STILL FOLKS OUT THERE HAVING FUN WITH THEIR AIRPLANES



“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

The Clinton spirit is palpable from the moment the visitor lands or walks in the door. For an entire week, the airport building, ramp and grass parking areas are taken over by the Cessna 150-152 Club. Volunteers in golf carts sporting bright “Follow Me 122.75” signs greet each arrival as they taxi in and direct them and assist them to their parking place on the grass. Those who are camping at the airport pitch their tents near their planes, making use of the airport facilities for their personal needs. Block bookings at reduced rates at the motels in town have been organised well ahead of time for those desiring more comfort, and free shuttle buses driven by club volunteers ferry attendees back and forwards between the airport and town throughout the fly-in.

Formal registration is handled at the airport reception desk by volunteers Dennis and Phyllis Raddant, a soft-spoken couple from Texas. They have attended the fly-in all six years it has been held. The visitor from Europe found herself almost immediately engaged in a conversation with Dennis over the spectre of user fees and the negative impact they would have on general aviation in America (more about that later.). A quick glance around tells a story of tremendous team spirit and cohesiveness in the club. Displayed on the walls were the custom T-shirts of the individual caravans that had flown in along with the year’s raffle prizes (GPS handhelds, models of 150 and 152s, Cessna 150 Dr  signs, Cessna 150 Parking Only signs, mugs, jackets and more). Black T-shirts bearing an emblem of skull and bones and cutlasses announce the presence of the West Coast Pirates, while the “Vaqueros de Cessna” T-shirt sports a cowboy aboard a bucking Cessna cavorting across the state of Texas. One had to smile in commiseration at the T-shirt of those coming in from mosquito-infested states like Minnesota: a grim-faced, manic looking pilot in a small 150 loaded with two air-to-air missiles on each wing, bearing down hard with murderous intent on the tail of a fleeing gnat! On a humorous yet more sobering note are the T-shirts for club member Ed “Poobs” Pataky’s spoof presidential campaign: “Poobs for President.....Vote Poobs for President and Get Your Ass Back Where It Belongs” (the implication being, get the voters back into the driver’s seat.) The Poohbah’s campaign may be just a gag, but it demonstrates a keen awareness at grassroots level of the country having taken a serious wrong turn and the need to right matters once more.

Since the fly-in is heavily dependent on volunteers, most people try to get there early to help set up and run things. The Good Ol’ Southern Boys caravan led by 6’7 foot tall Bengie Phillips (who says Cessna 150s cannot accommodate tall people?) made its way up and over from Florida and “Jawjuh”; the pilots and caravan coming in from the Northeast however were delayed by bad weather. The stragglers nevertheless received a vociferous welcome, with their arrival commanding the full attention of all, as I discovered in the middle of conducting an interview. At the shout “The New England Outkasts are here!”, my subject suddenly uttered a hasty apology, downed tools and fled, hurrying to join the throng of people who had gathered at the ramp and were smiling and waving at the formation of Cessnas passing overhead. As soon as the caravan of new arrivals had taxied in and parked, there were hand shakes, good-natured joshing, back slaps and hugs all around as the latecomers of the extended Cessna 150-152 family were joyously reunited with their kin.

The foreign visitor is struck by the way the members of the Cessna 150-152 club look out for each other while they’re here, in the big things as well as the small. One evening as the call went up for hamburgers at the hangar, a small handful of people remained gathered around the open cowling of a battle-worn 1961 Cessna 150 from Colorado. A pile of airplane parts was arranged neatly on the tarmac in the front, while hard at work on his hands and knees beneath the aircraft, his eyes focused intently upwards into the aircraft’s belly was Charles Hanna, a highly experienced A & P mechanic from Georgia. Ranch broker Lexie Armitage and her airplane partner Joel Kiester (77) had suffered a generator problem on the way in, and Hanna, refusing all exhortations to accept payment, was striving to set the problem straight for them so that the airplane could at least be flown back to Colorado. Then the whole 150-152 club family pulled as one when Lori Parsons’ daughter Kayla was severely injured in a fall from a golf cart, necessitating an airlift to a larger hospital in Iowa City and the loss of Lori for the duration of the fly-in. Cyndi Shaffer of Texas smoothly stepped in and assumed Lori’s duties, with the rest of the club members ably assisting her wherever needed. Even so the newcomer was not forgotten. Throughout the fly-in, I and my daughter were invariably asked if we had been flying yet, and if not, would we like to go?

