Bonanza Man wrote:

pif_sonic wrote:I think the tail wheel plane was designed for back country, grass, dirt strips. The training gear was designed for pavement.

You think wrong.

My bad, convectional gear was designed for the pilot with better skills!! Sorry

Man, everybody is so sensitive about their airplanes…..mmmmm?????
You can’t even pick a little, or crack a joke. What is the world coming to??

Maybe I'm the only one, but I'll take all the help I can get when I'm landing in tough places. A tailwheel airplane complicates, not simplifies those situations.

Now, on something really rough, it's your only choice.

Wup,

I know about the stc. I've put em on. We field approved the different nose tire, based on the angle of the airplane in stock configuration. No problem doing that, in an anal FSDO. Your mileage may vary, however.

The smaller nose tire really does make sense.

MTV

I have a 1959 182 with a 600x6 up front and 700x6 on the mains. Gopher holes are no sweat but a badger hole is a bit of a problem. A good fly over and you can spot a badger hole pretty easy.

If you have not bought the plane yet, I know where there is a Stinson 108-2 for sale with a mid time O-470 in it for 40,000. It will kick most planes butts. I would buy it myself but it only carries 40 gallons of fuel and on my trips to Baja I like to cary a bit more.

Oh and in Idaho are there any 135 guys fling skywagons. All I see are 206's.

Tim

Tripacers have 600x6's all around and if you look closely you'll see the nose gear is almost exactly the same as the tri gear Maule. I saw a old video add of a tripacer taking off from a plowed field perpendicular to the furrows once. It is an amazing airplane. I flew mine all over Idaho with a flat climb prop, and went into most of the strips up in Idaho with it. The best thing I ever did to it was twist the prop from 59 inches down to 53, giving me 2800 RPM if I wanted it on takeoff. Oh and by the way I only lost about 8 MPH in cruise speed. I never had a ground roll of more than half the length of any strip I went into. I usually packed 170 lbs of camping gear and on leaving JC when done and fully loaded I was still off before the first outhouse. I also had VG's and 160 HP, and droop tips but the droop tips didn't do much for performance. What it did was provide a little more wing surface by squaring off the ailerons. Most people shun the tripacer and pacers cause they are fabric. My fabric was over 23 years old and it still punched well above minimums and is still being flown by the guy I sold it to this day. The other good thing about the PA 22's is they have Manual flaps.. Get her going about 40 MPH and yank full flaps and you are off the ground and climbing. Try that in a Cessna with electric flaps. So why do I now have a Maule.... Power!!!!!!! My Maule is a pacer on Steroids. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Have afriend that has a 172 and he put in a 180 Hp engine. Nice setup but the bad deal is that he had to limit flap travel to 30 deg. How is that for a step in the wrong direction. Then he put in long range tanks and a stol kit.

He has more into it than my 182 B with less load.

You can buy a pretty good strait tail 182 for arround 50 to 55K.

Tim

I wonder why 135 guys fly nosedraggers, not tail wheels, Maybe because the insurance on a tail wheel is more for a 135 operator???? Just a thought.

Oh and as for all that conversion stuff. I did the numbers on converting my PA 22 to a taildragger and upping the HP to 180 and it came out to spending about the same as buying a new better plane. Problem is once you are done with all the work and expense you still only have a PA 20. No more room and a little better performance. I agree on the straight tail 182. It's hard to beat and you can take it about anywhere you want and with much more stuff behind your seat.

If you're into 172s and are shopping for one check out the Hawk XP. They made them for a few years in the 70's as an inbetweener for the 172 and 182. It has a C/s prop and 195 hp. I think it was supposed to be the late model Skylark. I put a few hours on one and thought it was great, but it may too suffer from the 182 firewall nosegear mount issue.

With a Del Air conversion for 180HP, an older (D model) 172 can still have 40 degrees of manual flap and have an upped gross weight (to 2550lb?). With that conversion compared to a latter model 182 (both having full fuel) the 172 load is only 10 kilo's less than the 182. When you sit down and work out power to weight/wing area the older 172's are good performers.

Ultimately you have to learn how to use the Aircraft you have to it's best performance, the grass always seems greener. It's bullshit that you have to have a SuperCub or 185 to fly anywhere in the bush, most Aircraft lightly loaded, flown well will surprise people.

