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Cessna 150 for Sale

 

Update: This airplane has sold. 

One of our facebook fans is selling his Cessna 150 K.  Located at Boundary Bay, near Vancouver, B.C.  Best of luck to Harry in selling this beautiful airplane.

The Cessna 150 is a two-seat, tricycle gear, general aviation airplane.  It was the fourth most produced civilian aircraft.  The first prototype flew in 1957, and succeeded by the 152 in 1977.  Variants were produced hence the letter at the end of the model number (150 A, B, C and so on).   This particular “K”  model was produced starting 1970.  This was the first time the 150 models were produced with some limited aerobatic capabilities, termed A150K.    A total of 832 150K’s were produced.

The 150 is the most prolific and successful two seat trainer airplane in history.  These airplanes have an excellent safety record and are easy to fly.  They are fairly economical to buy (compared with 2 seaters with similar features) and economical to fly, burning about 5 gal/hour. The large number of them produced means they are economical to maintain as well, since parts are widely available.

Details on his particular model for sale are below.

Cessna 150K

 

 

 

 

 

 

CESSNA 150K – $24,000 – OR BEST OFFER

Total time airframe 8135 hrs. Engine half time.

Features:

  • MX 300 radio,Com1/Com2(Transceiver)
  • Bendix King Transponder
  • PM 200 stereo intercom
  • Twin Push-to-Talk
  • Vertical Card Compass
  • EGT and G-Meter
  • Post Lights, Strobes, Logo Lights, Pulse Lights
  • Four-way seat belt/shoulder harness,
  • Sunroof, Rosen Sun Visors, CD Player.

Aircraft located at Boundary Bay Aerodrome, in Delta, BC on the Pacific west coast.  The airport, CZBB is very close to Vancouver, BC.  Coincidentally, this is where I took one of my first training flights.

Cessna 150 K

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Wake turbulence

Have you seen the movie Argo?

If you have seen the movie Argo, and are a pilot, you know how unrealistic the scene is with the fleeing airliner near the end of the movie.  Though Hollywood pulls some highly impossible stunts, this one is really over the top in terms of how grossly impossible it is, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who noticed.  If you fly you probably picked up on it right away.  Cars chasing a 747 on the take-off roll? Right behind those engines which are operating at maximum thrust? They should be blasted into the taxiways.

Chasing a departing 747 in a Jeep is just a bad idea.

Jet scene from Argo. Image courtesy of  ropeofsilicon.com
Jet scene from Argo. Image courtesy of ropeofsilicon.com

At the end of the movie, a fleeing 747 airliner is taking off rescuing U.S. diplomats during the Iran hostage crisis in 1979.  Once officials realized that these people were on the plane, they proceeded to chase after the plane while the plane was already on the takeoff roll. On the take off roll planes are at maximum power settings and the engines are pushing out a substantial amount of air. Maximum thrust in fact, is in excess of 50,000 lbs.

In a 747 aircraft, such as the one involved in the movie rescue has a take-off speed of about 155-160 knots (depending on load, field elevation, altimeter setting and temperature)  – that’s 290 km/h and 184 miles/h.  The first inaccuracy is that these cars are actually keeping up with the plane to the point it rotates.  Old Jeeps in the 70’s keeping those speeds? Very interesting.

The second problem with this depiction is the creation of wing-tip vortices or wake turbulence.  When a plane is accelerating down the runway, the engines are at full power,  set for maximum thrust.   As speed increases, air passes over the body of the aircraft faster and faster. Due to the cambered shape of the wing,  the shape of the wing causes the air on top of the wing to travel faster  than the air at the bottom of the wing. Because of Newton’s third law, the faster speed causes an area of low pressure at the top of the wing, and an area of higher pressure at the top of the wing.  This causes lift.

Airflow. Image from From the Ground Up, page 21.
Airflow. Image from From the Ground Up, page 21.

Also as air travels over the wing, it travels downwards as well as rearwards, causing downwash. Air traveling at the bottom of the wing is also deflected downward by the bottom of the wing.   This also contributes to creating lift.