Educational seminars, nerf drops, spot landings, and a scavenger hunt

The flying contests were fun and entertaining to watch while simultaneously challenging pilots to improve and hone their piloting skills. There was a “nerf drop”, a spot landing contest, and a scavenger hunt, with the top-placing pilot after all three events is named the year’s “Top Gun” and winner of the Clyde award. Non-flyers who still wanted to participate in the contests could serve as “nerfa-diers” dropping the nerfs or serving as navigators and spotters in the scavenger hunt. Others were impressed into service either as judges or ground crew in the landing contests, holding aloft American flags to help indicate wind direction, or measuring distances and retrieving nerfs in the nerf drop.

In the nerf drop, co-pilots attempt to drop a light, spongy mini-torpedo-like object into an open plastic drum placed in the grass field alongside the runway. Flying below 200 AGL brought immediate disqualification. A wind sock planted into the ground and volunteers standing on either side of the target area holding aloft the American flag help the team in the aircraft gauge wind direction and hone their aim. “You’d be surprised how hard it is to gauge the distance and aim that thing,” grinned Royson as a straight tail flew over and the nerf landed several yards outside the target area. “You’ve got to account for the backwash from the prop, speed of the aircraft, and try to compensate for that because you can’t see the target anymore when you’re immediately over it. Is there a trick? Maybe 1% guessing and 99% luck!”

As soon as the last pilot in a group makes his drop, the judges move to the side of the runway where “Green Acres”, an area measuring75(100 feet is painted on the runway. The objective is to land any portion of the main landing gear within the confines of the box, with extra points awarded for precision, grace and style. Valuable extra points could be earned for good, but less-used piloting techniques if a more knowledgeable aviator happened to be on one’s judging panel. “I awarded Ed Pataky extra points for demonstrated mastery of the sideslip technique,” said Canadian judge Avery Wagg after Friday afternoon’s competitions. “Being able to side slip and forward slip effectively is a sign of good airmanship and requires the pilot to maintain as much control of the aircraft as possible. Seeing the airplane swinging in from side to side on approach may not have looked as tidy as a regular flap landing, but there was a time when airplanes didn’t have flaps and being able to sideslip and forward slip was paramount for safety. You had to be able to sideslip in order to get down!”

The third event was the scavenger hunt. Every year, Gary Shreve designs a challenging course which sends pilots and navigators on about an hour’s flight around the Clinton general area, looking for clues and answering questions about what they saw. It is an event which requires navigator/spotters in the co-pilot’s seat that are as alert and switched on as the pilot. Information for the hunt is collected at an altitude of no less than 1000 feet AGL, and contestants are asked to find and identify landmarks, read signs, count and identify livestock, grain storage bins, smoke stacks, bridges...with extra credit for being able to provide closer details, as for example the type of bridge and number of bridge supports, bands of colour on the tower, turning direction of turbines on the power station found in an earlier question and so on, all the while remaining alert to the presence of other pilots on the same mission. “I had to laugh at how dumb I was,” smiled Wayne Reynolds of Florida afterwards. “We were looking for clues in all the wrong places!”

