Talk:Cessna 150

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

MILHIST This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see lists of open tasks and regional and topical task forces. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the quality scale.
AVIATION This article is within the scope of the Aviation WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see lists of open tasks and task forces. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.
Aviation Portal
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the quality scale.

Contents

[edit] Tail Fin Confirmed

Well dang. I believe that Ahunt is correct. One can look at www.aso.com or trade-a-plane and see lots of photos that confirm his statement. Kitplane01


[edit] Tail Fin

Ahunt wrote "That profile with the 15% bigger tail and the long dorsal fin was only used on C-150M models 1975-77". But the web site http://www.cessna150-152.com/faqs/models.htm says otherwise. Therefore I have reverted it.

The problem is that that website's information is in error. Cessna 150s produced from 1966 to 1970 (models "F" through "K") had a short dorsal fin that came only 1/3 from the fin to the rear window and the lower tail fin and rudder. The "L" model which was produced from model years 1971 to 1974 has the lengthened dorsal fin that extended from the fin to the rear window. The "M" model introduced in 1975 had the lengthened dorsal fin and the overall tail area was increased 15% to increase crosswind authority. The higher fin increased the height of the "M" model from 8'0" to 8'6" and it is this model that is illustrated in the sideview. The best reference for Cessna 150 varients is the authoritative All Those Cessna 150s - 17 years of Owners Manuals from 1959-60 through 1977 including type certification data National Flightshops St Petersburg-Clearwater FL, 1977. Ahunt 13:41, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Old Edits

"More pilots have flown Cessna 150/152s than any other single model of airplane." Boy, I don't think so: more Cessna 170/172's have been sold, and they're still going strong - they're bound to trump the 150/2 series. - DavidWBrooks 19:50, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC) This comment has been removed from the article.


106 kts Cruise Speed?! Whow! I wanna buy that 150 with the O200 Motor... I always calculate with 85 / 75 kts. 134.93.161.18 12:48, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC) That's what the pilot's operating manual says. It's not what my C-150 gets, bit that's the book figure.


Some times the costs of changing the engine to allow mogas out-weigh the benift. It is also illegal to burn mogas in some countries even with a permit. I'll leave the mogas comment but it is disturbing that people in the aviation field advertising mogas can be used in aircraft even when modified. Thats just my two-cents.--capt. erwii 05:20, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

this is not a POH, nor are we here to declare what people should or should not do - the fact of the matter is, that thousands of GA aircraft in the US and elsewhere have autogas STCs. i've seen both sides argued, mostly inconclusively, and whether it is illegal or not is irrelevant in the context of a brief description of the aircraft.
personally, I'm not sure why the autogas comment was there to begin with, as it's not something unique to the 150/152. it certainly doesn't deserve any more text in the article than it already has. -eric 06:36, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

Famous Cessna 150s (just for the record): one flown by Frank Corder into the White House on Sept 11, 1994 (suicide flight). another caused evacuation of the U.S. Capitol and White House by flying within 3 miles of the White House on May 11, 2005 (accidental intrusion into restricted airspace).

  • I do not believe the above information is encyclopedic enough for inclusion 24.9.10.235 04:55, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge with Cessna 152?

I'm not going to flag it but I want to know what popular opinion to this suggestion would be. Right now as it stands both articles are sparse and rather repetitive, and many if not most aviation resources lump them together anyway. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.9.10.235 (talk • contribs) 11 February 2006

  • I concur with this suggestion. Engineer Bob 07:40, 15 March 2006 (UTC)


Minor corrections, I think... following are correct for 1968 (150H) model.

  1. C-150 models, at least in 1968, were the Standard, Trainer (dual controls), and Commuter.
  2. The 162 mph 'top speed' is the redline or never-exceed speed. Max level speed is published at 122 mph.
  3. Cruise speed, per aircraft manual, is about 112 mph depending on altitude.
  4. Aerobat is distinguishable by small tinted plexiglas panels in the cabin roof.
  5. Stall speed given in article is at full, 40 degrees, flaps. Clean stall is 55 mph.
  6. The Lycoming engine in the 152 has a TBO of, I think, 2000 hours. The 150's Continental is TBO 1800 hours. I respectfully disagree that this makes a big difference in operating cost.
  7. Aircraft manual publishes service ceiling as 12,650 feet.