I find myself in the same situation.

After careful analysis of my flying situation, I bought a 1974 172M in May because it fits 99.9% of the flying that I actually do – solo day VFR to areas with hard surface runways and squirrelly winds. The ’74 “M” is also the first year of the improved wing with the beeter leading edge cuff.

My membership here indicates that I do want to fly into some “backwoods” areas for hiking, camping, contemplating my navel, etc. So I also looked at what I wanted to do to “upgrade” and personalize my bird.

The first things have been “safety of flight” issues and that includes replacing my mostly non-working hodgepodge radio stack. In fact, right now the plane is sitting NORDO with my trusty Icom A-22 awaiting the weather to clear so that I can take it to the avionics shop to get new radios (PS Engineering 8000B Audio Panel, Garmin SL-30 NavComm with GS, Garmin SL40 Comm, and Garmin GTX-327 transponder). When it comes back, we’ll put the AirGizmos dock for the 196 in it and the radios will be done.

The back seat is out and the next thing to be done is to install the folding rear seats from Atlee-Dodge in Anchorage (http://www.fadodge.com/customseats.html) since they are light and easily removable as well as folding up out of the way.

After that, it’s the Landes front fork (http://www.airglas.com/nose_fork/index.html) and a set of 8.50x6 tires all around. If I find myself spending more time on unimproved strips, Wup will also get some of my money. I’ve already removed the panties because I think that they’re ugly and they make inspecting the tires harder during preflight.

Currently, my O-320-E2D is 400+ hours from TBO and showing great compression while sipping oil and gas. When it comes time to overhaul, it will become a 180 HP with the increased gross of 2550 and get some Flint tip tanks (http://www.flintaero.com/Cessna_150-205.htm) for the longer cross countries. The tip tanks will probably go in this winter or early next year even if the engine continues to purr.

Yes, it is a lot of money to remake a 172 into a mild bush plane, and I could have bought a nice 182 for what I will eventually spend, but I would have probably done much of the same to a 182 and my operating costs per hour would have been higher.

Don

Don is correct. Sometimes, if you already own a good, solid airplane, and you plan to hang onto it for some time, it makes more sense to upgrade it, rather than buy another, somewhat "unknown" airplane, and wind up having to upgrade it as well.

The older 182's are great airplanes, but they are by definition old, as is my airplane. Most are also high time. Those things take a lot of care and feeding, frankly. The 182 drinks more fuel than a 172 with 180, but after you do the math, you'll probably find that due to additional speed, the difference is negligable. That speed can sometimes be really nice.

I can tell you from personal experience that the Flint tanks can be a pain in the butt. They make the airplane kind of wallow in taxi, they're sort of a pain to access to fuel, and I've had leakage problems, which puts raw fuel in the wings. Lots of fittings out there, and they are difficult to get at. I think my installation was done well, but things change over time. Mine have now been in for over 10 years, and they are starting to present problems that are hard to trace. Unfortunately, if you really need the extra fuel, they're really the only viable (in my opinion) option. I don't like baggage compartment tanks, for several reasons.

If you have the long range tanks on that 172 M, you might try flying it a while with the stock tanks, and see what your fuel range does for you. No doubt the 180 ups fuel consumption, but.

If you go to the 180, I'd strongly recommend the Constant Speed prop conversions, as opposed to the fixed pitch conversion. That fixed pitch 180 conversion will eat a LOT of gas. THe CS is more expensive and weighs a bit more, but....

MTV

I can understand not caring for baggage tanks (O&N/Javelin), Flint's evidently aren't the best thing going either. Those are the wingtip mounted ones? Does Monarch make LR tanks for the 172?

Well, the Flint tanks aren't perfect. But, for these airplanes, they are probably the best way to extend range, IF YOU REALLY NEED TO.

That's the question. If you have the short range tanks, as I do--37 gallons, with the 180 engine, you just don't have enough gas.

If, on the other hand, you have the 172's long range tanks (methinks ~50 gallons??), that may be just about enough. I'd go for that on my airplane. I can carry 60, and frankly, that's a little too much. I think 50 would be near perfect.

Now, that said, I can tanker fuel from where it's cheaper, and skip some more expensive fuel stops. But, frankly, its' nickels and dimes there.