The competition was run on a flexible time schedule whereby pilots formed their own crews and flew at their convenience. Some pilots expressed concern when they found themselves continually crossing paths with another competitor circling around the same clue and no one talking over the radio. Were the crews actively scanning for other traffic? Ever eager to minimise the risks and improve the competition, course designer Shreve requested contestants’ feedback after the competition was over. These all received careful consideration, but as Shreve reminded pilots, no set of rules can replace good piloting. “Jim Barger suggested a CTAF for the contest planes and reporting points, and others suggested time slots. But, in lieu of time slots which would inadvertently remove some of the freedom of the event, I’m in favour of making reporting points on a particular frequency where each aircraft would self-announce their position and intentions. These points would be written on a chart provided with the clues so there’d be no confusion where the points are. Then, the aircraft would simply maintain the most basic of collision avoidance principles, see and avoid, with the added benefit of a standardised system of radio communications. No rules can ensure good piloting. It’s up to the individual flight crews to maintain that.”

“At least someone still knows how to have fun with airplanes!”

The spirit of the fly-in was perhaps best captured by an outbound Beech Bonanza driver who had stopped in Clinton to refuel. Having followed the launch of one of the contest flights, he asked what was going on over the CTAF. To the answer, ”nerf drops and landing contests”, the pilot replied ”well, at least someone still knows how to have fun with their airplanes!”

Aircraft as individual as their owners

A stroll around the airport after the day’s competitions makes it quickly apparent that the majority of these airplanes have not been bought merely as hours builders to use and sell on. The tidy lines of aircraft parked neatly on the grass were as unique and individual as their owners, sporting different colours, engines, tails and landing gear. There were some hardworking workhorses, like Joel Kiester and Lexie Armitage’s aerial ranch scout and cabin transport, complete with Dachshund flying companion Fury, but there were a lot of cream puffs too. Gordon Ellis’s Foxy Fernelope is a shiny, silver 1959 straight tail 150 with nose art depicting a pet fox the family once had. Behind the seat rides a complete cast of Disney characters with teddy co-pilot Dugan sitting alongside Gordon in right seat. (Dugan sports a Smokey Bear fire-fighting award won for the crew’s part in helping to fight forest fires in Wyoming.) There’s a fearsome set of shark face spats on a blue and white painted 150 from California, Gary Shreve’s spunky blue and white 150/150E Texas Taildragger, which with its STOL, manual flaps and long range tanks must be the ultimate in the Cessna 150 as a utility airplane, and Catherine Cavagnaro’s graceful 152 Aerobat Wilbur. (Orville, the Aerobat of her mentor, author and aerobatics instructor Bill Kershner is now in the Air and Space Museum.) There was a plane with a jaunty “Discover Flying!” message on the horizontal stabiliser, Ed Figuli’s unmistakable canary yellow Woodstock, and Greg Sempsrott’s tidy 150M – proof that one can find a good plane on Ebay(!)...in short, a whole airfield of cosseted babies out there! And why not? Indeed, many of the members think of themselves as stewards of an upcoming classic. William Lund of California plans to pass his aircraft on to his son and got the cyberspace equivalent of a standing ovation when he posted pictures on the forum of the refurbishment of his 150 forward of the firewall. “It’s SO encouraging to see SO many members doing SO many things to our planes that will ensure their sustainability for generations to come,” remarked Jim Hillabrand. “At the end of the day, we may have “legal ownership” of our planes during our time of ownership, but the truth is – we are really “stewards”. It is our responsibility to cradle and maintain our planes for the next in line.”

Robust and over-designed

I tried to ask mechanics and pilots what accounted for this spirit of conservation and why the type enjoyed such longevity. A&P mechanic David Linton explained that the Cessna 150 was unusually robust because it was “over-designed”. Apparently, at the time the 150 was on the drawing board, the capabilities of aluminium as a construction material for airplanes was not yet fully understood, and hence extra robustness was designed in. “I don’t think Cessna ever expected them to be around this long as they have, but as long as people maintain their aircraft properly, I don’t see any reason why we can’t keep flying them for a long time to come.”

“Except for the fact that we Americans are getting larger and larger by the year!” quips club president Parsons with a mischievous grin. “Now there’s something that might affect their longevity!”

The little enabler

So what is it about this little airplane that inspires such loyalty –even love? A quick poll at the fly-in yielded a host of responses: “Freedom!” was the unanimous cry, followed by “affordable, fun, safe, economical, mechanically robust, easy to maintain, capable, forgiving, easy to fly, poor man’s sports car, and nimble, light controls.”

