I fly a ‘53 180, no baggage door. I’ve never found myself wishing I had one.

A few things effect the need for a baggage door. One of them is age. Back in the day I was limber and spry as a monkey, now at 67 I am no longer limber or spry so getting things from the back of a Cessna makes a baggage door priceless. The second reason is mission. If you are going to be loading or unloading lots of cargo weekly being able to reach the extended baggage for the light stuff like engine/wing covers, sleeping bags, ect it is a great help. If you only fly with a big load once or twice a year and still have some monkey left in ya I would consider it a nice to have, not a must have. DENNY

140eagles wrote:

Mapleflt wrote:...
I just noticed you don't have a baggage door, its a huge bonus especially with the extended baggage.

Baggage door - I hear this often.
However, I’m not (yet?) convinced it’s worth the money for the type of flying I do.
On the camping trip I mentioned I had the jump seat removed, so there was this big empty space behind the front seats. Move/fold them forward and there was easy access.
If I wanted to fetch stuff from the extended part, yes, then I would have had to “climb” in. This, however, was often necessary for a different reason: I had a folding bike with me - one of the most cherished pieces of equipment during my adventure - and I don’t think that would have fit through the baggage door.



Nonetheless, you made me curious: what do people (un)load through that door?


Isn’t it just as easy to store the important stuff right behind the front seats - if, like in my case, there are no seats in the back?

I am with you on this. Never seen the need for it. I rarely have more than one Atlee Dodge seat in the back, and have found it easy to reach anything I need. Extended baggage is for light camping gear and it’s easy to get it out, usually without getting in the back. Maybe I don’t know what I am missing though?

The best way to each the lighter stuff in the aft area in the cargo area has been designed and embraced by boaters for a long time. $39 and a lot better/easier than adding a baggage door. Due to W&B the light stuff is in the hard to reach areas, so this is a great tool

https://www.amazon.com/EVERSPROUT-Teles ... 910&sr=8-5

I'll agree that a baggage door isn't on the essential list but let's equally agree it's a nice to have. That said, if funds are required elsewhere for essential requiements then by all means apply them accordingly.

My 170 never had a baggage door. It was suggested a couple times, but never a high priority. That plane did have an extended baggage.

My 175 has ext. baggage, and no baggage door as well.

Mostly, what I use the ext. baggage for is survival gear….out of sight, out of mind, but always there. So I rarely need to access stuff there.

Finally, I’ve spent thousands of hours working 185s which were equipped with baggage doors. I can’t think of a time those doors were really particularly useful. Handy, maybe, but……

I’m not the least interested in spending the $$ it would take to install a baggage door.

MTV

I'm surprised no one has mentioned how much weight a baggage door would add... to some it might be significant.

Sweet place! I have a friend there with a white and green PA18 (I am from Patagonia as well )

mtv wrote:I might consider installing a uAvionix AV-30 instrument. One of those will provide a LOT of information for minimal cost. And easy install.
.....
MTV

Yes, we’ve been thinking about the AV-30!
The previous owner liked redundancy and had installed two AIs and two altimeters. SInce both, me and my mission, are strictly VFR oriented I can also get rid of the CDI.
All this would open up a lot of real estate. Which, of course, triggered the idea to ditch the vacuum system altogether and put two AV-30s in the panel.
Like so:



Some of that superfluous stuff is already sold/put up for sale and will hopefully create some funds to facilitate financing the transition.
I can’t wait to fly behind state-of-the-art avionics in a traditional round-holed panel.
But that’s just me and my visual preference of form follows function.
The same goes for the arrangement, but I think what I sketched in the photo is the obvious solution…

dwm wrote:Sweet place! I have a friend there with a white and green PA18 (I am from Patagonia as well )

Sweet place, indeed!
Just stunningly beautiful!



Photo session with our research vehicle for investigating mountain waves over the Andes back in '99.
How lucky I was to have science and passion conspire and help launching such a project!



And yes, I've seen that white and green PA18. It's got 26" Bushwheels and a Garmin glass cockpit, right?

StillLearning wrote:I fly a ‘53 180, no baggage door. I’ve never found myself wishing I had one.

I also fly a 53 180, but I do wish I had a baggage door.
With my BAS folding jump seats, even a short guy like me can reach stuff in the standard baggage area no problem.
But getting to stuff in the extended baggage requires climbing in, which is a PITA.
I plan on installing a baggage door at some point.
I don't consider it an essential item, but like a lot of things (fueling steps, boot cowl handles, tail pull handles etc)
it's one of those nice to have when you need it things.

Yes sir!

Saludos from another sweet spot of Patagonia!

There are two mods which come up every once in a while, here and on other spots of the omniscient interweb: V-brace and 180 gear.
I’ve been thinking about both and decided to not do anything about either one for now.
It seems to me that they could be beneficial for more “hardcore” off-field operations than I see in my mission for the near future.
Apart from that installing a V-brace would necessitate fiddling with the headliner, which is still in great condition….



…and the 180 legs would necessitate an even more hurtful cut into available funds.

But maybe I’m missing some of the advantages of these two?

hotrod180 wrote:... but like a lot of things (fueling steps, boot cowl handles, tail pull handles etc)
it's one of those nice to have when you need it things.

Since they have been mentioned: the nice-to-have’s…
On my list are door stewards, boot cowl handles, fueling steps and abrasion boots - in any order.

I'm configured with three seat; the aft one is mounted on the starboard side so anything that will fit, espicially when I'm on floats usually goes thru the baggage door. The light but bulky items go as far after as possible, bedding etc. The heaviest items forward of the baggage door on the port side adjacent to the aft seat and the balance at the baggabe door. All the messy stuff, oils, additional fuel ropes, Pacboat goes in the float lockers.

