Not your average Cessna 150. This 1959 C-150 has been converted to a taildragger using Cessna 140 parts. Join Mark as he talks about this plane and takes it around the patch.
Not a pilot nor will I ever be a pilot, but your videos are so informative and intriguing that I subscribed and look forward to watching many more of your videos.
Once upon a time, the tailwheel converted...."Restored" 150s and 172s were selling for cheap and then all of a sudden everyone wanted to be a bush pilot taildragger pilot and now these things are wild!
The Continental 0-200 hold six quarts of oil not four, and it develops 100 hp at 2750 rpm (at sea level anyway). I normally fill my oil tank to 5 quarts as it always blows out the sixth quart anyway. The sweetest thing about it is it only burns 4.5 gallon of gas at 2350 rpm cruise, 7,500 feet at 100 mph.
Sweet ! All of us that got our ticket back in the 80s here in Texas pretty much got it in a 150. Wasn’t many little pipers around. Always have a soft spot for a 150, and that’s a sharp looking little Taildragger
Thoroughly enjoy your videos -- most entertaining AND informative !! Having the gauges on the screen is a GREAT idea too -- A Beautiful airplane . Thanks Mark.
Thanks for adding the price at the end. It's a nice piece of information to help round out the education because the value over time is part of history as well. Please consider adding the price to all future videos.
I've always wanted a C-150 taildragger. When I was a kid of 5 back in 1970 I had a toy that was a tricked-out C-150 (with a red and black checker color scheme) that 'flew' in a circle on the end of a rod that was connected to a motor/controller/hand hold. It was kind of like the helicopter toy that used to be around except this one you held in your hand. I don't know if I'm explaining it correctly, but that plane was just the start of my love for taildragging C-150's and C-185's too! Thanks for the great video! I wish I had $45k sitting around. I'd love to own that beauty.
@@skywagonuniversity5023 Yes, I remember control line planes. And I remember the crashes. I had a really nice Stuka that I had saved up all my money to get and on the first flight the elevator got stuck and I watched the most beautiful loop until it wasn't. The 'toy' I'm talking about is a different thing. It was basically a handgrip that contained batteries, with a rod at the top connected by a pinion so it could revolve around the top of the grip. At the other end of the rod was a C-150 that had a small DC motor powering the propeller, and the plane would then 'fly' around the circumference of the rod. It was a simple thing, and I wish I could find a picture for lack of description. I also had a Boeing 727 'model' that had a 4' long fuselage and corresponding wing dimensions. It had motorized landing gear that also retracted, opening doors and rear airstair, and audible engine sounds. My dad was in the USAF and always came home with some really cool toys. I'm not always sure if they were for me, or him! LoL!
Wow! What a beauty! My dad developed the Texas Taildragger STCs, along with 150 & 180 hp conversion kits & long-range tanks for 150/152/172s. His last plane, which he restored, was a 1959 150 with Texas Taildragger & 150 hp on the nose. This airplane was gorgeous & he got a special reg # N59150 for "1959 150." It was emotionally difficult to sell this plane after he died, but was necessary. I dream of buying it back someday & fly it, and very well may try.
@@skywagonuniversity5023 I will in all likelihood find it and make an offer, but need to wait a year or so. Geographical & career situations are fluctuating & it's not a good time to buy a plane. Your 150 is _awesome_ and I'll likely be repeating my viewing of your wonderful video many times the next few months.
I flew a C150 Texas Taildragger with the 150hp conversion. That STC also removed the spin restriction. It made questionable off-airport operations easy. I even flew it from Atlanta to Oshkosh and back in the early 90s. Useful machine with those STCs. Your dad did great.
@@SR-et8zx Thank you so much! Yes, increased utility was one of the main benefits. We sold many kits to Alaska pilots. That was one of the greatest times of dad's life, going through years of development & testing to earn a few STCs. These little Cessnas always were praised when we'd fly to airshows & set up a table & try to sell kits. They did well for a short time, but ultimately performance mods for little Cessnas didn't sell well. Normal 150/172 owners are often flying on a budget in the first place.
