I just HAD to comment on this post, despite it is really, really old (like me.) Lot’s of aviators have no idea what a Cessna 150/150 is, when they glance at these little birds.
I’ve owned a mess of airplanes, started flying lessons with my father (who was an instructor pilot with the Army Air Corp in WW2).
My Cessna 150/150 was absolutely the most fun airplane I’ve flown. In 2012, I flew it from my ranch between Abilene and San Angelo, Texas to Mount Saint Helens and back.
On my trip, I rarely flew it longer than two hours (call me old and not bold, but in this tiny bird, I gassed up as often as possible)...
The two highest airports I stopped at were at Las Vegas, New Mexico and West Yellowstone. When I landed at West Yellowstone, I camped at the pilots campground for two days. This was in August and despite having a light sleeping bag and a small tent I carried, I nearly froze. The morning I was doing my preflight for departing West Yellowstone, a “cocky” young pilot in a Cessna 421 came up and said, “You plan on flying that underpowered 150 of this field?” He lectured me about density altitude as I was loading all my camping gear back into my Cessna (I called it “The Giant Killer”) and I wanted to tell him I started flying lessons at age 12 with my dad in his Beechcraft Twin Bonanza Excalibur (Google that aircraft) but I thought I’d just act like I was “new to flying” and bit my lip as I was getting his lecture. I then shook his hand and said, “Thank you for the info about density altitude. Would you stay here and keep an eye out for me, just in case I have a problem trying to get airborne?” He didn’t smile, but frowned and said something like “We don’t have 9-1-1 here, but I’ll stick around just in case you screw the pooch.” (I wanted to tell him I flew choppers in Vietnam in the Army... but continued acting like I didn’t know cat poop from Shinola...)
I crawled into The Giant Killer (he could hear me moaning from my arthritis and bursitis) and I pulled out onto the runway, blew off the airstrip like the proverbial homesick angel that The Giant Killer was, and as I left, I wonder if that “kid” said something like “Holy Sheet”...
On my way out of Yellowstone, I flew straight to Cody, Wyoming and had to climb to 14,000 feet to clear (I think the name of the “hill” was Rattlesnake Mountain.) Landed in Cody and encountered another pilot older than me, who gave me basically the same lecture. I acted like a dumb Texan, did the same climb out as he watched me and wondered if he too muttered “Holy Sheet” as I went on my merry way to the Badlands in the Dakotas.
I miss that little bird. Had to sell it do to no longer being able to pass a medical, but the Cessna 150/150 is a hoot to fly, and I shortened my 3,000 by 100 foot grass runway to 900 feet by 12 feet, to save gas in my big tractor I used to mow the strip with.
Yep, you can’t fly long legs in a 150/150 but when you are an old fart, your bladder has about the same “range” so The Giant Killer worked just great for me.
(Oh, in my dad’s Excalibur, he had to teach me instrument flying first, because at 12 years old, I couldn’t see over the panel. N4311D. I think I put a picture on AOPA my dad took of me standing by the fuselage and too short to step on the first step going to the top of the wing, when we flew from El Paso to Salt Lake City. If you see that photo, please leave a comment, “Holy Sheet” on AOPA.
