I'm looking at a 1953 C180. 3500TT , 90SMOH on an -S engine, 90 Since new prop. Never used commercially, hangared most of its life. Original panel. Newer glass and paint. 185 gear. All A/D's complied with, etc.
A real beauty, lovingly owned by the same guy since the mid 60's. He wants $68K. What say you knowing folks?

If you compare apples to apples, the '53s without question started as the lightest 180 Cessna made, period. This isn't speculation, and there are many reasons why. The flaps for example, have the skeletonized ribs of the 170. You won't find this on later 180's. The panel (which is made of the thickest sheet aluminum in the airplane, is half the width of later 180s. The gear legs are thinner, and shorter, It goes on and on...

It is entirely possible to have a big engined '53 come in at 1550 #s plus or minus a few.... I know of several... You can not achieve these weights with a later bird. Close, but no cigar... In the right hands they will follow a Supercub 99.9% of the time, and haul almost the weight of that cub out of the same hole, then cruise home at almost twice the speed..... I know of two 135 operators in Alaska running long winged, big engined '53 180s into places I would hesitate to follow (in my cub!)...

Having said all that, if an ultra light 180 is not what you are after, there are many good reasons to choose a later model...

FWIW, I paid half of that asking price for a good solid 'core' of a 180, and then spent the other half making the plane I really wanted out of it. I am fortunate enough to own a supercub for gnarly stuff, but there aren't a whole lot of places I would take my cub that I wouldn't fly my 180 into... YMMV

Take care, Rob

Here is a link to a website that lists all the model changes so you can see what you will be missing out on!!

http://skywagons.com/modelchgsweb.html

My opinion... If it really is single private owner since 60s, no damage or corrosion, all logs, weighed on scales and confirmed it's under 1600 lbs, it's worth it-- or would be to me any way . Early ones are valued by many because they are perceived to be lighter, and they are to some extent, but many are not as light as their owners think they are based on a 50 year paper trail of wishful thinking.

But that's a really big "if". Not sure how well you know 180s or if you know someone who does, but they are utility vehicles, pickup trucks that have been used hard over the decades, and lots of planes with "clean" logs that have undocumented repairs etc. It could easily be worth 20k less depending on what's really there, or cost you that and more if you find something unpleasant later. Get someone who really, really knows 180s and look in every nook and cranny.

Tom

I wholeheartedly agree with the pre-buy advice. Don't be afraid to pay for a good one, preferably by your own AI or a local expert on the 180 or whatever you are buying, definitely not by the shop that is currently maintaining it.

"Will sell with new annual" is nice but should be taken as a meaningless gesture when it comes to picking an airplane to buy.

Shops have been sued lately for doing shoddy pre-buy inspections which is good if you are a buyer. One well known reputable shop I know of did a pre-buy on a Gulfstream and missed (or ignored) some hidden but extensive corrosion. The new owner did a regular inspection a year later at a different shop where it was found. They sued, and proved, the corrosion was extensive enough to have been there 12 months earlier. The shop that did the pre-buy had to pay well into six figures to get it taken care of. I think there were negligence damages on top of that too. (owning a G aint cheap)

Some things can slide but hidden damages or just hidden normal wear and tear can be $$$$$ to fix come the next annual. Corrosion isn't one of those things that fixes itself. Hopefully we are getting ready to go down the same road soon where I work, sadly not a personal airplane though.
I know the Gulfstream is a different ball game, but the same principles apply. Just subtract a couple of zero's.

Just remember that any 60 year old airplane will have lots of potential glitches, no matter how lovingly it's been maintained. In 40 or 50 years, lots of mechanics have probably worked on the airplane, some better or worse, and they may have created some of the glitches. Even the very best pre-buy won't disclose all of them.

My airplane is a 63, built in October 62, and in the almost 9 years I've owned her, my IA occasionally turns up something "new" that needs fixing--and he's been doing all of its maintenance since the day I brought her home. Last annual it was a door hinge which had cracked. Several years ago, both fuel tanks cracked on top near the fuel fillers--a common trait for older Cessna aluminum tanks. A couple of years ago, when he was installing a new headliner, he discovered an old illegal repair to the vent tube that connects the tanks. There's always something, it seems. Older airplanes simply require more maintenance.