That's a very pretty aeroplane - thanks for sharing. My dad's first aeroplane was a 150B but with tricycle undercart (although he's a taildragger man). I collected it with an ex RAF pilot, on a bright cold day, in, iirc, 1981, from Kiddlington and we took it to its new base at Thruxton and then lent on a heavy duty drill into WWII concrete (and flint) to fix some tie down loops (it took hours). Happier times💜👍✌️ Dad said that when they tried spinning it with full tanks for training, it wouldn't spin, the tanks had to have less fuel and biased🤔🤔
I used to live near Kidlington. Thruxton has it's runway inside the racetrack doesn't it. landed there years ago in a Seneca on Christmas even loaded with ice. I was not the pilot.
@@skywagonuniversity5023 Kidlington isn't a million miles away from me now. Yes Thruxton has the race circuit on the outside, in the early 1980s it was in decline, although there was lots of other activity on the site. I've driven the race circuit in a Morris Marina van, aged 14 ✌️😄 The circuit is used a lot more again now. To get to Thruxton from any local airfields used to take one through several MATZ at about 1000'. Thruxton had some great Christmas parties there too, back in the day, iirc. I have to say that your part of the world looks stunning - not sure if I could cope with the extremes of temperature though (being a Brit). Fun airfield you have - stunning✌️😊👍
My instructor once turned both mags off on final. He asked don't you notice anything? Yeah, you turned the mags off. So what are you going to do about it? I said I figured you wanted them off for some reason so I was waiting for you to turn them back on. He said they're going to read about you some day in the newspaper, under obituary. Well I'm still here and I'm pretty sure he's probably gone. That was 50 some years ago and it seemed to me he was 1000 years old at that time.
Thank you for all the work you and your team put into these very entertaining and educational videos, When friends ask me about the different aircraft they have encountered, I refer them to your web site, what a Treasure of information you are sharing.
That looks like a really sweet airplane. Anyone who has any time in an Ercoupe 415C like I own would be instantly at home in that plane. The panel and its operation is pretty similar, except the trim control and of course the Ercoupe has no flaps and no rudder pedals. The engine, fuel burn and range is almost identical. I think that Fred Weike designed the trike gear into his Ercoupe before any other designer did. I have heard that the introduction of the C-150 was a very strong competitor for the Erco Company. I know that Fred went on to design the Cherokee models of Piper, so he may have doomed the Ercoupe when he did.
Very enjoyable video! I had many flight hours in 150's, even the straight tail ones, but no tail wheel 150's. This looks to be a good one to enjoy tail wheel time in!
David just finished a '64 for my buddy last november. David Lowe is the king of those conversions in my opinion. We're local to David so we get to see a lot of his work.
I've got a ton of hours in a 150. That wing is pretty good. There is a guy who has made a couple of experimental Supercubs using 150 wings and apparently they are phenomenal performers. I think it's called Dakota Cub.
Good little vid :), I have a C-140 with fabric wings and a Cont. O-200, great little economical bird especially burning 3 to 1mix of mogas. The oil sump is a 6 qt.'r, you got the fuel burn exactly right at 6 gal. hr. I figure 2hrs per wing until prop stops.
Looks like my 185 had a puppy. I like it. One of the airplanes I learned to fly was a straight tail 150. There is a connection here. A LyCon, hot rodded O-200 with 115 HP would he a hoot. Wish I had room in the hangar.
I would love a video comparing the 150 to the 152 and the 172. You do these kinds of things so well. It's also good to know how they compare in terms of ownership such as availability of parts and mechanics to do the work. I don't know if there is a point at which the newer mechanics are not so familiar with the older planes and so it becomes less desirable to own an older one.
