Out of curiosity, what's your TTAF?

Heflin · Post by **Heflin** » Wed Jun 04, 2003 2:19 am

A woman is meant to be loved,
a dog is meant to be hunted
and a plane is meant to be flown.

Sometimes I would come in at 8 in the evening during the summer. I'd have enough time to check the oil, untie, warm-up and fly for 15 minutes.
Was it worth it?

The day I took off from my strip and saw the red-tailed hawk sitting on the end of a center-pivot sprinkler.....as I saw him turn his head to follow me as I flew by....as I remembered how when I was a kid and I used to look up into the sky, searching for those red-tails as they circled lazily overhead....as I put it all together and realized now the red-tail was sitting still, watching me fly....I realized it was worth it!

Fly!

As a man said to me once, "A high time aircraft must certainly be a joy to fly."

N1478D · Post by **N1478D** » Wed Jun 04, 2003 2:31 am

YES! YES! YES!

There is a nice guy 3 or 4 hangars down from me that has one of the prettiest Comanche's I've ever seen. To quote him when he sees me flying all of the time, sometimes, just to be flying "I NEVER just go flying, there has to be a place or reason to go. I out grew that a long time ago."
I always kind of feel sorry for him, he just doesn't get it. Words are hard to come by that describe the kid like joy of just being up there and flying.

N170BP · Post by **N170BP** » Wed Jun 04, 2003 5:16 am

Reference an earlier post (about the guy with the low time late
model 180). I had the privilige of flying back to Western Washington
from Idaho with this gentleman, and as we were flying along, killing
time & making conversation, he asked me if I liked flying by myself.
My answer was, I of course prefer a crowd (big gaggle of airplanes going who cares where), but I had no problem climibing into my airplane, firing
it up and flying absolutely nowhere (simply sky-wards).

Maybe his 20,000+ hours in the air have caused him to not get
as excited as I do over aviating just for the sake of aviating...
Guess I can't blame him for that.... All I know is the day it get's
old/boring is the day you can put me 6 feet under.

Bela P. Havasreti
'54 C-170B N170BP

Dave Clark · Post by **Dave Clark** » Wed Jun 04, 2003 2:00 pm

My '52 has 3450 tt but was rebuilt a couple of times due to ground loops. At least that gave me chromated wings and cabin section. When I bought it four years ago it had one of the nicest quality paint jobs I've seen and now that I've done a lot of work on it people can't believe it's a 50 year old airplane. They even think the paint is new and it was done in '91.

Yes they are meant to fly but sometimes it's really nice to start out with the low time ones. I had a Lake Amphibian for a couple of years that I bought with 150tt. The fellow I sold it to sank it while learning to fly a Lake and the insurance company did a complete rebuild. He folded a wing sponson on the pilots side doing step turns and didn't have the presence of mind to sit on the other side to keep that wing out of the water. It had 350 hours on it then. We actually saw it on the news three nights after we sold it. Sickening.

I sold the Lake to buy the 195, the last real airplane Cessna built. They are built so solid I think they could have 100,000 hours on them and look no different. Hours just don't matter with the 195, only condition. I put 600 hours on it in ten years but always had at least one more airplane in the hangar that got flown a lot, usually a Champ.

I bought an Aeronca Chief 85hp about ten years ago that had 350 hours ttsn and had never been "fixed". It still had everything there as it came from the factory including the original Grade A covering and paint. It made it really easy to document and restore to original.

Love the 170.

rudymantel · Post by **rudymantel** » Mon Jun 09, 2003 1:31 am

No question, airplanes should be flown - my '55 B has just over 4100 TT; I've flown it 300 hours since buying it in January '01.
It's like a second childhood ! I love it !
Rudy

susang777 · Post by **susang777** » Sat Aug 23, 2003 1:04 am

I think I've mentioned this elsewhere. Our 55 170B has about 9200 hours on it, almost all of which was as a trainer plane for Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, who bought it new from Cessna, combined with a long stint as a private trainer with a group of instructors in partnership with a mechanic, then privately owned for a few years by a couple of other people before John's dad bought it in April of 1973. (All of this from the logs combined with a small amount of research on my part. I'm an amateur genealogist, and it was an irresistible project.)

It has been modified to be IFR-equipped, has an alternator, droopy wingtips, etc., and has been lovingly and regularly flown and maintained the entire time. John regularly flies it, and is trying to keep to at least 100 hours per year despite his extremely busy schedule. I'm scheduled to start learning again on it sometime in September (was going to be August, but got into scheduling problems). It's not the prettiest 170 in the world, (but all 170's, with no exceptions, are pretty to me!), and we really love flying it!

N170BP · Post by **N170BP** » Sat Aug 23, 2003 5:58 am

So tomorrow (8/23) is the 1-year anniversary of my 1st flight in
Bravo Pop (after I brought her home from Canada and had the
conformity inspection done). I'll probably put an hour or two of time
on her tomorrow as well, but I've flown N170BP 184.8 Hours so far this
year. Only had (1) occasion where a flight had to be "canceled" because
something wasn't right (turned out to be a fouled set of plugs). It's
been a great airplane, and I've had a blast flying it all over the place
while meeting the nicest people at fly-ins and various get-togethers
around the Pacific Northwest.

I hope I am fortunate enough to be able to put another 180+ hours on
Bravo Pop next year.

Bela P. Havasreti
'54 C-170B N170BP

rudymantel · Post by **rudymantel** » Sat Aug 23, 2003 12:24 pm

I'm fortunate to have over 15,700 logged hours, maybe two thirds of it in SE airplanes. I still love to just go up in my 170 and and make circles in the sky and especially do touch & go's. In fact that's what I'm gonna do this morning !
Happy flying to y'all !
Rudy