Cary

My first C180 was a '54. One owner, 1,800 hrs total time. And I paid $11K for it. A very sweet flying airplane.

Saw a pic of it the other day sitting at Lake Hood, all decked out in big tires and a cargo pod, still going strong 59 years after being born.



Gump

I'll give you $13k for it!

I sold it for $20K... I think, 30 years ago stuff is getting fuzzy. And bought my '56 for $19.5K (as in nineteen thousand five hundred dollars). Of course my income back then was all relative too.

Gump

Depending upon the airplane, $68 could be a fair price for a 53 but there is a lot of "depends" there. Best way to buy, in my opinion, is to have the guy that is going to sign next years annual look it over. He's the guy you are going to have to please and one guy's annual is another guys pre-flight. A 53 is going to have some things to fix if they haven't already just because of age. I spent close to 7 airplane bucks on my '56 this summer to have Beegles replace the outboard landing gear brackets. We could see one tiny little crack in the left hand one but when they were out and visible, it was apparent that they had needed to be replaced for awhile. Both showed pretty heavy exfoliation corrosion and were pretty shot. My opinion now is that any 50's 180 that hasn't already had them replaced, probably should. You can look pretty hard and you still won't know what condition they are in until you pull them. I wouldn't plan on finding a flyable one for much less than $50k or so.

Wayne

Also, for those considering "upgrades" such as more power, higher GW, etc, understand that the 53 180 was identical to the C 170, from the door post aft, but with different tail feathers.

As the 180 "matured", there were a lot of modifications done to the frame, largely aimed at strengthening it to absorb both the punishing environment that these airplanes were designed to work in, and also, of course the added weight of the later models. The natural progression of this came late in production, when the 180 airframe became virtually identical with the 185.

So, if you're going with one of the very early 180's, yes, they CAN BE light. Just don't try to turn them into a 185....

MTV

mtv wrote: ..... the 53 180 was identical to the C 170, from the door post aft, but with different tail feathers. .......

What does that mean, exactly? Cessna hung over 50% more horsepower on the nose & bumped the gross weight up 350 pounds, you don't think they beefed things up a little to compensate? Different gear legs, trimmable stabilizer, completely different tailspring arrangement (stinger), & I believe a different t/w steering arrangement. Maybe other improvements or beef-ups compared to the 170 also. Incremental changes were made as time went on (baggage door in 54, J engine mid-1954, swept gear legs & thicker windshield 1955, etc.) but that doesn't mean they started out with a square-tailed 170. IMHO that's an urban myth, just like the first year production C150's & C172's still having all the gearbox parts in place for attaching tailwheel MLG.

[quote="hotrod150"]Different gear legs, trimmable stabilizer, completely different tailspring arrangement (stinger), & I believe a different t/w steering arrangement.[/quote]

The '53 and '54 had the same dismal tailwheel steering as the 170. One of the things besides power that I noticed most when I moved from my 170 to the 180 was how much better the tailwheel steering is. I've taxiied a '53 and it was just as bad as the 170. The old style, I basically taxiied by brakes since there was, in effect, no tailwheel steering. On my '56, I almost never use the brakes taxiing except to stop or slow down.

Wayne

I too have often heard it said how much lighter built the earlier planes are - and of course the mantra 'don't try to make it a 185' or 'the only thing more horsepower will do is tear/vibrate it apart.' But what does this mean in the real world? Do you see higher maintenance cost or a lowered useful lifespan on the airframe? The only skywagons I have personally seen come apart behind the cabin were from wrecks. Coincidentally they were both later models. Obviously the engineers at Cessna must have known why they kept beefing the planes up - but was this due to inherent lack of structure or because the aircraft gained almost 1000 lbs AUW? Same basic airframe - one rated to 2550# the other 3350# (or even up to 3600.) In my experience most of the problem areas are the same throughout the years - tail wheels working the rear fuselage, gear boxes, firewalls, top of the wing etc... All of the extra beef-up structure does address some problem, but if you beef up one area another one will have to give eventually. And yes - looking at an early 180, then a 185 you would think that an accidental overloading and a hard landing would simply break the '53 eggshell in half, but it doesn't seem to happen very often. My skywagon is a 59 and I have friends with 53, 55, 56, 57, 64, and 76 models and it seems we all have the same problems more or less. (And all love the planes too of course.)

hotrod150 wrote:

mtv wrote: ..... the 53 180 was identical to the C 170, from the door post aft, but with different tail feathers. .......

