My Cessna 170B -By John W. Otis

Posted: Sunday, March 3, 2013 6:00 am

By John W. Otis
 
It is said that we are a nation of materialists who prefer things over fellowship or the love and loyalty of friends and family. Perhaps that’s a stretch, but there’s no denying that we love things.

While things may not respond with compassion, most of us can attest to their loyalty or dependability, especially if we are talking about today’s finely honed cars and airplanes. These will never be guilty of infidelity and “will always be there for you.”

I have friends who love their horses which can, indeed, respond with love or compassion as well as loyalty. But I’ll stick to planes, thank you. Both require a certain amount of TLC, but planes don’t require a daily dose of hay and oats and best of all -- never poop on the floor.

My old 170 B, for instance, required only a little gas now and then and never complained about the considerable abuse that had been heaped upon her over the years. She was born in l952 in Wichita, Kan., and had had a long and faithful career even before we found each other.

I’d been saving up my navy reserve pay for several years and was teaching a six week summer session at Mankato State that summer of l968. My pay for the summer session plus my reserve savings together totaled about $4,500. I’d been searching the Trade-a-Planes and the StarTribune ad sections for some time and finally found what I wanted -- a 170B owned by a couple of brothers who farmed near Hutchinson, Minn. The price: $4,600. I’d owned a two-place Cessna 140 before, one that I’d gotten for $1,500 from Gordy Newstrom when I was home on leave. It was a great little bird in which my wife and I took our honeymoon. But the 170B would be a step up, would hold all of us -- my wife and I up front plus the three kids in back whose combined weight then was less than 150 pounds.

The day finally arrived. I’d just finished classes at 2 p.m. that warm June afternoon and was headed for the airport where the brothers were to deliver the plane around 3 p.m. The airport then was up on a hill close to the campus. I was anxious and excited about taking possession of the plane, believe me. But 3 p.m. came and went. And no plane. It was a bit windy and gusty, but a nice afternoon overall. 4 p.m. came. Still no plane. Finally about 4:30 I got a call from one of the brothers. They had attempted to land in Glenco for fuel and had totaled the plane in a big cross-wind. They were much chagrined, as was I, but their plans were to haul the wreckage back to Hutchinson to have it rebuilt.

Still, I didn’t give up on it. I told them that once the plane was repaired I would still be interested. It took most of the summer to put the old bird back together. During the last stages of the process, I stayed with friends in Hutchinson. There was some last minute haggling over the price, but we finally came to an agreement. I’d pay an extra $200 for the new prop. I then flew the 170B back to Sugar Lake, where I tied down on our old golf course-airport, purchased by Charley Skinner in l964. Our lake cabin was less than a mile away.

The 170B served us well during fishing trips to Canada and duck hunting trips to North Dakota. The only regrets I have is that our daughter Martha got airsick on a rough and bumpy ride back from the lake one weekend and has never liked flying since. Incidentally, the 170B is a most versatile plane, adaptable to both skies and floats in spite of its under powered 145 h.p. engine. But in l953 the Cessna folks decided to build a more muscular version of the 170B and added another another 80 h.p. to the same basic airframe. The result was the iconic Cessna 180 which became the all time favorite bush plane of pilots worldwide.

Today you can still buy a 170B. I just now went on the internet and found in the current issue of Trade-a-plane nine 170Bs for sale. But I could find none for $4,600. Prices ranged from $35,900 to $50,000. Of course, all had up-graded electronics -- probably 8 or 10Gs worth. But is it not remarkable that at age 61 they are still flying?

Not really. Airplanes never die unless you set out purposely to kill them. They can be rebuilt and overhauled many times, and given minimum love and care, they will respond with the kind of fidelity that’s rare in our current culture. One qualifier here is that planes can die from neglect. Mice can kill them, believe it or not, by getting into the insulation through small holes around the landing gear or tail wheel and by pooping on the aluminum inside the wings, causing ruinous corrosion.

That’s why I used to tie a mouse trap to the tail wheel of my l70B. I became aware of what mice could do when I discovered them in the insulation of my 140. I was giving one of the lodge waitresses a ride during a beautiful moonlight evening when we noticed the inverted image of a mouse crawling across the upper edge of the windshield, perfectly silhouetted against the moon. The young gal beside me was pretty cool. She stayed in the plane until we landed.

And planes do have personalities. Like the machines that we become attached to, we consider them part of the family with human qualities both good and bad.

I recall seeing a Cessna 140 tied down next to my 170B one day at the Mankato airport. I kept looking at it, feeling warm vibes. I’ll swear it was trying to speak to me. I copied down it’s NC numbers, went home and looked through my old log books. There it was. The same 140 that my folks had purchased new in l947 -- 25 years earlier.

I then looked up the owners -- two brothers, students at MSU. They were about to graduate. They were both headed for the NavCad program in Pensacola, FL, the same one I’d passed through twenty years earlier. They would fly the 140 down to Pensacola. They swore they’d never part with it.

Source:   http://www.grandrapidsmn.com