Actually it looks like a Cessna 140 lol. Flew for a FBO out of Nacogdoches Tx in the mid 60s who had a contract with the Texas Forestry Service to have 2 Cessna 140s on call for fire patrol 7/days/wk from October to April. Built a lot of time in those old birds. They were and are really great little planes. My CFI told me one time, "if you can fly a 140, you can fly anything". I think he was right.
Electric flaps were not an improvement due to 1) taking more time to deploy and 2) difficult to perform annual maintenance removing, cleaning, inspecting, greasing and reinstalling the jack screw inside the wing. 🤠
The instrument overlay shows redline at 120 kts or 138 mph. Compare to swept tail 150s at 162 mph. Was the straight tail redlined that much slower or does it have something to do with the conversion? Beautiful airplane!
Hi Colin! The overlay is a representation only. It uses the GPS data from a GoPro and isn't 100% accurate. I didn't have a good shot of the airspeed indicator to create the dial, so I was guesstimating the numbers for the overlay. No intent to mislead ... it just isn't accurate to begin with. - Don the Camera Guy
Do you have to get a recalibrated oil dipstick when you get a tail dragger conversion on a 150? If not, how can you get an accurate measure with the engine slanted back in the new configuration?
Good question because on a 180 or 185 there is a "back" and "front" to a dipstick. Floatplane (on floats the plane is level) on the back between the two "X's" and quarts for wheels on the front. The 150 has a roundish oval sump that is lateral across the underside of the engine so the oil is hardly in a different place when nose-wheel or tail-wheel.
I have a question, the fabric wings don’t have the faller flap, the faller flaps brings down the vref, OK, BUT aluminum wings are way heavier and heavier planes have higher vref, doesn’t it make the vref from both reasonably equal?
Hi Mark, Interesting comment about fuel caps. Right tank vented and the left one not vented. I believe that's how they come from the factory. I fly 2 different tri-gear 150's, one with the factory setup (left cap unvented) and one with 2 vented caps. The 150 with the two vented caps will almost drain the left tank dry before pulling fuel from the right tank. It's so bad that I keep my flights short so I don't completely drain the left talk. Do you have any personal experience with 2 vented caps causing this issue? Any resource online that you know of ? Thanks.
I'm no mechanic but I've seen and heard that only one of the caps should be vented. I'd call the Cessna pilot's Association and speak to a guru about it.
A little off topic question. I was an airport kid in the early 70's (washing planes and working around the strip) and one day an old guy took me for a little XC trip. A low wing plane, we were climbing out and he told me to take the yoke (!) as he reached between the seats and started cranking up the landing gear manually. Any idea what that plane might have been?
Thanks guys! It was at LEAST 50 years ago, and I was just a kid. But I do remember standard yokes, not sticks, and a crank for the landing gear not a lever. Looking at the old Bellancas the '47 Cruiseair might be it. I found a couple descriptions mentioning the gear crank.
It may have been a sud gardan horizin, gy80. I owned one for a while, 19 turns to the left wound the gear up, 19 to the right put them down. Gear was connected to the flaps. Look up VH YOG, that was mine.
Im interested in your comments around vented fuel caps, ive got an R172K that has two vented fuel caps, I have issues with the fuel system not venting very well. Any ideas?
"their impetuous 10 year old daughter", ha! those early rear side windows are beautiful. I like the trim wheel location too. is the early engine the C90? I thought 150s were all O200s.
Another great video, Mark! Hey, am I committing a faux pas by making a request? I know that your videos focus on your current inventory and when folks offer to have you show off their birds, but do you have anyone willing to show off a canard aircraft? Ever get any of those in your inventory? Thanks in advance. My wife and I love your dry sense of humor. She doesn't even like planes and she often asks what you've got out lately!
I always thought this was an airplane Cessna should have produced. I never knew that some of the. O 200s we’re less than 100 hp. Is that just an RPM thing as on follow up 172s?