68.102.38.24 04:39, 8 April 2006 (UTC) Pete Levy, Wichita, KS

[edit] Possible trivia

I actually looked this up after reading something about Michel Lotito. Would it be benificial to indicate that this plane has been eaten? :)--24.231.16.109 01:43, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Not unless he could fly afterwards. =] Trekphiler (talk) 16:40, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Actually this was in the article at one time (see [1]) but it was edited out. - Ahunt (talk) 17:23, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bullshit!

Come-on all you guys who know airplanes only by spotting them! Be realistic, for god's sake! I've flown this piece of shit (Designed to transport old ladys from point A to point B) since 1973 (Much to my disgust). NO 150 can ever be brought to cruise at 123 mph. 97-103 mph (Depending on haw bad it has been treated) is something of the REAL world 81.246.174.191 01:48, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

You are confusing TAS with IAS. The 150 has an optimal POH airspeed of 122 mph TAS at 6500 feet. Most will come close to that if you take them that high, even though the IAS at that altitude is considerably lower. Ahunt 02:02, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


At 2400 RPM running two legs in opposite directions perpendicular to the posted winds aloft at 3,000 MSL and measuring speed as time to two known points and averaging the result I've flown my C 150F at an average of 112 mph. If you dislike the C 150 so much, why have you flown them for 23 years?

This actually raises the valid question of whether we should differentiate between IAS and TAS on our cruise/max speed numbers; I don't have an answer. Also, 2006-1973=33 years! That's a long time to fly an airplane you think is a 'piece of shit'. ericg ✈ 23:54, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cessna T-51: Myth or reality?

I noticed that someone has removed the separate Cessna T-51 article and made that a redirect, and so I removed the reference to it as a "variant with a separate article" in the Infobox. The question which remains—related to the "US Military Service" section—is whether the T-51 designation is real, which is to say, official. The U. S. Air Force Academy's site's Fact Sheet on Airmanship (Fact Sheet) refers to Cessna T-41s as T-41s, mentioning separately that the academy operates "twelve Cessna 172s," but the Fact Sheet refers to the 150-horsepower 150s as "150-horsepower Cessna 150 aircraft."

That, though, is not the end. An article from the Academy Spirit, the school newspaper, refers to an individual as an "IP for the T-41 and T-51." (Academy Spirit Article) A schedule for the 2006 Parents' Weekend advertises the display of aircraft, including the "Blanik TG-10B, Blanik TG-10C advanced aerobatic glider, the Schempp-Hirth TG-15B, Discus 2b, T-41, T-51, and the DA-20." (Schedule)

Without more information, it looks as if "T-51" may be a kind of local designation or nickname. Does anyone have anything decisive and verifiable on this? It would be really nice to resolve this accurately in the article. —SkipperPilot 23:01, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