“I don’t know of many other ways people with an average income can follow the dream of flying,” explains Sandy Krier, owner and pilot of Cessna 150 “Lulubelle”. “They are perfect for building time in an economical way, and for those who are looking for a long time commitment, the plane is rewarding.” Sandy has flown other types but enjoys the nimble, responsive feel of the 150-152 controls as compared for example to the more “truck-like” Cessna 172. She lauds the small trainer for the freedom, confidence and sheer enjoyment of flying it gives her. “I wanted the freedom to take my plane and escape for days, and visit any airport I choose (many rental operators restrict to public, paved airports). I certainly have no regrets. The Cessna 150 is forgiving, fun, and familiar. It certainly isn’t as fast as others I’ve flown, but the joy reminds me of the days when my father and I would fly to the coast in his Kolb Twinstar. It really is about flying for the sake of the feeling it gives you. And yet there is still a lot of utility there.”

Ed Figuli of Schnecksville, Pennsylvania concurs. “When it comes to buying airplanes, there’s what a pilot wants, what he needs and what he can afford,” says Ed. “The Cessna 150 fell into two of those categories for me. With the 150hp engine, my bird is extra fun to fly.”

“If I were forced to sell all my airplanes but one, I’d keep the 150”, says octogenarian Norbert ”Lucky” McLuckie who was in attendance with his wife Shirley. Lucky flew Mitchell bombers in WW2 and now flies a Bellanca Viking and two Fairchilds in addition to his 150. “The Cessna 150 is easy and safe to fly and handles well. It’s an aeroplane that takes care of you.”

“I like the handling,” responds Hung Pham, who ended up buying the 152 he learned in and now uses it to take people up for fun flights. “It’s like driving an MG sports car. It’s not an easy plane to fly well, but if you learn to fly it well, you are a good pilot. And if you can fly IFR in something as light and responsive as one of these, you can fly IFR in anything!”

World records and crossing oceans

For all its weakness and humility, a pilot can blaze some unusual trails with a Cessna 150-152. Take Ed Figuli for example. In his canary yellow 150/150 taildragger “Woodstock”, Ed has clocked up two world speed records over recognised courses (Allentown, Pennsylvania to Fort Smith, Arkansas – 132.13 km/hr on 13/07/2002; and Allentown to Dayton, Ohio on the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers – 161.63 km/hr on 09/05/2003). One of the faithful at Clinton and Oshkosh, Ed and his plane are now regularly invited to make appearances at air shows.

Then there are the extraordinary feats. Leon Stolman once ferried a Cessna 150 from Virginia to Botswana, while the out-of-print book She Who Dares Wins” tells the story of Janette Schönberg who bought an old and tired 150 and flew it all the way from England to Australia. And let’s not forget club member Catherine Cavagnaro: People at the fly-in gazed upwards in open-mouthed admiration as Catherine in her Aerobat “Wilbur” twirled slowly and gracefully down from the sky in 35 consecutive spins, an aerial ballerina amidst pink and blue skies, the evening sun turning the edge of her plane’s wings to gold.

For most 150-152 drivers though, it’s about the sheer joy of flying. Because the Cessna 150 is such a basic machine, joyriding in it gives a feeling that hearkens back to the old barnstorming days. People at the fly-in were constantly taking off on spontaneous flights to “go have a look at the countryside”, or take in the sunset. They might speak in hushed, wondering tones of low and slow flights in their aeroplanes over emerald pastures and burnished cornfields...of pristine snowfields, cool blue mountains, wooded hillsides, and parched deserts. Their aeroplane gave them loge seats from which to enjoy the beauty of their country – contemplate the mighty Mississippi – lifeblood of a nation – as it winds its way through the great green squares of the Midwestern heartland. Count the barges loaded with grain as they drift down river on their way to feed a hungry, waiting world. Low and slow flying is an opportunity for reflection, and for some, is akin to a religious experience as they gaze down in awe and gratitude on God’s creation below. “There’s something about aviation that’s just plain emotional. And it’s a huge stress reliever,” observes Parsons. “Flying takes your mind completely off what else in your life is bothering you and gets you focused on the job at hand.”