Since the decreased pressure at the top of the wing is less than the atmospheric pressure around it, air over the top is deflected inward; air on the bottom of the wing is greater than the pressure of the air around it, hence it is deflected outward and curls upward over the wing tip. 

The two airflows unite at the trailing edge of the wing, creating eddies and vortices that unite into one large eddy at each wing tip, called wingtip vortices.

The heavier the airplane, the greater the span loading on the wing, the more air will be displaced downwards and the greater vortex will be generated.  The vortex created from a  Cessna 172 will be substantially smaller than one from a 747.  Anything caught in the path of the vortex will tend to roll with that vortex.

Vortices are a by product of lift. Image from Nature.com
Vortices are a by product of lift. Image from Nature.com

Since vortices are a by product of lift, they are only produced when the aircraft is in flight. Hence when the 747 jet takes off, it will start producing these vortices naturally.  Anything that is in the path of these vortices will be rolled – so if those vehicles in the movie were standing in the path of the vortices they should have ended up flying in all directions.

This is why many airplanes are now equipped with winglets – these tabs at the end of the wing actually prevent the two airflows from uniting, creating a barrier and preventing vortices from forming. Because vortices cause drag, preventing them from forming reduces drag and causes the airplane to use less fuel.

It is always very interesting to see how flying and airplanes are improperly depicted in movies for the sake of entertainment value.  Something to think about.

 

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The challenges of getting a pilots’ license

Flying is an amazing hobby and a challenging and interesting profession. 

Unfortunately, flying has many challenges, and this is seen in the data.  Many students who start never in fact finish their license.  In Canada, the number of student pilot permits hovers just around 10,000 but the number of private licenses issued in a year is just over 2000 (based on the latest data I could find).  Generally, about 1 in 5 flight students ever finish their license. There are many barriers, most of them financial. Another common problem is becoming disillusioned with flying – that it is simply too big of a commitment than originally thought.  Also, keeping up with it is hard, one has to fly regularly to maintain proficiency, and this can get expensive.

The profession is very gender-unbalanced

A career as a pilot is one of the most gender-unbalanced workplaces that exists today in terms of number of participants.  As we know, there are very few female pilots. Only about 6% of all private licenses are held by women, about 7% of commercial licenses holders are female, and only 3-4% of airline transport licenses are female.  The desires of many operators to have a more gender balanced workforce of pilots can potentially stack the odds in favor of females. That is not saying that you will get a flying job faster because you are female, but applicants with the same level of experience and proficiency and differ only in gender may have employers favoring females, all things equal.

The pilot shortage

We hear much of the looming pilot shortage.  So what’s happening? Boeing and Airbus have predicted it for years and have estimated the shortage to be as high as 500,000 – half a million – new airline pilots required over the next two decades.  This is a worldwide shortage and not just North American,  since most of the growth in airlines is outside of Canada and the U.S.  The bulk of new demand will be from India and the Asia Pacific region.   Though there is definitely some debate about the extent of the pilot shortage, the overseas demand appears to be largely certain to rise.

How to we overcome these hurdles in getting a license?

1.  Be financially prepared

Knowing that money can be an issue we can simply be prepared to pay the initial costs of training. If you budget around $10,000 for your PPL you will be able to complete it without stressing out or worrying about money.  However this is only if you don’t take huge breaks in your training (like me!). These breaks get expensive and it’s frustrating worrying about money when you’re learning.   Flying requires so much concentration you don’t want to have to worry about how you’re going to pay for it.

Can you set aside this kind of money?  If it is a priority for you, you certainly can. You will just have to make some financial trade-offs.

2.  Make time

Make room in your life for flying.  Let your friends and family know that you will sometimes be unavailable in the evenings or weekends; you won’t be able to make some social engagements.  Let people know that this is important to you.  You will find people are very receptive to this and very supportive! They always want to talk about flying and will be interested in your progress. Give yourself time to prepare for flights, review lesson plans, and de-brief on your own time. Come fresh for every flight, you will spend less money when you are prepared and ready to learn.