To make matters even more murky Global Security says "Wikipedia also claims that there is a Cessna T-51, but they fail to describe it and no one else has ever heard of such a thing." Ahunt 00:57, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
Of further interest the USAF website has fact sheets on all their current aircraft but none on a T-51. The only mention of a T-51 is found on http://www.af.mil/bios/bio_print.asp?bioID=6566&page=1 where it refers to it as a flight simulator. I do remember a civil Cessna 150 owned by a private individual many years ago being painted up in USAF T-41 style markings and labelled as a "T-51". It could be the source of a mythological aircraft. Ahunt 01:18, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
Found it. This should multiply the confusion greatly. A photo of the above mentioned civil aircraft, N3577J, in USAF style markings can be found at [2]. To make matters worse it says "T-50" on the nose of the plane, something the owner probably made up. This photo is on the Cessna 150-152 Club website Global Security has a whole bunch of information on the T-50, but it is a Korean superonic jet trainer and no relationship to the Cessna 150. Ahunt 11:10, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
Good work. Now that you bring up that picture, I think I've seen elsewhere pictures of either that "T-50" plane or another painted like it. It seems to be definitely just the owner's (or owners') affectation. Finding that information about the T-51 simulator, and no other information on a T-51 designation, is useful. More than ever I now think that the use of "T-51" for the Air Force Academy's 150's must be a sort of colloquialism. (And thus the problem, since we're short an official source on this apparently unofficial designation.) Any thoughts on how to reflect this in the article? —SkipperPilot 17:19, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your kind words, I enjoyed the sleuthing. That one "mock-USAF" C-150 has probably been photographed many times - I have seen its photo elsewhere in books and magazines. Affectation is probably a good term for it! Although I shouldn't talk as this is my own plane!! Perhaps "tribute" would be a more diplomatic word for it! Regardless we have a problem: from the sources on the T-51 you cite above it is possible that they all refer to the simulator including the parents' weekend tours and the IP - all could be simulator references. The cadets could refer to the C-150s at USAFA as "T-51s" after the simulators just to be ironic. So that leaves us with no citable source that the designation describes the academy Cessna 150s. I looked carefully through the USAF website to find the units that fly at the academy and there is no information there on their types operated. Given all that I think referring to the T-51 in the Wikipedia C-150 article is at best speculative. I vote that we cut all references to the designation until a source can be found. Naturally the USAFA's use of the Cessna 150s can remain as they do operate the aircraft, we just can't be sure that they are called T-51s. Perhaps a phone call to the academy would solve the mystery. Of course that would be "original research"!! Ahunt 22:51, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
I chose poorly in using the term "affectation"; you're right that "tribute" is more diplomatic. (And, regarding affectation, I'm not one to talk anyway, as I own a flightsuit and helmet!) Your assessment is right: We have no reliable source for the T-51 as anything but a simulator; certainly not as a 150. You're also right about the phone call; so tempting, but I guess we'll just have to wait until something definitive comes up on one of the websites. I'll make a tentative edit, subject (of course) to anyone's improvement. Very nice airplane, by the way. —SkipperPilot 16:46, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks - it is fun to fly and faster than a 150, which I used to own (1984-90). Your edit looks really good - I concur! Ahunt 21:41, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
If it's really just a faux trainer, this needs fixing. And so does this. Ah, the joys of editing... Trekphiler (talk) 16:37, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Trivia

I *Like* having a trvia section. Therefore I've removed the 'trivia' tag which suggests removing the trivia section. However, if everyone disagrees I'll back off. Kitplane01 —The preceding signed but undated comment was added at 07:14:04, August 2, 2007 (UTC).

I have to agree with Eric on this one. As outlined in the policy Wikipedia is not a place for for disordered lists of information. Trivia sections don't belong in an encyclopedia. The information in the section should be incorporated into the body of the article or if that doesn't fit, then deleted. I have reinstated Eric's tag.
To be honest this particular article has grown into a very disordered and bloated mess compared to many other aircraft articles (for an example of better ones see Grumman American AA-5 or Beechcraft Musketeer). It really needs a complete rewrite to pare it down and remove all the duplicate information.
Incidently I have moved this discussion to the bottom of the talk page from the top so comments can be added underneath. If you sign your name with four tildes then the page will record your name and the time of the entry. Ahunt 11:14, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
The tag doesn't suggest removing the trivia section, it encourages editors to merge it with the article and remove any items that aren't notable. ericg ✈ 13:32, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
Exactly! The trivia section information needs to be moved into other sections where it fits. Ahunt 15:28, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Rather than just complain how poorly this article reads I have re-worked it to remove text redundancies and unsourced statements, along with fixing some NPOV issues, US-centric pricing, clarity, grammar and spelling mistakes as well. I have re-worked the trivia section so that the information that was in it now appears in other more appropriate sections instead and also removed the "trivia tag" Ahunt 18:05, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Irrelevant Date Links

I have removed a number of links to dates that have nothing to do with the article content. This is explained in the Manual of Style which says "Wikipedia has articles on days of the year, years, decades, centuries and millennia. Link to one of these pages only if it is likely to deepen readers' understanding of a topic." Ahunt 17:58, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