User fees – an attempt to pass the buck

For all the celebratory mood at the fly-in, the spectre of user fees when Congress passes its authorisation bill for the FAA in September of this year was never far from anyone’s mind. All felt that the current system worked perfectly well and that an unfair attempt was being made to pass the buck to a sector of the industry that had not created the problem and thus did not have the moral obligation to carry it. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” was the common cry. All were determined to fight it, and all dutifully wrote letters to their Congressman whenever AOPA sent up the call. Some pilots were quite fiery about the matter and felt that it was “very much a Republican thing” in that both the current Administration and Republican senators support it while the Democrats do not. There was considerable resentment of the airlines, with the perception that it was their burgeoning numbers that was overtaxing the system and that they desired to pass on the costs of improvements to the system to a flying public that does not use this system. “The airlines are misleading their pilots and passengers saying that it is GA that causes delays – but we don’t go where those guys go,” comments Parsons. “The airlines just want to get rid of the fuel tax, which is part of what funds the FAA at the moment.” Others criticised inefficiency in planning for the woes. “The costs of flying just keep going up and up and up. Every time the government issues some new regulation, it translates to more overhead, more maintenance, more compliance paperwork, more expenses, said Dennis Raddant. “User fees will kill GA and not fix the airlines’ problems. I live near Dallas-Fort Worth, and I observe that the busy periods go in spikes. They’ll have pushes whereby airliners are lined up in a trail and the airport is very busy for an hour, and then it will be idle for an hour or two before becoming busy again. Why not spread departures out throughout the day and make more efficient use of the facilities and the dead time at the airport rather than lumping everything into the same departure slots?”

Some pilots felt that the sudden imposition of user fees in a country not accustomed to them could compromise safety and further burden an already struggling industry. In the effort to contain the costs of flying, user fees might make people reckless and tempted to cut corners, they worried. “I worry that user fees could make flying less safe,” said safety aerobatics instructor Catherine Cavagnaro. “Human nature being what it is, if people have to start paying for everything that they now enjoy at no charge, they may be willing to skimp on safety briefings, cut out extra lessons and training that they might otherwise have taken, skip practising landing touch-and-goes beyond the bare minimum, getting weather briefings...it’s very worrying. I don’t mind paying a higher price for fuel...avgas does after all require special tanks and tankers. But placing the onus for major system upgrades on GA – that is neither right nor fair.”

More reflective airmen marked the irony of a proposal that would essentially set the different branches of the aviation community against each other, with both ultimately losing out. With fewer pilots being recruited from the military, many airline pilots were coming from general aviation. However, with user fees and ever increasing regulation raising the costs and strangling GA even further, new pilot starts might be imperilled at a time when there is a shortage of pilots. Those who were already hesitant due to the ever rising costs of flying would drop the idea and many of the “little guys” would be forced to drop out. “This business of user fees really frightens me,” said Greg Hopp of Ohio. “If they first manage to drive a wedge in there, perhaps starting with limited user fees, eventually it will snowball. General aviation is already very vulnerable - this could be the straw that breaks the camel's back.”

“I’m not one to expect to get anything for free“, says Sandy Krier. “But I will say that to introduce a new way of obtaining revenue is dangerous. You don’t have to be a history major to predict that once you introduce a new type of government tax or fee, it doesn’t go away. In fact it usually grows well beyond the intentions of those who proposed them in the first place. We already have a system of collecting revenue via fuel taxes. If more planes are burning fuel (all that extra traffic up there), then they should already be getting the additional revenue they need to provide a safe and efficient ATC network.”

Regulate and strangulate

Some considered the federal government’s continual, creeping intrusion into general aviation and the trend towards increasing regulation to be a direct threat. “Government is using the security issue to squash general aviation,” said Hung Pham. “Any time somebody makes a mistake, for example unintentionally wanders into restricted airspace over the capital or the accident in New York City where a baseball player taking flight lessons crashed into the side of a building, they use it as a pretext to introduce new limitations. The Feds want to shut us down because they feel the cost of providing services to GA is more than the benefits.”