What does that mean, exactly? Cessna hung over 50% more horsepower on the nose & bumped the gross weight up 350 pounds, you don't think they beefed things up a little to compensate? Different gear legs, trimmable stabilizer, completely different tailspring arrangement (stinger), & I believe a different t/w steering arrangement. Maybe other improvements or beef-ups compared to the 170 also. Incremental changes were made as time went on (baggage door in 54, J engine mid-1954, swept gear legs & thicker windshield 1955, etc.) but that doesn't mean they started out with a square-tailed 170. IMHO that's an urban myth, just like the first year production C150's & C172's still having all the gearbox parts in place for attaching tailwheel MLG.

Ummmm.....from the doorpost aft. Last I checked, landing gear and engines are forward of the door post . Granted, the tailwheel attach was different, and they added a trimmable tail because of that big engine out there, but the aft fuselage was identical, and I believe the wings were essentially identical. Of course, part of the answer to your point is that the 170 was somewhat overbuilt, witness the increase in GW of the 172, which for some time had virtually identical structures in most ways.

Nevertheless, my point was that, kept light, the early 180s are nice flying airplanes. Then again, they are short on fuel....so when Cessna started "improving" the breed, they added fuel capacity. Now, if you want to keep payload....raise the GW.

I have never heard of any of these planes coming apart, assuming they were not grossly overloaded or badly abused. And, I've seen some badly abused. They are tough.

Again, however, I'm always amused when people rave about how sweet the early 180's are, then they almost immediately take all measures to make them heavier, thus less "sweet".

I owned a basically stock 66 H model, and I thought that was arguably the nicest compromise STOCK 180. Still fairly light, but center stack radios, big tanks, etc.

To each his or her own, thankfully. I'm interested in Bigrenna's project. He's doing a lot of stuff, but working hard to keep it light.

MTV

Love those 180 prices years ago. I had a friend that bought a 53 and 54 in 1967. He leased them to the Denver Sport Parachute Club and CU jump club in Boulder, CO. He paid around $3,300 each. They were not creampuffs by any means but decent 180's. I got a lot of hours in those flying skydivers. Those were fun times. I also bought a couple of 48 ragwing 170's back then, paid around $3,000 apiece for them. In 1969 two friends and I bought a creampuff 54 180 for $8,500. Of course as Gump said, we were working for peanuts in those days.
Ron

Caution, lotsa soda, coffee and time on my hands...

First)....
Mission mission mission...
A lighter airplane may or may not mean squat to you... It's a pretty high priority for me, but within reason... My airplane weighs about 100#- 150# more than it could, but for my mission profile the few things I'd have to lose don't justify the compromise. For example, because I hangar it, I chose an RSTOL plane over a cuffed long wing. RSTOL weighs...But it still fits in any hangar...Also, I had a bare / polished plane, but ended up painting it as a result of the sand erosion it sees when I taxi past it every day in a Thrush... If I really need to cut that last 100' off my roll, I'll make two trips or fly the cub.

Second)
you guys can't have it both ways...
In other words you can't tell about all the refinements and additions Cessna made over the years, and then not agree that the 'wagons didn't gain weight, right from day 1.

I have seen the original W&B reports from a half dozen '53 models, and they all weighed between 1415 and 1550. Mine was 1466. These are not 'averaged paper weights' like we frequently see, the early 180s were all weighed and hand written up. And yes, it's true, virtually everyone of these planes gained weight as the years went by. Having said that, a simple return to that stock configuration should return you within pounds of that weight. R&R an old radio, generator, starter, etc and you will lose weight! Now add in a few modern necessities, and coming out a wash is very easily doable.

Mine came with a vfr panel, and no paint save the stripes. R&R ing the heavy engine accesories in favor of modern lightweight components and a lighter prop, actually more than compensated for the Pponk... More power / less weight, now ther's a no brainerd

Some food for thought;
FWIW, after much deliberation I went ahead and painted mine. I weighed it before, and I weighed it after, the paint cost me 38#s

That $#!ttty 170 tail wheel steering assembly is almost a full pound lighter than the very next revision, almost two#s less than the last. You can verify that with Tailwheel Tom Anderson...

