“AT LEAST SOMEONE STILL KNOWS HOW TO HAVE FUN WITH THEIR AIRPLANES...”

Special Airplane, Special People and a Special Club

“Spam can!” The detractors spit out the disparaging words, turning up their noses in scorn. “Underpowered!” sniffs my mother who spent her flying days in a sturdy 182 flying over the Australian bush with my father. ”Pugh – Cessna!” snorts Big Nils, my tall Norwegian flying buddy and test pilot of our club’s newly restored Tiger Moth. He makes a sweeping gesture and bends his long frame in a theatrical bow, magnanimously pointing to a dark green biplane sporting the Norwegian colours on her tail and wings. Though there is a teasing grin on his face, it is plain to see that for him there will never be anything else. His eyes soften and rest fondly on her spindly frame, and his voice grows husky. “Now that’s an airplane – why don’t you set your sights on something like that?”

They’ve all missed the point. At first glance, the Cessna 150-152 is the Rodney Dangerfield of airplanes – I just don’t get no respect! Though countless pilots earned their wings in one, it’s quite another thing to deliberately choose a small, low-powered two-seat trainer to be one’s personal airplane. Yet there is a type of pilot out there for whom the Cessna 150-152 is the perfect fit. In today’s hard reality of ever-rising fuel, maintenance, parts, taxes and insurance costs, the Cessna 150-152 fills a very real niche. It is a good little all-rounder that does a number of things well. Not any one thing extraordinarily well, but enough to fulfil the basic need of a stable, robust and safe airplane. As Ed Pataky, a flight dispatcher from Houston puts it, “That’s probably why the 150-152 has lasted so long –coming up on 50 years in service. For sheer fun, easy to fly and land, safety and relative economy, the Cessna 150-152 just can’t be beat for what I use it for.” Furthermore, the Cessna 150/152 series of aircraft have been subject to only a few AD notes, and thus far these have been relatively inexpensive and easy to comply with. As one of the cheapest, most mechanically robust airplanes to operate as well as being fun and pleasurable to fly, the Cessna 150-152 continues to be the little enabler, putting aviation and aircraft ownership within reach of the common man and allowing him to enjoy flying without mortgaging his soul or threatening his marriage in the process. With base prices of $70,000 upwards, not even the new LSAs supplant it. A $20-25K airplane on the other hand – that does remain within reach of the common man.

Enter the International Cessna 150-152 Club, a type club dedicated to the education and enjoyment of Cessna 150-152 drivers. Started in the United States by Skip Cardin of North Carolina in 1981, the club is now run by Royson and Lori Parsons of Atascadero, California and has anywhere from 1500–1800 members in any given year. Most of them find their way to the club in connection with or shortly after the purchase of an aircraft, and pilots unabashedly recommend the club to one another – with good reason. As these popular production type GA aircraft age, the strong and active owner club working in close conjunction with the AOPA plays an increasingly more important role in keeping the older types flying. A strong type club can effectively and efficiently represent the type in dealings with the FAA, actively solicit and collect data and become a repository of information. They can catch small maintenance issues and co-ordinate with AOPA before overzealous public agencies overreact and turn a minor problem into a major AD at great expense to the aircraft owner. The type club can distinguish between major structural problems affecting aircraft as a type, and maintenance issues that affect a very specific individual airplane. This co-operation is especially important in the litigious orientation of American society where lawyers not familiar with the industry may make the erroneous conclusion that one or two specific incidents that ended in tragedy are indicative of a problem dogging the whole type – regardless of whether a long safety record for the type indicates the precise opposite.

Nor is there any conflict or competition between the type club and AOPA. As club member Sandra Krier of Florida explains, the two fulfil different but complementary functions. “Membership in AOPA gives me valuable tools and resources as a pilot. AOPA is vital to GA pilots and GA as a whole, and they are much needed as a representative of GA in government affairs. The flight planning tools and other online tools are wonderful. Membership in the Cessna 150-152 club on the other hand provides a resource to 150-152 owners that a single, larger organisation cannot. I was interested in obtaining as much information as I could about how to maintain the aircraft, and the specific knowledge and experiences shared within the club helps me keep flying. I found it here.”

Extensive resource for Cessna 150-152 owners

With this in mind, and early recognising early the enormous potential afforded by the internet as a sort of outreach to Cessna 150-152 owners, Parsons constructed a web site to host the club. He started an internet forum to access and develop a pool of technical knowledge about the type. This has become a tremendous resource for club members. Carefully organised and archived on the Club’s database “Mama” is every known official document on the 150-152 – all the FAA documents, all of the AD’s, and STC’s, all the Cessna service bulletins and documents for the 27 models of the 150-152 that were made. All the information and material that could be found on the type, both official and unofficial, has been collected, organised and archived in the club database. An excellent search function assists members in retrieving the desired material. “We now have more information about the Cessna 150-152 than anybody could possibly make use of!” grins Parsons. The club also issues a bimonthly newsletter in paper and electronic form filled with useful, informative articles. Finally, Mike Arman’s excellent guide Owning, Buying or Flying the Cessna 150-152, the special belly drain and dipstick developed for the Cessna 150-152, club decals, T-shirts and other clothing, and the commemorative DVDs from the annual fly-in can all be purchased through the club’s online store.

