 on the ground without damage, yes, and finished my PPL in it after about 10 hours, but I felt uncomfortable.
Another topic I remember is the astonishing climb rate with 2 POB. I remember a mandatory cross-country flight in the 150 during my PPL training, a flight to another airfield which was 50NM away. We refuelled for both ways. Starting close to sea level I had my difficulties to maintain 200 ft/min, and we had to climb over some small hills. And we did something like 55 kts or so during climb (don’t nail me on that speed, we calculated V_y and flew it). We had to climb to 4000 ft, which took us the best part of the flight, and entered pattern right in that altitude (field elevation was something like 2500 feet). By that time I was totally used to fly 100 hp microlight aircraft, even with retractable gear, and I felt so way back in time. The only reason I did my PPL was the need for more seats.
But yes it was cheap and close to where I was working then, and we had fun with it.
Silvaire wrote:
@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 am sure you are correct about the longevity of the C150, as time has already proven, and I hope my PA46 is equally durable, (I have never owned a Diamond, although I have plenty of hours in a DA42).
Of the two that I flew, the C152 finally let go of its bag of bolts and ended up inverted in a rice field. A dubious reconditioned engine was cheerfully installed shortly afterwards, that lasted two weeks after which the aircraft ended up adorning the side of a house near the airfield. Thankfully no fatalities in either accident, however that marked the end of that particular C152, and with it the demise of our flying club.
The C150 is still around, although it is in private hands now, however the last time I saw it approx. two years ago, it was looking even more decrepit with most of its interior missing.
I have flown other examples from the C150 era which IMHO were far superior, and I simply have no nostalgic good feelings about flying one other than gratitude it did not leave bits of itself or me scattered along our flight path.
Cheers – E
Peter wrote:
but along with the 150 a completely useless plane for actually going somewhere
That depends on a) how much time you have and b) what you expect.
The 150/152 is not designed as a traveller, neither is the C172 for that matter or the PA28-140/Cadet. However, they are dirt cheap to own and travel with in the sense of “air hiking” where you simply fly from airfield to airfield to have fun. As I said, I flew mine all the way to Spain and back and even in a single day once (ZRH-Perpignan-Geneva). It’s really like taking a slow and care free car onto longer range drives, yea you need more pitstops but it is totally care free driving.
My 150 ran like the proverbial VW Bug. Get in, turn key, go fly. Short legs (looked it up: the longest flight I did was 3:25 from Zurich to Leipzig, but 2:50 or so would be the normal longer flights) but being able to land just about everywhere.
I flew a C152 in Florida a couple of times in 2007. The school really tried hard to get me to book a C172 instead, which I thought was them trying to extort a greater hourly rate. It all became apparent when the morbidly obese instructor clambered in next to me: with one arm behind my seat and the other out of the open window he just managed to close the door. I spent the flight with my upper body angled left at about 30 degrees 
Rate of climb was poor, but despite the uneven load (close to the centre?) it handled better than the C172.
The 2CV style windows were something I really liked. They were great for taking pictures (as you can open them in flight) and they are lovely for “air conditioning”, even though the big air vents up at the windshield can be enough to blow the contents of the cabin into disarray.
I recall one “incident” I had with CSF when I was still in PPL training. I opened the window in flight and it turned out it was missing the limiting bar. So it kind of disappeared on me and I honestly thought I had lost it, wondering how I’d explain that once I landed back. In fact, it had opened up to the wing and simply stayed there in the air flow until final approach when I set the flaps, when it banged shut with quite a noise!
Thanks for your post Bosco, very nice and brings back fond memories. The club where I got my PPL operated two C152’s along with two C172’s. So for taking people out to fly I quickly changed to the C172 but never lost my love for the 152 and continued flying them. I’m probably the only one here who has no complaints about its rate of climb. Maybe that’s because I learned to fly in a country at basically 0 feet AMSL and mostly low density altitude conditions. Actually, its climb performance once surprised me. My instructor was about 110 kg (and pretty voluminous too). So my first solo felt more like taking off in a helicopter than anything else..
I spent the weekend moving 7 Cessna’s in varying states of disrepair to my parts business yard. There was a Cessna 150 there that I had used for some of my basic training. It felt like a crime to chop it up for a kids playhouse. There comes a point in the road with a non-corrosion proofed airframe where the man-hours to make it safe, and the outlay far exceeds the value of the aircraft. As much as C150’s have gone up in value many of them make little sense on paper.
They all fly differently, some are badly rigged and drag themselves along sideways. Some fly brilliantly. I know of O-200 engines flying at almost 4000hrs and still in service. If you knew what to look for, you could get a great 150 and have brilliant fun with it. If you don’t understand the difference between a single fuel port outlet at the centre of the C150 wing tank, and dual ports like 152/206/210 etc then it’s worth studying a photo of the fuel tank to get your mind straight. I know of 2 accidents where this was the root cause. Ditto with the 40-degree flap popping flap motor fuses, also worth educating yourself on.
When I think of all the 25hr pilots who flew around Florida safely at night in Cessna 150’s getting their PPL with Ormand Beach Aviation… it restores my faith in the 150
Peter mentioned “but along with the 150 a completely useless plane for actually going somewhere”. That is only partially true as Mooney_Driver comments. I used to have a 150 in the US and flied all over the USA and Central America with it down to Panama. In Mexico I and my friend took off on a hot day from Toluca (8500 ft) and needed 2 km (half of the runway) to get airborne – but we managed it. A couple of times had to climb to 13 000 ft with full load to cross mountains – took a lot of time but succeeded at last. It was awfully cheap travelling, but yes, slow. Once I got lost between mountains from Culiacan to Guadalajara, so the trip took exaclty 5 hours.. which was actually the max flight time with 4,5 g/h consumption.
I flew the licence with a Yankee AA-1 and we used to call C150 a “tractor”. Easy to fly: put full gas on at take off and reduce it at final. And it really is like a tractor – it keeps on running when other planes are already as spare parts. Once we did not find the runway in Mexico and landed into a long field to camp there (see photo). It really stands any kind of use.
I have a lot of great memories from those days and that plane. C152 is not quite the same, although pretty close. Today I have a ralley club which is more flexible and much cheaper to buy. But still I sometimes dream of having a 150 as the second plane – although I will never have that much money in use.
hannu
It is different in the US.
A “short range” plane still works over there. In Europe, we constantly struggle with fuel availability, airport opening times, etc, and planes which are “useful” in Europe for going places probably need 2x the range as a result of these factors.