Although to be completely honest, I thought we were discussing bushworthy airplanes here, if you are relying on tailwheel steering rather than brakes to turn your airplane, your idea of bush and mine are far different. If mine were not a standard A/W cert, I would just pitch the t/w steering and all it's associated cables and jibberish... never the less, if you like t/w steering, it's true, the early 180 is not for you

The 7/8" stinger on the early 180s... no rocket science there... I never have understood why guys buy an early plane and then bolt that 3500# 1 1/8", C185 stinger on there? Surely not to loose weight

The straight main gear are a full 17#s lighter than the raked heavy gear. You can verify this with Tailwheel Tom Anderson, but wait! a set of Ti gear, and you will drop that much more again! think they are not bushworthy? when Clauses 185 got totalled, they were one of the few pieces they used on the new one!

I have a stock '58 baggage door, (you know, the one that doesn't exist on a '53) and all the associated bulkheads, doublers, hinges, latches, etc. I bought them before I painted it. Weighed it all right before we went to the paint booth, and decided I just couldn't get that weight back off of it anywhere else. Everyone else's 'refinement', nothing but dead weight to me... Anyone wanna make an offer on it?

Ever look at the top of an early 180 wings and not see cracks or patches? (if so, I want those wings!) That's because the top skins are thinner than the later years. For the sake of this conversation we can replace thinner with lighter... But yes they are maintenance hogs

But that's not all... Mike is right, there is 'lighter' all over... as I posted above, the flaps are truss ribbed, you can look down one end and see straight thru to the other... Solid ribs for the later years, you just can't take that weight off a later model, but it doesn't exist from the get go on a '53...

The slant tanks of the first 180s? ever feel how heavy rubber is? guess what? there's another 2#s a side. Don't believe it? Hartwig, FFC, Aerotech... they all have the shipping weights. Of course then you have less gas

That wonderful C170 visibility you get with an early 180... you get that because that panel that is too small to house any instruments is smaller (read;lighter)

Did someone say visibility? soooo you want to be with the 'in' crowd and have a "1 piece windshield" news flash... they're all 1 piece now go pick up one with the strap, and one that's strapless Being cool just cost ya almost double the weight I just can't make this shit up, LP Aero, Cee Bailey, Great Lakes... they all agree

The early round back seats, uber light. Ditch the gay skirt that wraps around the bottom and does nothing but sit there looking fat, strip the springs and old padding in favor of a ceconite web followed by modern
upholstery, and you will be 12-13#s... Mine are 13#s wrapped in leather with seat heaters installed. Try that with a fully articulating late model seat...


At the end of the day, Mike is again right.... more often than not, the guy with the early plane is doing his best to make a 185 out of it, and the guy with the heavy later plane is trying to drop a few pounds from it. Doesn't make much difference to me, except when someone calls BS on something I posted, I don't mind backing it up with a few plane old facts
Myths and wives tales??? I dunno, that might be the weekend warrior, who heard from a freind of a freind...
Me? I just wanted a 2 place 'bush beater' that will play in the sticks and still get my bride there in timely comfort... so far so good

Taj, give Dave Calkins in Anch a call, he is a no BS I/A that knows a few things about the early birds. He maintains a couple really, really nice '53's and I believe those planes come in at 1530#s +/- with big engines, long wings and bushweels. Also overlooks several real hot rods. Last I talked to him he was going with twin rayjays on his '53... not my cup of tea, but for someone in Colorado looking for an early bird it sounds like just the ticket

Oh, and FWIW, the '53 is not my favorite year, nor best fit for me... I can't stand the door latches

Take care, Rob

Hey rob, what is your favorite year? I thought it was 53... My 55 came new at 1556. Am I mistaken, I thought 53-55 were same except for gear and bagg door?

[quote] Last I talked to him he was going with twin rayjays on his '53... not my cup of tea, but for someone in Colorado looking for an early bird it sounds like just the ticket

[/quote

Wonder who that would be

hotrod150 wrote: that's an urban myth, just like the first year production C150's & C172's still having all the gearbox parts in place for attaching tailwheel MLG.

I own a first year 172, s/n 29306. There are no tailwheel main gear boxes, or any of the associated structure in there. Maybe the first two or three airplanes were done that way, but not the first production year.