AOPA Pilot Magazine - December 2014 - 12

LETTERS

FROM OUR OCTOBER 2014 ISSUE

GA Aircraft Reimagined
Memories rushed back to members when they read of our 2015 sweepstakes aircraft,
a Reimagined Cessna 152, and many shared their recollections with us.
We lived in a small town in
Mississippi when I started
taking flying lessons at age 15.
The airplane was a 1963 Cessna
150 and, as I recall, rented for
$7.50 an hour wet. After soloing and accumulating around
28 hours, my dad was transferred to Maryland. After one
lesson at Friendship Airport
(now BWI), I looked for someplace smaller and discovered
the Frederick, Maryland, airport (FDK). The Cessna Pilot
Center had newer 1971 L Model
150s. During my first preflight, I
was looking around the cockpit
and when my instructor asked
what I was looking for, I said,
"the flap handle." He laughed
and pointed to the electric flap
switch on the panel. Besides
soloing, my most memorable
flight in a 150 was returning
to Frederick from Hagerstown
where I had to go to take my
private checkride. Yes, I passed.
Billy Fletcher
AOPA 6061764
Ocala, Florida

I just finished reading the article on the "reimagined" Cessna
152. By telling you that I not
only got my private ticket in a
150 but also my commercial,
instrument rating (yep, an IFRcertified 150), and my CFI in a
150 you can probably make a
fairly close estimate as to how
long I have had my certificates
and ratings. I am retired now
and flight instructing is my
retirement gig. How lucky am
I? I average around 400 hours a
year of dual given plus another
150 hours of personal flying in
my own airplane.
12 | AOPA PILOT December 2014

who choose not to pursue flying because they simply do not
fit in the airplane that they otherwise could afford to fly. The
reimagined 152 will suffer from
the same limitation.

| SWEEPSTAKES 2015 |

GA AIRCRAFT

David Simenauer
AOPA 3941995
Centreville, Virginia

Filling a void in the marketplace
AMONG THE MANY EXOTIC AIRCRAFT at the world's largest airshow,
a once-common Cessna 152 trainer at the AOPA tent at AirVenture
drew more than its share of curiosity.
What's so special about this airplane? Who restored it to asnew condition? And is it going to be given away in the 2015 AOPA
Sweepstakes?
The answers seemed to capture the imaginations of pilots, aircraft
owners, and others at EAA AirVenture 2014 interested in seeing general aviation thrive again.
This "Reimagined" Cessna 152 is the ﬁrst in an AOPA test to ﬁnd
out whether refurbished aircraft can provide a notable value to ﬂying clubs and ﬂight schools. If the answer is yes, perhaps these tough,
proven airplanes that already have trained two generations of GA
pilots can be updated and continue providing affordable access to
aviation for many more pilots in the years to come. And yes, one of
the much-talked-about yellow 152s rebuilt for AOPA by the craftsmen at Aviat Aircraft in Afton, Wyoming, will be the 2015 AOPA
Sweepstakes prize.
B Y D AV E H I R S C H M A N
PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRIS ROSE

66 | AOPA PILOT October 2014

VIDEO EXTRA

Fly along with us in
the Reimagined 152 in
this AOPA Live this
week video.

www.aopa.org/pilot AOPA PILOT | 67

"The refurbishment of a fleet of Cessna
150/152s is absolutely brilliant! What a
marvelous idea. Somebody is thinking way
out of the box. It took real imagination, conviction, and hard work to put this program
together with Aviat."
Alan Reich
AOPA 2388943
La Center, Washington

I have had the idea for a long
time of how great it would be to
bring back to life all of the 150s
and 152s deteriorating at their
tiedowns. As a matter of fact, we
have two 152s and one 150 in our
fleet at the flight school I instruct
at. They are not modern looking
but they are well maintained, and
at $90 an hour wet they are a bargain in today's world. But they
do not fly much. There are a few
reasons for this but one reason I
see people shun the 152s-and
even other two-seat trainers, like
the Diamond DA20-is big, and I
literally mean big.
Americans have become
very large over the past 20 years

or so. This is a problem we see
on a daily basis at our school. If
you fill the tanks on the 152
you are going to have room
for about 420 pounds. CFIs
are bigger, students are bigger.
Finding two American men that
together weigh less than 420
pounds is more of a challenge
then one might realize.
Promoting the "reimagined"
152 is a great idea to make GA
flying more affordable. But this
idea, along with any other idea to
promote flying and increasing
the pilot ranks, should include
education on the necessity for
a healthy diet and lifestyle. I
see people on a regular basis

Barry Schiff could include this
question in his next quiz: "True
or false: The sweepstakes 152
has a Garmin area 560 GPS in
the panel, the sole means of
navigation." (Hint: Chris Rose's
beautiful in-flight photo of the
airplane on page 69 clearly
shows a mag compass at the top
center of the windshield.)
Oscar Zuniga
AOPA 455536
Medford, Oregon

Flying D.C. airspace

I am beginning to react very
badly to stories such as Al
Marsh's-and not because of
his literary talent, but because
of the sheer volume of similar
stories and what it tells us.
Our government spends a lot
of our money protecting itself
from all sorts of risks and hazards that it claims exist. They
have taken Washington, D.C.,
and turned it into a city of
concrete barriers and more
security zones than you can
keep track of-all, of course, at
our expense. Who are they protecting besides themselves? You
got it. Why are these government workers so much
more valuable than everyone
else? Try and answer that one.
We should not be tolerating
this, instead of assuming it is

http://www.aopa.org/pilot

AOPA Pilot Magazine - December 2014

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