This doesn't include full dates such as September 12, 1957, which allows individual date preferences to work. Also, if you find "year in Baseball" or "Year in Vegetables" links, those would be irrelevant. But I think a good case could be made that "year in Aviation" links are relevant to an aircraft article. Although I don't use those articles at all, many WP:AIR members spend alot of time working on the "Year in Aviation" articles, and they do find this new movement in Wikipedia to remove them a bad idea. Using them in full dates, where they interfere with preference formatting, is a separte issue. - BillCJ 18:50, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
You will notice that I left the Year in Aviation Links in, except where there was nothing on that Year in Aviation page that was relevant to the subject linked from. The same applies to the links to days and years - if it has nothing on the subject on those pages it only serves to take readers away from the subject that they are researching in into something irrelevant. The MOS is pretty clear: dates should not be linked to, unless are "likely to deepen readers' understanding of a topic". Links to days and years that have no mention of, in this case Cessna 150s, are just distractions and contribute nothing useful to the article. You will note I left in the September 12 link as there is one connected Cessna 150 item on that page, although to be fair there is more detail about it on the Cessna 150 page than on the September 12th page. Perhaps you can explain how a link to 1957, which has no mention of "Cessna" or "Cessna 150" on it at all meets the MOS standards that the link to this page "deepen(s) readers' understanding of a topic"? Ahunt 20:51, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
I think were both opperating under a few misunderstanding of what the other person is trying to say here. 1957 alone has nothing to do with Aviation - I'm not for keeping those, nor did I put any of those back in at any point. Howerver, the 1957 in aviation page does have ifo relevant to the Cessna 150, including aother aircfat whose first filghts were that year. I have no problem removing somw of the links to years that really have nothing to do wit the plane. But if we remove all the "year in aviation" links from all the aricraft articles, then soon those pages won't have anything linging too them, and someone will want to delete them for that reason.
"September 1957" should not be linked, as there is now real purpose for that, nor should we have "September 1957" or "September 1957", . However, there's nothing wrong with "September 1957 in aviation", which we write as "September 1957" - this looks just like "September 1957", but they link to different places.
As Months and days, linking "12 September" and "September 12" produces, respectively, "12 September" and "September 12". If a person has their date preferences set (works only for registered users), then both these links will look the same. This is in perfect accordance with the Manual of Style setion you linked to above. The first paragraph states: Full dates, and days and months, are normally autoformatted, by inserting double square-brackets, as for linking. This instructs the WikiMedia software to format the item according to the date preferences chosen by registered users. It works only for users who are registered, and for all others will be displayed as entered.
Anyway, I hope now you understand better where I'm coming from, and can use this as a basis for showing me where I'm misuderstanding you, assuming it's still relevant to the discussion. - BillCJ 21:35, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Makes sense to me! Thanks for your take on it. Ahunt 22:46, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] military history project

How, exactly, does this fall under the scope of military history? ericg ✈ 18:55, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Because it is used by the United States military as the T-51. MilborneOne 19:50, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
Please refer to the talk section called "Cessna T-51: Myth or reality?". The fact that the USAF uses a couple for training (whether as the T-51 or not) doesn't strike me as 'historical'. The Air Force also drives Suburbans. ericg ✈ 00:05, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
It does not have to be 'historical' to be part of the military history project events of today can still be part of a military history project, the fact that the USAF Academy uses three Cessna 150s and has designated them T-51As makes them military aircraft. I am not sure what the talk section you refer to but official references clearly show the allocation of T-51 to a Cessna aircraft. The official Air Education & Training Command website refers to the aircraft as the T-51A [3]. MilborneOne 11:39, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
It's two sections up on this page, so I'm not going to link it. As far as military history goes, there are 3 C-150s in use by the USAF, so the article qualifies for the 'military history' project, but somehow the hundreds of military de Havilland Chipmunks do not? I'm just saying that the priorities here seem completely screwed up. ericg ✈ 15:59, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
Apologies I didnt look further up the page, doesnt change my comment though. The Chipmunk is part of the miltary history project it just takes time to add the project to every related article. MilborneOne 18:29, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Meaning & visibility cloudy

The article says, "The only changes this model year were the propeller on the A150L Aerobat, to a new Clark Y". Now, unless thing have changed, the Clark Y isn't a prop foil design, so more than the prop has changed. Can somebody fix it? Trekphiler (talk) 16:31, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

COMPARISON OF FULL-SCALE PROPELLERS HAVING R.A.F.-6 AND CLARK Y AIRFOIL SECTIONS is the title of a 1931 report composed by NACA. I'd say it's legit. ericg ✈ 22:50, 18 April 2008 (UTC)