Parsons’ instincts about the internet were right. The club now boasts an eclectic and colourful collection of aircraft owners, ranging from WW2 bomber and Alaska bush pilots to pastors, engineers, film-makers, small town businessmen and factory workers, college students and retirees. There’s even the odd banker, doctor, and lawyer in there, although the consensus seems to be that these folks generally seem to be attracted to other types of airplane! Several certified A & P mechanics experienced with the type are also members, and their knowledge and experience is frequently aired on the forum, with the mechanics often personally responding to members’ questions about technical matters and problems they encounter with their planes. This is a well known aircraft type, and the problems and weaknesses that turn up in the members’ questions are known things that occur over and over again and that mechanics have been working with for decades. There are extensive technical sections on the forum, with pages on mechanical and airframe problems, modifications, avionics, and piloting, tips and tricks and more. The flow of information and experiences between members is constant. “If a person is not a member of a type club, he is dependent on a licensed mechanic for every single small thing. The preventive maintenance pilots are allowed to carry out under FAR rules can be learned here,” comments Cessna 152 driver Hung Pham of Kansas. “You can learn how to detect the early signs of problems, trouble spots to address, and also what not to do. Club membership is a way of making ownership cost-effective, keeping the costs down and teaching you the steps to help yourself.”

The mechanics themselves pick up new twists on solving old problems through the club. "As an A & P mechanic myself, I benefit enormously from the club because I learn of the different ways that other mechanics have approached and solved problems,” says Gary Shreve of Texas. The forum also offers an active buyers and sellers page, and members often assist and advise each other in a purchase, flying up to investigate a given aircraft in their area on behalf of an out of state buyer.

The internet is the glue

The internet is an interesting phenomenon in aviation as a hobby, both as a tool for disseminating information about the aircraft, but also as a vehicle by which genuine ties are formed between people. It then works as the cementing glue once these contacts have been made. Members get to know each other as human beings through the “Cup o’ Joe” and “Everything Else” pages where they discuss everything from jokes, religion, philosophy, and politics to a little Sunday School “food for thought” – even where to find vintage truck parts! Consequently, many of the cyberspace connections fostered here in the Cessna 150-152 club turn into fully-fledged friendships when people finally meet at the fly-in, and the disembodied voices of colourful personalities circulating in the ether metamorphose into real, live flesh and blood people. As Katie Bosman, a CFI from Tennessee put it, “Like all the Cessna 150s and 152’s I see at the fly-in, the people in this forum are very colourful and different. Our planes have different tails, colours, engines and landing gear, but the people are defined by their own views and beliefs. Diversity among planes and personalities is what makes our forum and our country different from the rest.”

From East, West, North, South and the far flung oceans too

“What the .....?!!!” A Stearman driver refuelling his plane in Clinton, Iowa on the way to Oshkosh glances upwards and suddenly does a double take as a cheeky pair of Cessna 150s pass low overhead in formation, the words “Clinton, IA 2007” and “Clinton 07 Rocks!” clearly emblazoned in 12” lettering beneath their wings.

Make no mistake – the annual Clinton fly-in is a VERY big deal for this club. If the forum is the club’s pneuma, then the fly-in is its physical manifestation to the world. Held every year at Clinton Municipal Airport amidst the Iowa corn fields the week before Oshkosh, it draws pilots from all over the United States and Canada, and has also welcomed visitors from Australia, Italy, Great Britain, Sweden, Switzerland and Norway. For months on end, the pilots look forward to it, doggedly marking off the days on the calendar. Until one day, like children let out from school, the elated whoop goes up: “Clinton ROCKS...Pump it up! Pump it up! Pump it up!” At one time an event that only barely broke even, the fly-in has become a successful, self-supporting, volunteer-run venture carried along by its own momentum. Parsons no longer needs to publicly advertise the fly-in outside the club website. Clinton 2007 was the biggest year so far, with over 100 aeroplanes in attendance; other members drove or jetted in on the commercial airlines. Indeed, there’s a lot to come for. In addition to the flying contests, films, and social events, the club also organises useful technical and piloting seminars at Clinton (topics this year included owner-performed maintenance, the fuel system, spin and stall training and flying in Alaska). Members this year could also sign up for an hour of spin and stall training with CFI’s Catherine Cavagnaro and Bob McKenzie.

Many might shudder at the thought of taking a long, cross country trip in a cramped Cessna 150 to go to a fly-in. Not this crowd. For them that is part of the whole adventure. ”To a lot of people, flying for three days on end in a 150 doesn’t sound very appealing,” says Parsons. ”The part they don’t understand is the phenomenal sense of adventure, freedom and the sense of accomplishment that you get when you make your way across the country in a small aeroplane. It’s the only way to travel…where you don’t need a road; you don’t even need a footpath. You literally make your own path as you go. You’re the captain of your own ship – the pilot of your own destiny. The view is spectacular, and you’ll see things every hour that 99.9% of the human race will never see in their lifetime.”

Location, location, location!

The success of the fly-in is due in part to its location. Even in America, it is no longer a given that a community will be positively inclined towards general aviation, so venue is important. “Clinton works really well for us because it is in a central location in our country, the airport lies amidst open fields and farmland and non-controlled air space, and there are very few houses in the immediate vicinity,” says Parsons. “Fewer houses means diminished likelihood of complaints, and should a pilot have to put down in an emergency landing in this kind of terrain, he is very likely to walk away without injury. Last but not least, it’s less than half a tank of fuel for those going on to Oshkosh!”

The fly-in benefits both club and local community alike, resulting in much mutual goodwill on both sides. Clinton sits on the banks of the Mississippi and is a regional centre for agriculture and small manufacturing. It has an active local airport and flying club in an area that is positive to general aviation at the outset. The locals are happy because the fly-in brings attention and business to the area and the airport. This year, Airport Manager Mike Nass had to scramble to find extra fuel as there were so many planes that they sold out! Parsons has only accolades for Clinton Municipal Airport and the surrounding community. “There’s a freedom to move around here you no longer find in other places. Folks here are just super, and we can hold a fly-in and run events here of a type and on a scale that just wouldn’t be possible at other airports”.

Heartland of America