welcome to the airport it's a beautiful April day and we're gonna do our first
in a series of airplane reviews looking at what it's like to own operate
different types of aircraft we can start with the trusty 172 today
welcome to the airplane down at private strip here just North of for the town of
Cobourg a very good friend of mine and we're in the 1971 172 today we are going to take
a bit of a look at the airplane it's uh 172 probably the most popular and most
produced airplane of all time and certainly a great airplane to own
lots of parts available for them from oem and aftermarket lots of used parts
available your annuals gonna cost you about $1,000 a year if no major
repairs are required and your insurance for most private pilot's is going to be
about to say we're just going to go ahead and depart here and we're gonna do
a circuit here this strip we're full fuel but just be in the airplane today
but we got 1,900 foot runway here grass with lots of obstacles and it's pretty
good performing airplane so you can see a bit of that alright so we've got ten
degrees flaps up we're gonna use all available runway we're gonna make a
radio call just on the practice area frequency traffic in the area of Cobourg
172 Foxtrot tango whisky golf will be departing private strip approximately
three and a half miles north of Cobourg and we'll be doing a circuit climbing
originally to 1500 feet alright lets taxi to position and a good look around make
sure no one else is dropping in on the field unexpectedly
Okay we have full power on the brakes
minimum rpm is obtained 2300 its smooth gauges a green oil pressures green
and off we go little bit of back pressure
airspeed is alive and there we go
clear of the obstacles there bring the flaps up
A 172 is a great plane even if you want to learn how to fly
it's nine nine and a half gallons an hour is
definitely not gonna burn more fuel than that
though it's not terribly expensive airplane to learn to fly and it's nice
and roomy so you know we don't know like a 150 that's very cramped can be very
tight on useful load when you put two reasonable
size adults in it and some fuel and then once you finish flying you got
something good a little bit of cross-country speed
Comfort you take four people and a little bit of baggage if you don't go
with full fuel or you can take a lot of baggage two people and some fuel
hey primers lock masters on mags are on circuit breakers are in, lights check cab heat hot
mixture rich brakes are set fuel selector on both I'm just gonna leave
that cab heat hot actually not very warm today just lets the engine breath
in the white arc
kind of an interesting approach into this field if you're landing going
southbound it's a big hill off the north end of the runway so it's much better if
you approach down through a bit of a valley keep the hill on your right-hand
side
Very happy with that okay off we go
very nice this is a seriously nice flying airplane if you looking to buy a
172 there's lots of options available they started production in 1954 and over
the breaking in the late 80s and then they restarted in 1996 and they're
still making them today 1970 is vintage like this one at the
market right now depending on the obviously current world events but
probably worth around the forty to fifty thousand dollar range for a reasonable
condition airplane this particular version has almost eleven thousand hours
on it and it still flies very well they're a long lasting airplane you
could go up and down in value obviously depending on whether it needs more work
or less work and depending very largely right now on avionics avionics really
changing right now in aviation and sometimes the avionics to say upgrade to
a IFR capable aircraft today it's gonna cost you more than the 172 itself so it
depends on what sort of mission you're running if you look at the earlier
models of 172 say pre 1966 you still got the O-300 continental
engine they're normally worth a bit less now the O 300 is a 145 horsepower
six-cylinder continental very smooth running engine very nice sound to it
nice to fly behind they're a little more expensive on the overhaul and they're a
little less desirable so that they definitely took a bit of a hit in the
price point around 1964 was the last year of the manual flaps so anything
after that is going to have your electrics flaps set up but the manual
flaps are very nice there's nothing wrong with up there
1963 is the last of the ones without a rear window
performance-wise they upped the horsepower as the models went along but
they also seemed to get sort of heavier and heavier with more trim more radios
more features so that certainly slows them down so lots of upgrades available
180 horse is a very common and popular one it's a very expensive upgrade to do
on the airplane so if you can buy one that's already got it that's definitely
the way to go because it's going to cost you a lot more money to do that upgrade
yourself lots of aftermarket and an original parts available for airplane in
new and used McFarland aviation makes lots of approved replacement parts
cables, gaskets everything pretty much. STOL kits, Knott 2 U fairings interior
plastics it's all very available so that's kind of a real nice feature
It's a good flying camping airplane good cross-country airplane good training
airplane so I mean all-round I mean this is why it's so popular and there's so
many of them is just because they literally are such a well-built
well-designed airplane that isn't so complex to be very expensive to maintain
and and doesn't burn lots of fuel and gets the job done nicely