3. Create a pilot network

Talk to your fellow students; make friends, lean on one another.  If you get frustrated with something, just reach out. You will find that your peers are having many of the same problems that you are.  You will find that the support will go a long way to helping you reach your goals!

Comments? Please add below.

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How to get a pilots license in Canada

So you want to learn how to fly.  Very exciting!  One of the first things you should decide your motives.  Deciding on what motivates you will increase your chances of successfully completing it and being inspired throughout the process.

Decide whether you want to do it as a career or for fun.

You can always change your mind, but if you are interested in a possible career or to fly at night or on instruments, consider a private license over a recreational license.  A recreational license is terminal, meaning you can’t build on it,  like a commercial license, do a night rating, instrument rating, and only allows you to remain VFR and it is not valid outside of Canada.  It only allows you to take one passenger.  The only thing you can add to a recreational license is a float endorsement.

License Requirements
License Requirements

There are four kinds of licenses you can hold:

1.  Recreational Permit

2. Private License

3. Commercial License

4. Airline Transport Pilot (ATP) License

The requirements for licenses are:

Hours: Recreational Private Commercial
Ground School 40 40 80
Dual Instruction 18 17 35
Solo Instruction 7 12 30
Total Hours 25 45 65

Remember these are minimums.  Generally it takes much longer to complete the license than the minimum requirements.  In addition, the faster you do the license the less hours it will take.

To apply for a CPL (commercial license), you must have a PPL.  You need at least 200 total time for the CPL with a minimum of 20 hours cross country as pilot-in-command.  For requirements, see Transport Canada’s licensing requirements.

In addition to the flying, you will also have to complete a ground school course – 40 hours for the recreational and private and 80 hours for the commercial is the requirement.  You will have to study and write a ground school exam, and receive a 60% mark in order to pass.

Unfortunately, flying has many challenges, and this is seen in the data.  Many students who start never in fact finish their license: the approximate statistic is about one in five students never finish.  Most concerns are financial and the realization of the commitment required to keep up the training.  Many people who complete a license never actually even use it.  This is not surprising since it takes a lot of work and commitment to keep up a license.

A career as a pilot is one of the most rewarding out there!

I am not speaking from my own experience (not quite there yet!), but ask any pilot if they love their job – most love it and have wanted to fly since childhood. Of course, it isn’t an easy career.  Though once seniority is gained you can earn a good salary, the beginnings are tough.   Flight training can cost you close to $100,000 before you are employable to fly for a company.  A PPL and CPL will cost approximately $25,000,  add to that your multi-engine IFR at $13,000 and if you chose to work as an instructor to gain your flight hours and experience, your instructor rating will cost almost $7000.

Flying for fun

Flying for fun is also a great option for taking to the skies. With a PPL, you can add a night rating, IFR, multi-engine rating, VFR OTT (Over-the Top) and float plane rating.

  • Night Rating: Allows you to fly at night.  Requires minimum 20 hours flight time, with 13 dual and 5 hours solo.  1 hour ground school.
  • Multi Engine Rating: Allows you to fly aircraft with more than one engine.  There is no minimum requirement but usually takes about 10 hours. The applicant is required to pass a flight test.
  • VFR OTT (Over-the-Top): As a VFR pilot you can fly over tops of clouds keeping a vertical distance of 1000′ from cloud.  This gives VFR pilots lots of flexibility.  Requires 15 hours of flight time.
  • IFR (Instrument) Rating: Minimum 50 hours cross country PIC hours and 40 instrument hours.
  • Float Rating: Minimum 7 hours and 5 solo take-offs and landings.

With the looming pilot shortage, pursuing pilot career is a very sensible choice of profession. Also if you are a female, even more opportunity is forecast.  The industry is very gender- unbalanced: less than 4% of all airline pilots are female, and the industry is in need of female aviators!

