- Joined
- Jun 18, 2014
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Hello!
I've been meaning to join for a while, and finally did so. This forum is a wealth of information, thanks for having me.
We bought a 1963 Cherokee 180B almost a year ago, our first airplane. My wife and I are both pilots, and as of five years ago, we were sick of renting and decided to start stuffing away spare cash to buy our own airplane. A year ago May, we were almost there, and then my Dad passed away. Dad was a student pilot back in the 60's, but never finished. In the late 90's he started taking lessons again, but by this time his Parkinson's had progressed to the point where he couldn't get a third class medical. He passed on Memorial Day 2013, and left us an inheritance that allowed us to go ahead and buy an airplane. I miss him terribly, but now he's with me on every flight.
I found the airplane for sale at our home field, KMRC, and after a pre-buy, we went ahead and wrote the check. It has about 4400 TTAF and about 900 SMOH. I learned a 172, but the transition was really a non-event. It has the Whorton (SP?) STOL kit with leading edge cuffs, stall fences, and VGs on the vertical stabilizer. I never thought I'd find an airplane as docile as the 172N, but this one is even more so. We've put about 70 hours on it since we've had it, and have had very little trouble. The tach locked up about 3 days after we bought it, so we had an electronic analog unit installed, in addition to a Hobbs meter. It has a Garmin 430W, and I'm still learning what all it will do, it's certainly more capable than I am, me being a VFR guy. It also has a fairly new Garmin GTX330 transponder, which I will be upgrading to the ES for ADS-B out. We also added inertial shoulder harnesses from Alpha Aviation. In short, we absolutely love this airplane. Our A&P, who maintained it for the previous owner, resides one hanger away from us, and he keeps a close eye on the airplane. I'll try my hand at posting some pictures here shortly.
I've been meaning to join for a while, and finally did so. This forum is a wealth of information, thanks for having me.
We bought a 1963 Cherokee 180B almost a year ago, our first airplane. My wife and I are both pilots, and as of five years ago, we were sick of renting and decided to start stuffing away spare cash to buy our own airplane. A year ago May, we were almost there, and then my Dad passed away. Dad was a student pilot back in the 60's, but never finished. In the late 90's he started taking lessons again, but by this time his Parkinson's had progressed to the point where he couldn't get a third class medical. He passed on Memorial Day 2013, and left us an inheritance that allowed us to go ahead and buy an airplane. I miss him terribly, but now he's with me on every flight.
I found the airplane for sale at our home field, KMRC, and after a pre-buy, we went ahead and wrote the check. It has about 4400 TTAF and about 900 SMOH. I learned a 172, but the transition was really a non-event. It has the Whorton (SP?) STOL kit with leading edge cuffs, stall fences, and VGs on the vertical stabilizer. I never thought I'd find an airplane as docile as the 172N, but this one is even more so. We've put about 70 hours on it since we've had it, and have had very little trouble. The tach locked up about 3 days after we bought it, so we had an electronic analog unit installed, in addition to a Hobbs meter. It has a Garmin 430W, and I'm still learning what all it will do, it's certainly more capable than I am, me being a VFR guy. It also has a fairly new Garmin GTX330 transponder, which I will be upgrading to the ES for ADS-B out. We also added inertial shoulder harnesses from Alpha Aviation. In short, we absolutely love this airplane. Our A&P, who maintained it for the previous owner, resides one hanger away from us, and he keeps a close eye on the airplane. I'll try my hand at posting some pictures here shortly.
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