Search Results for: Cessna 172

I was southbound on a solo cross country flight before getting my license, returning to Miami Executive Airport (KTMB). The ceilings and visibility were dropping and I was down to about 1500 feet over the Everglades swamplands. I navigated using roads and other VFR checkpoints, which were getting harder to see out the Cessna 172s windshield.

I own and fly a Cessna 172, and a curved pattern (Circular Patterns, March 2017) would not be an advantage as I would not see the runway until I came out at the end of the turn. I realize the military used this approach but as you know they have very few high-wing aircraft. Also, you would not be able to see if another aircraft cut you off until the last moment. Why change something that has been working just fine?

I want to thank you for writing a balanced and fair assessment about the threat of drones to aviation (Where The Drones Are, October 2016). Your article is perhaps the first rational discussion related to the dangers of these little plastic radio-control models. I have been a pilot for the past 22 years, and owned a Cessna 172 for the past 12 years. I would certainly hate to hit one of these things.

The days mission was to coach a friend of mine through his three bangs-and-goes using another friends Cessna 172. Although he had little time, if any, in Cessnas, he was in the left seat. I was serving as PIC from the right. Shortly after we secured the cabin and ran the before-start checklist, the mighty 160-hp Lycoming was happily purring away. We were getting ready to call for a taxi clearance when the engine stopped. No cough, no protest, no warning. What did you do? I asked. Nothing, the bang-and-go candidate responded. So we ran the checklist again. When we came to the floor-mounted fuel selector, I asked, How did the fuel selector get turned off? He said, Its not; I turned it to both before starting the engine and havent touched it since. Houston, we found the problem.

In Septembers issue, we ran a small article about NASAs crash-testing of three Cessna 172s as it researches emergency locator transmitter (ELT) technologies and mountings. A sidebar with that article published still images from an in-cabin video of a test, highlighting the value of shoulder harnesses for occupant protection.

Well state right up front that flying IFR these days without even a portable GPS is just foolish. No matter how good your VOR skills might be, if you get that kind of situational awareness and backup in a used GPS for the cost of two tanks of avgas in a Cessna 172, why wouldnt you fly with one?That said, neither our GPS-and-WAAS satellite constellation, nor a $16,000 IFR-GPS navigator, is bulletproof. And even when you happily supplement your /U or /A status with a portable GPS, batteries die, screens fail and sometimes its easier to employ a few knob-twisting tricks rather than struggle to input the name of an unanticipated fix while trying to keep it all upright in turbulence. So (maybe for the last time in the run of this magazine) here are some of those VOR tips and techniques you may have forgotten. You never know when they might come in handy.

Am I ready for this flight? Thats the question I found myself asking when I decided to resume flying in a rental aircraft after a six-month lapse. This was after selling the V35B Bonanza Id owned for eight years. Since I was due for a flight review anyway, I engaged an instructor and got checked out to fly a Cessna 172 from a local flight school. I was comfortable flying the Skyhawk after only an hour and three landings, despite not having flown in six months. That certainly wouldnt be the case for all the aircraft Im rated in: The last time I flew a jet was more than seven years ago.

We looked at details of the five accidents summarized above for this article. There are others we could have chosen, with different lessons. One thing that jumped out at us: Simple singles werent well-represented. Is that because a simple single, say, a Cessna 172, is more maneuverable and better suited to completing a circling approach than an Aerostar? Possibly. But its also possible pilots dont fly simple singles into conditions low enough to require circling as often as they do other airplanes.

In 1984, I sold the 1975 Cessna 172 I had operated for nine years and acquired a 1978 Mooney 201. I immediately put the airplane to work on a multi-stop trip around the country, quickly discovering how efficient it was. On the last leg of that trip, from St. Petersburg, Fla. (KSPG) to Mansfield, Mass. (1B9), I flew the 1029 nm nonstop in 6.7 hours using 52.4 gallons of fuel. That’s an average of 154…

Ive got a Cessna 172 rolling out on the runway, an American Eagle Embraer 145 on two-mile final, a Beechcraft Bonanza in the downwind with a pair of V-22 Osprey tiltrotors inbound to follow, a Lifeflight medical helicopter departing a hospital next door, and a pair of Navy T-45 Goshawk jet trainers calling me, ready at the hold short line.