Members particularly railed at the injustice of being administered by people who were not pilots and did not understand aviation. “The privilege of flying should not be limited by some lawyer that makes his own rules and has little or no understanding of our industry. We have an FAA administrator who doesn’t fly, and if the non-pilot, lawyer types get involved, it will be a horrible mess. Aviation, which is already expensive and highly regulated, will be trussed up like a chicken and unable to get out of its own way.”

“Aviation in America has changed a lot in the years I have been flying, and our freedoms as aviators have been steadily eroding,” said “Lucky” McLuckie, who has been flying since 1943. There has been steadily increasing control and regulations, more and more restrictions, skyrocketing costs, airplanes are more complicated and require more skill to fly, and there is a political element in all of that as well. It’s far more severe now for IFR pilots than it used to be and there are temporary flight restrictions imposed every time the president or vice-president goes anywhere. There weren’t so many problems ten years ago. The loss of freedoms across the board in our country was accelerated by 9/11, but in truth it’s been a gradual thing. We’ve weathered challenges to our freedom before. We have to hope that this idea of freedom will never be quenched – it may be subverted but hopefully it will overcome and survive the challenges to it.”

“America was the birthplace of aviation ...it’s got to stay free,” says Royson Parsons determinedly.

Last night of the fly-in. We have all eaten our fill at the big banquet, the raffle has been held, Ed Pataky has been crowned the year’s Top Gun, the prizes awarded and the newbies inducted. The moment has come to show the video of the year’s fly-in, and people bunch up together at their tables as the lights go down. This is absolutely one of the highlights and is a significant part of the glue that holds these folks together. Before and throughout the fly-in, “duelling camera geeks” Robbie Culver and Felipe Marrou have been hard at work with their cameras, working long hours into the night cutting, editing and setting the sequences to music. From their lenses and skilful filtering, the spirit is captured, the mood of anticipation, excitement and celebration recreated, and a page of living history immortalised. All the pent up longing, the adventure of flying across country in a caravan together, the happy reunions, the crazy competitions, the picturesque farms and bounteous Iowa cornfields, the love of country and of flying, the camaraderie and the love between friends...all has been captured against a backdrop of the humble little airplane that drew them all together in the first place. As the final frames of a Cessna 150 winging its way across an evening sky to Neil Diamond’s haunting melody Lonely looking sky” roll across the screen, followed by a heartfelt “Thank you Royson and Lori! See you in 2008!”, the flickering lights from the screen are scattered and reflected back in shining eyes that are bright with tears.

We are family

As I board the big jet back over the Atlantic, the realisation comes home to me: that little fly-in in the middle of America is an oasis– a small interlude of freedom in a country where liberty is slowly being eroded. It is a throwback to a kinder, more innocent time. Here one can safely bring one’s loved ones, re-establish and cultivate the ties, as indeed many members do. Michael Moore from Michigan treasures the fly-in as an opportunity to spend valuable quality time with his 74 year old father, while Terry Dickinson from Alaska rode the big jet down from Anchorage, collected a rental 150 and his 12 year old grandson Ryan in Oklahoma and flew on to Clinton. Year after year the members return, even when the birth of children or some other life-changing event forces the sale of their airplane. It’s understandable, for the Clinton fly-in is a good place to be. There’s a genuine curiosity and interest in one another here, an all-American spirit from a more innocent time that comes straight out of yesteryear...right down to the pancake breakfasts and beef steak grillfests. There are no drugs, no foul language, and while there’s plenty of food and beer, nobody gets plastered. It’s not that things are strait-laced and square, it’s just that people here are so true blue and, well, decent. Robbie Culver spoke for all the pilots when he said, “Clinton is something special and magical. We should cherish it. No matter how hard we try, this too shall change –we all need to treasure what it is now and what I hope it continues to be for a long time”.