FWIW, I'm quite sure a V brace won't require cutting the headliner. It mounts ti the fwd side of the door posts. So you would only need to trim the plastic covers you have on the front there.

A1Skinner wrote:FWIW, I'm quite sure a V brace won't require cutting the headliner. It mounts ti the fwd side of the door posts. So you would only need to trim the plastic covers you have on the front there.

I agree, no need to cut headliner for V brace.

If you taxi on ANY even mildly uneven ground, you’ll be amazed at how much your windshield moves around.

First thing I did to my 170 was install a V brace.

If you have the later “Lady Legs” gear, you should be fine. If not, 180 is pretty nice, bring $$.

MTV

Indeed there is no trimming needed to a headliner with a V brace install… I think Wolf was meaning to say was that in order to install the brace, you have to pull down the headliner in the corners to get at the backside of the A-pillar

After talking about gear, V-brace and other mods let’s step back a bit: how come I ended up with a 170?
Looking back at my time with 4VW I feel like she and I are an almost perfect, natural match. But what made me select a Cessna taildragger?

Well, the dream I mentioned in my first post was spawned by a book I read when I was 9 years old. It’s about a freshly minted young pilot, who was asked by an old friend of his family – a pilot himself, working in Alaska – if he would like to help him for one year with his business and if so, could he fly a new Cessna 170 from the factory up to Fairbanks.
The answer was yes, of course, and the book describes the trip up North and tells the story of an Arctic bush pilot – and that’s also the title of the book. (the title of the German translation is “Cessna 170 – landen!” something like “Cessna 170, cleared to land”)



(It’s author has been mentioned here on bcp, with this link to a great youtube video https://youtu.be/pH1rd6SQ8FI?t=972)

I totally lost myself in that book and began to dream about bears and wolves, about fishing in high mountain lakes and hunting elk.
 But one dream came back again and again: the one about me flying a little Cessna, trying to find Alaska. Everyday I would fly around – somewhere up North – looking for a particular lake, for animal tracks in the snow. I would land on the sandbanks of a river, on a hill top, some days close to a village where I asked the locals how to get to Alaska. Every once in a while I would get back to a place where I had been before, ask again, and this time people would point me in a different direction. I didn’t mind that, because all I wanted was to fly this little plane forever.
I must have dreamed that dream like a million times, seen different mountains, met different people, but I was always flying that red and white Cessna.

So my choice of airplane was inevitable.
Which didn’t prevent me from looking at other options like Pacers or Stinsons, even the C140 popped up occasionally. After all, I didn’t want to completely rule out a potentially more “rational” selection.
But in the end the romantic in me won, supported and encouraged by “rational” comments on this and other sites.



And I think the romantic selected a wonderful airplane !

140eagles wrote:After talking about gear, V-brace and other mods let’s step back a bit: how come I ended up with a 170?
Looking back at my time with 4VW I feel like she and I are an almost perfect, natural match. But what made me select a Cessna taildragger?

Well, the dream I mentioned in my first post was spawned by a book I read when I was 9 years old. It’s about a freshly minted young pilot, who was asked by an old friend of his family – a pilot himself, working in Alaska – if he would like to help him for one year with his business and if so, could he fly a new Cessna 170 from the factory up to Fairbanks.
The answer was yes, of course, and the book describes the trip up North and tells the story of an Arctic bush pilot – and that’s also the title of the book. (the title of the German translation is “Cessna 170 – landen!” something like “Cessna 170, cleared to land”)



(It’s author has been mentioned here on bcp, with this link to a great youtube video https://youtu.be/pH1rd6SQ8FI?t=972)

I totally lost myself in that book and began to dream about bears and wolves, about fishing in high mountain lakes and hunting elk.
 But one dream came back again and again: the one about me flying a little Cessna, trying to find Alaska. Everyday I would fly around – somewhere up North – looking for a particular lake, for animal tracks in the snow. I would land on the sandbanks of a river, on a hill top, some days close to a village where I asked the locals how to get to Alaska. Every once in a while I would get back to a place where I had been before, ask again, and this time people would point me in a different direction. I didn’t mind that, because all I wanted was to fly this little plane forever.
I must have dreamed that dream like a million times, seen different mountains, met different people, but I was always flying that red and white Cessna.

So my choice of airplane was inevitable.
Which didn’t prevent me from looking at other options like Pacers or Stinsons, even the C140 popped up occasionally. After all, I didn’t want to completely rule out a potentially more “rational” selection.
But in the end the romantic in me won, supported and encouraged by “rational” comments on this and other sites.



And I think the romantic selected a wonderful airplane !

s

Bud Helmericks was an old friend of mine. He had some wonderful stories, and had been there and done that. If you haven't read his book "The Last of the Bush Pilots", you should get a copy.

MTV

With all those mods my 170 was definitely more “Super” than me, her pilot, and that wasn’t likely going to change any time soon.
Would I be able to appreciate and make appropriate use of all the goodies?
Decades ago I had almost gotten checked out in a stock 170A but didn’t remember anything about its flying characteristics and never left the pattern with it.

What particularly impressed me right from the beginning was the Sportsman-equipped wing.
I mean full control authority at 45mph, really?
And no sudden departure at 40mph?
Is that ASI working properly?
How would an experienced 170 driver feel about that wing, I wondered, if a novice like me was already in awe?

The next thing I was very curious to check out was the extended baggage.
For a weekend trip to my old soaring club I loaded her up as if I was going to leave for the journey of my dreams. Which it was, kind of.



Loading, unloading, “adjusting” the cg - all worked like a charm. For me.

Once there, my buddies at first complimented me for my incredibly well equipped classic bird.
Then, after a few beers, they joked about the short wings and - competitive bunch they are - seriously suggested some aerodynamic improvements.

Are there any?