The International Cessna 170 Association

Well today I had the experience of flying a Cessna 172n series with a 160hp engine . The engine is “on condition “ and I feel some of the ponies [160] haven’t been feed for some time. It was great fun BUT ,I do miss the extra ponies in the 170 . [180hp] This 172N is a bit of a hangar queen but stored outside . It’s really rough looking both inside and out . OMG the brakes were non existent .Even though there was plenty of pad material on the brakes when I checked them on my preflight . It’s done about 14,000 hrs and the paint is flying off with each flight . I was worried about the age of the fuel in the tanks. The fuel was about 3 years old at least . It had full tanks . After a couple of circuits my confidence in the aircraft increased. Looking out the rear windows is a little hard as all the “glass” has gone white and with masses of fine cracks with age .
I haven’t flown anything like this for many years so it was a fun challenge . No , I am not bored but this showed up and filled in the morning . Some thing to write in the log book . The aircraft was VFR airworthy [with one eye closed] its now due for its annual . The last one ,I sure was a paper one .

Ps. We will not talk about the mag drop at 1700 rpm. OR the oil consumption. I “think” it’s a quart a hour?

I used to do stuff like that back in my early twenties and desperate for flying time.

But by the time the Modern “N” model was introduced... I was a starving commuter airline pilot flying junk B-99s and happy to do it for some silly reason.