Now make sure you choose the flight school that best suits your needs and a find yourself an instructor that you really like. Take your first flight and say hello to those big, wide open skies …

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Top ten reasons why you should never learn how to fly

Flying? Boring! Why would I ever want to do it? Aside from being expensive and time consuming,  it’s also pointless. Why would I want to shoot around the sky in a metal tube?  It just seems like a poor use of time. Seriously, only those with poor judgement would consider getting a pilots’ license.  There are just so many reasons why you should never do it, but here are the top ten that I could think of.

1.  The view sucks.  Why would I want to see the world from 3000 AGL?  I have such a hard time picking out my house from the plane, it’s so much easier if I’m driving around in my car.  The world just looks so big from the air and it’s really not that interesting.  I’m just not interested in seeing the bigger picture.

These guys are always bossing us pilots around. You'd think they own the airspace or something.
These guys are always bossing us pilots around. You’d think they own the airspace or something.

2.  Airports are boring.  Nothing interesting happens at airports. Seriously, flight schools talk about teaching you soft field landings and precautionary/forced landings, but never actually let you do them, always forcing you to return to the airport. How about some danger? I’ve seen Top Gun – I’m ready!

3.  Air Traffic Controllers are bossy.  They constantly tell you what to do and they talk so fast that you can barely understand them most of the time.  And they always tell you to switch frequencies and get upset if you don’t call them.

4.  Too many calculations. You really have to learn how to flight plan to learn how tedious and pointless it is.  Just point the airplane in the direction you want to go – how much harder does it have to be, people? Fuel, schmuel. I’ll just keep an eye on the fuel gauge like I do when I drive. What could possibly go wrong?

5.  No in-flight entertainment.  Unless you count your instructor, there is no real source of entertainment when you’re flying.  No movies, TV, music or anything. No hot coffee. The service stinks.  Why would I want to sit in an old uncomfortable 30 year old Cessna when I can comfortably stretch my legs out on the couch like a human being.  When I stretch my legs out in the Cessna I just end up hitting the rudder pedals, which causes yaw and I have to do more work to correct it.  Can’t relax in the thing for a second.

6.  Flight instructors are annoying.  They are always telling you what to do and bossing you around. It’s worse than ATC because you can’t really get away from them.  Once you leave the control zone you are free of the claws of terminal control but you can’t get rid of your instructor once you let them in the plane with you.  They really don’t know that much … How much can there possibly be to know??

7. Too much safety emphasis.   Do you know how long it takes to prepare to actually go on a flight that lasts less than an hour? About two hours. Checklists, meetings, briefings, log books, journey log books, sheesh. So much paperwork and so many safety checks. I mean, did you know when you’re at the hold short line that you have to check your engine is operating? It started, so why do you need to check it again? Obviously it’s working and the plane is ready to go.  If it wasn’t it wouldn’t start. Obviously.

8.  Trainer planes are old.   Trainer planes are so old, I think they must have been built when dinosaurs roamed the earth.  They are loud and uncomfortable.

9.  It’s too hard.  The instrument panel in your car has only a few sources of information: speed, fuel quantity, engine temperatures and some have a tachometer.  The most basic airplane panel has six highly confusing instruments which are really hard to understand, ever mind all the other engine instruments, radios, direction finding equipment, navigation tools, approach systems, and the little floaty thing on the dash.  There are so many maneuvers, attitudes and movements too learn, it’s just seems like way to much work.

10.  It’s scary.  The whole concept of flying just seems like a bad idea.  There are just too many planes of movement.  It’s not that rewarding, and not really fun to be in control of the thing.   Constant briefings, meetings, exams, preparations, paperwork and safety checks.  Soaring through the air?  Make a career out of it? Seriously why bother. I’d rather just sit on the couch eating chips.

We hope you had a good laugh reading this.

Sarcasm aside, ever try to talk yourself out of getting a license?  So many reasons. The fact is that flying is hard, committing wonderful and very rewarding.  Like many things in life, if it wasn’t hard, it wouldn’t be worth doing.   Challenge yourself and don’t give up.  Search your soul and if you discover flying is right for you, you will have the time of your life and you will not regret it!

 

 

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Preparing for your PPL Written Exam

A few important study materials that you will need to study for your exam.

