1964 CESSNA 172E SKYHAWK
$35,000 USD
Total Time:4900 Engine 1 Time:1159 SMOH Prop 1 Time:1140 SOH Condition:Used Year Painted:2000 Interior Year:2017 Flight Rules:VFR # of Seats:4
Its a nice looking plane with serviceable avionics and lot of time left on the Continental engine. If you wanted you could upgrade a radio or two.
I am one of the few men in history whose wife insisted that we buy a general aviation airplane. When I returned from a flight in my homebult ultralight after a couple hours flying in the Olympic Mountains, my wife said, “We need an airplane that I can go flying in too.”
We spent two years plane shopping before deciding on our Cherokee. We started out looking at tail dragger classics like Aeroncas, etc... because that is what most of our friends at the time had. Ironically the first non-classic general aviation plane we got excited about was a 1964 Cessna 172. For some reason my wife named it Elvis. Our mechanic friend did a prebuy on it and recommended that we take a pass. After that we traveled thousands of mile looking mostly at Cessnas. There was a period of time when we concentrated on Comanches as well because our good friend who was a pilot for American Airlines had a Commanche 260B and we loved that airplane.
Right after we went for a test flight in the Cherokee that we purchased almost 30 years ago and after two years of looking at planes my wife told me to buy it... basically or else. I was skeptical because the last Cherokee we had been in didn't seem to perform very well. But this one managed to get the previous owner, his wife and the two of us into the air with no issues.
It had just been painted and looked spectacular. My cousin was an upholsterer and the guy we bought it from worked for Alaska Airlines and he helped us get enough first class Alaska Airlines leather to redo the entire cabin.
I was getting sick of looking at planes also. One of my best friends was an aircraft mechanic and he used to come with us when we would look at planes. I didn't even call him to look at this one, but I did give it a serious looking over myself and watched the fresh annual being done as well. We have never regretted buying the plane and it has served as better than we could ever have expected.
The plane has never missed a beat during critical times while flying in conditions that were challenging. When you come back in the middle of the night after flying a thousand miles through heavy weather and you have low visibility and the wind is blowing so hard over the trees next to the runway that you have to do a go-around because you have been bounced around so severely... that is when you really appreciate an easy to fly airplane with gear that is 10 feet apart that you can plop on the ground in a hurry by pulling in whatever amount of flaps you need instantaneously. This is a plane that became almost an extension of my body
That’s quite a story. Meanwhile, I called someone I know who says the flying schools since April have been going strong, and people are buying for personal use. Remember, before COVID hit, we were seeing a shortage of pilots for airlines. The thinking is that everyone is gearing up for an increase in air travel once we’re over COVID.