The Flint tanks are okay. Just a lot of plumbing, and after ten years with no problems, I'm having leaks show up. Now I'm waiting for one of those little pumps to got TU and leave me somewhere without the gas I thought I had.

They've worked fine for a long time, and, other than a couple of leaks, they still do. I can't complain, really. They are NOT cheap, by the way.

If you can live with 50 gallons, I'd stick with that. If you're shopping for an airplane, don't even consider one with the small tanks.

MTV

Fuel capacity should be why you should consider a C-175 w/ the Lycoming 180 hp conversion instead of a C-172. All the 175's I believe came with 52 gallons fuel capacity as standard.

Pat

Wow! Thanks for all the terrific replies. FWIW, I don't currently own a plane, but there seem to be quite a few 172s for sale on TAP, barnstormers, etc that have already been converted to 180 hp so that looked to be a bit cheaper than converting a recently bought "stock" 172. I will have to research all the great leads you all have given me, from the nosefork upgrades to STOL equipment, and the rest. Good Stuff!

Many of the later 172 came with the same tanks as the 175. Standard was 38, I believe, but as the years passed, most of the 172's went out the door with the bigger tanks.

Look carefully at which conversion an airplane has, and find out as much as you can about that conversion.

MTV

Wes wrote:Wow! Thanks for all the terrific replies. FWIW, I don't currently own a plane, but there seem to be quite a few 172s for sale on TAP, barnstormers, etc that have already been converted to 180 hp so that looked to be a bit cheaper than converting a recently bought "stock" 172. I will have to research all the great leads you all have given me, from the nosefork upgrades to STOL equipment, and the rest. Good Stuff!

Also keep an eye out for 175's that have the O-470. There's one on a field near here. Pretty good performance.

I have a 57 172 . I bought very cheap and went to work.
new Lyc. 180hp cs/prop Bush conversion.
Bought a pair of 175 wings had them completely rebuilt 50gal fuel.
Rebuilt horizontal stab.
all new stainless control cables and hardware.
Took it apart and put it back together fixing any corrosion or replacing epoxy primer in and out new paint.
empty 1300lbs Gross 2200
Interesting thing the 175 is exactly same airframe and wings except for 50gal tanks. 175 has 2350 gross.

It performs really well for me! I

I am waiting for the wingx stol kit to be approved.

Trying to decide weather to go with the Larger nose for or the TW conversion.

Here was my reasoning. I looked at older 182 and 180s 170s. I found for what I could get for the money I had in hand 60k was a lot of if's.

So I bought this and have a Or what should be a nice reliable airplane and I know there is nothing hiding. The airframe is like new and the engine is new. I have 60k invested and do not believe I could find a plane in this shape for what I have in it.

Before the Maule and Cub people jump me. I would love to have either but I am 6'7" and 275lbs. I can not fit in either one.


This is my first post here and this is a great site. I hope to come out west someday soon and learn to fly where you all play.

Dogman wrote:I have a 57 172 . Trying to decide weather to go with the Larger nose for or the TW conversion.

For what it's worth. About 1.5 cents actually...

I have a '56 C172, stock O-300, and the Bolen gear conversion. Very pretty little airplane, and looks like a mini 180.

But, it DOES NOT fly like a C180. Gutless, yeah they all are, but the problem is with the tail. The conventional gear changes all the geometry, and the elevator has a whole lot more work to do. A little trim tab is not a stabilator, and without being able to move the whole flying surface to where you need it for t/o and landings, especially if it's hot and you're heavy, it makes for a really clumsy airplane.

I've had this thing for a year now, and all things considered, if I had to do a C172 again, I'd stick with the training wheels and just beef up the horsepower and the nose fork, and put 8.50's all around. Might not be as pretty sitting there, but it'd be a nice flying little bird and go where any sane guy would want to most days.

Gump

GumpAir wrote: The conventional gear changes all the geometry, and the elevator has a whole lot more work to do. A little trim tab is not a stabilator, and without being able to move the whole flying surface to where you need it for t/o and landings, especially if it's hot and you're heavy, it makes for a really clumsy airplane.

Hey Gump, this is the first time I've heard this downside to the conversion. Have you flown a 170 or a 180 and felt that those aircraft had enough elevator authority, unlike your conversion?

I was always under the impression that the tailfeathers of the older staight tail 172/180 were similar. Perhaps it is a balance issue as well?