Recently I wrote and passed the written exam for the PPL.  I had put it off for a very long time.   With all the breaks in my flight training, the gap between ground school had grown quite large.

I finally decided that enough was enough and I had to get the test out of the way.  So I had myself “grounded” – no distractions. No flying. It’s much more glamorous to fly rather than study about flying – but in reality, studying is a huge part of aviation.

What I would recommend the most is to write it as soon as possible after finishing ground school and while flying.  Actually getting out and flying while attending ground school or studying ground school topics solidifies some of the subject areas. Specifically, they make theory of flight, instruments, and air law easier to understand.  For example, when you use wind inputs for taxiing, you already know how that works, you know that in a right turn your right aileron is up, and you know about lift, and some general things about aircraft performance.  You know weight and balance.   If you fly out of a busy airport, like I do, you quickly learn about airspace and how to talk to controllers.

Some books you will find useful when studying for your PPL written exam.
Some books you will find useful when studying for your PPL written exam.

I recommend some resources for studying. These tools really helped me.

Top Books for Studying

1. Private Pilot Answer Guide

This book is undoubtedly the best resource you can have. Once you study each subject area in detail, I recommend writing the practice questions in this guide. Write them again and again. This item is now available in our store.

2. From the Ground Up (FGU)

Not surprising, the Canadian “bible” for aviation, is a constant reference resource, filled with a lot of useful information on weather, navigation, general aeronautical knowledge, aero engines – everything! Have it handy. Take it with you everywhere.

3. From the Ground Up Workbook

Tests specific concepts in FGU.  This workbook is great as it asks very detailed questions on subject areas presented in FGU. It also provides answer references so you can look up the answers in the text book. Having the workbook forces you to browse FGU and look up information, and helps you learn it. This item is also available in our store.

4-6. Protractor, Ruler and E6B

These tools come with the ground school kit.  You will need these to make your calculations for flight planning. Know how to use your E6B. This calculator comes with a booklet with practice questions. Go through them and make sure you understand how it works.



7. VNC Map

The 1:500,000 scale map is used for flight planning.  Write all over it, plan lots of flights to learn your nav!

8. AIM

The Aeronautical Information Manual. Use the manual to look up regulations and various topics, such as weather. The weather portion of this manual is very helpful (MET).

9. CARS website

Find all the links to specific regulations that you will need to answer exam questions.

10. Pilots Operating Handbook

The POH is the specific manual for your aircraft model. You will need this to look up performance data for your aircraft, such as take off runway length, performance and fuel burn at altitude, density and pressure altitude…

11. Canada Flight Supplement

The CFS is also handy to have when planning a cross country flight. It gives you airport data for all Canadian registered aerodromes.  You should get used to looking up data such as runway direction, length, type of runway (turf or pavement?), service times and arrival and departure procedures.

10. Your Instructor!

Don’t forget to ask your instructor questions if you get confused.  Your instructor is your greatest resource and is on your side – they want you to do well on your exam.  Spending some time studying at your flight school is a good idea, so if you get stuck you can simply ask someone rather than stressing about not being able to understand something. It is common to get stuck, so having instructors and fellow aviation students around is not only inspiring but also helpful.

Also helpful:

  • Air Command Weather Manual: If you have trouble understanding meterorology with or are really interested in weather, I suggest this manual. In addition, if you are planning on pursing a commercial license this explains some advanced topics that are used for the CPL, such as detail on icing and weather fronts.  Weather geeks unite. Buy Air Command Weather Manual on Amazon
  •  Air Command Weather Workbook: Guides you step by step through the various topics presented in the Manual.   If you are buying the Manual, make sure you buy the workbook as well. It is an excellent complement to the manual – it goes through each topic step by step and highlights the important concepts you need to understand.  I found it extremely helpful in learning  weather and highly recommend it.

And of course: Lots of caffeine!

The main tip for passing the exam is to read the questions carefully. They are very tricky, and will often present answers that are very close. Sometimes several answers are right and they ask you to choose one that is most right.  They can be very sneaky, so you must be very prepared. Simulate the exam environment by writing as many practice exams as possible.