At the end of the day, the Cessna 150-152 club is as much about its people as it is about an airplane. It was the airplane that first brought them together, but it is the friendship and extraordinary sense of family that make them stay – long after their initial needs for technical advice and information have been met. They remain because they recognise in one another people who share the same values and live by the same essential spirit – the spirit that raised barns in the days of our forefathers or pulled together to get a neighbour’s crops in for him when he lay feverish in bed. Upon these simple but vanishing qualities a once great nation was built.

SNAPSHOTS FROM CLINTON

Catherine Cavagnaro

Catherine Cavagnaro is a pretty blonde university professor who learned to fly after she got tenure. She worked with the legendary Bill Kershner and took over his flying school after his death. Though she enjoys virtual celebrity status in the club, and the members are fiercely proud of her, she is every bit a lady, gracious, gentle and soft-spoken, and always eager to help. When not lecturing about mathematics at The University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, she uses her Cessna 152 Aerobat in special aerobatics for safety courses in which she teaches pilots how to get out of a stall or a spin. For Catherine it is both a calling and a passion to teach people how to get out of trouble, and she considers the Aerobat the perfect platform to teach them without overfacing or frightening them. ”It’s such a shock to the system to be put into a spin, and book knowledge is not enough to get you out. As a matter of safety, every pilot should have spin training from a experienced instructor as part of his training, but alas, it is not mandatory because a lot of CFI’s don’t know how to do it. If this training I give them equips them with the tools, experience and confidence to emerge whole skinned from a crisis, that is the greatest reward I could ever have.”

Ryan Burtrum

Ryan Burtrum is from Oklahoma and attended the fly-in with his grandfather Terry Dickinson, a CFI in Alaska. Ryan is only twelve, but has already spent a great deal of time in and around airplanes. He was the youngest competitor in this year’s nerf drop and spot landing contest, and to the great pride of his grandfather, used his head to figure out how to aim. ”At first I couldn’t see at all, but then the second time I noticed the shadow of the airplane and tried to use that to help me aim.” His grandfather often lets him take the controls once they are safely up, and Ryan proudly reports that he has flown a Super Cub on floats in Alaska. One day he hopes to move up there. ”I love flying and I like the feel of what it’s like to take control of the airplane. I love the scenery and all you can see and do there. That’s one of the very best places in the world for people who love to fly!”

Hung Pham

Hung Pham was born in Vietnam and grew up near the Tan Son Nhut airbase, which was a very busy place during the Vietnam War. There was no general aviation in Vietnam at that time for security reasons. The only was to fly was to join the air force, and this required both connections and excellent grades. It would not be until Hung came to the United States and his children had grown up before he would be able to take flying lessons. In 1995, he finally had saved enough money to take lessons. Flying quickly became a passion with him, and he eventually bought the Cessna 152 plane he learned on. “I had four goals that I wanted to achieve in this life: martial arts, skydiving, scuba diving, and flying. I’ve managed to do all four!” smiles Hung.

Jeff Hersom

Jeff Hersom (22) is one of the most active members in the club as well as a major fan of the Cessna 150. Jeff is all of 6’4 tall, but has no trouble folding his tall frame into the tiny cabin of his 1967 Cessna 150G “Gremlin”. Jeff is a studying Aviation Maintenance Management at Middle Tennessee State University, and believes that having his A & P will make him more marketable as a pilot. “It means that I can work on Gremlin myself rather than having a shop do it”, says Jeff. Hersom laughingly describes himself as looking for adventure, and his immediate plans after earning his ratings and logging more hours are to go to Alaska and fly cargo. “I’ll ferry your plane to Norway for you when the time comes,” he grins. He loves the 150 because it is so trouble free. “I love my plane because she is simple. When there is less to break – obviously less breaks. She’s inexpensive to maintain, and she flies nice, the way an airplane should. Easy to land but difficult to land well!” But wherever Jeff ends up, he intends to always keep Gremlin. “Gremlin,” he says fondly, “a safe place in an unsafe world!’

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