How Many GA Hours in 2016?

[Ryan Smith]

Good evening, all!

One of my other frequent haunts is a site called BeechTalk. I've seen a few familiar faces over there like Willie Langholz and Del Lehman, and it's a fantastic site, in my humble opinion. Lots of "professional amateur" aviators from all walks of life that are either professional pilots in their vocation, or simply career professionals that have integrated GA into their lives as a hobby and source of travel for business and/or personal. The intent is not to advertise another forum, but to set the tone for my muse for this post.

A favorite topic by a gentleman in Abilene, TX is to poll the membership on their number of GA hours flown in a given year at the conclusion of each calendar year. Given that the 170 Association shares many similar metrics to the BeechTalk crowd in terms of pilot types and backgrounds, I thought it would be fun to see what 170 owners are doing annually. Is the fleet sitting dormant, or is it being used? Are our pilots flying other types and simply reserving the 170s for light duty, or is the airplane the main travel machine for a given family, meaning that someone doesn't have a Baron for longer-distance flights and a 170 for Saturday pancakes and Sunday hamburgers.

If your numbers are somewhat skewed by a large trip or otherwise, it would be interesting to note. For me:

I set a personal record this year - as of today (28 December), I have logged 276.5 hours since January 1
Around 140 of those were in 170s and 130 or so being in N2256D, which flew just over 160 hours this year herself
Most of the flights in 56D were within 120NM of my home field, with (2) outliers
Indianapolis for my Commercial solo long cross country in September
Latrobe, PA to ruin the Northeast Comanche Tribe monthly luncheon in October.
Roughly 25 hours were at night in 56D with around 20 landings and takeoffs

The rest of my time in 56D was spent exploring the local airports or shuttling Zenda Liess (owner and designated examiner) to checkrides in the central part of the state. The balance of the time 56D flew without me was a mixture of Zenda flying herself to give checkrides or keeping currency, a couple of sightseeing rides, (3) tailwheel transition students, or for pleasure by the instructor that does the tailwheel transition training.

Planning for 2017, I am hoping that my wife and I can take 56D down to Shreveport, LA in May for my cousin's wedding, and Oshkosh in July. My time in the airplane will likely be down, but my total time way up. I'll be starting as a CFI in February, and I'm shooting for about 100 hours/month dual given. My flight school is located about 100 miles from my home, so I'll likely be there from Wednesday morning through Sunday evening. Unless I hit the lottery or receive some unexpected financial windfall and buy the airplane, I'll be commuting to work via Volkswagen Passat instead of Cessna 170B. I still plan to fly the airplane on my days off, and my boss has expressed interest in my doing some tailwheel instruction in the airplane since I'm the only tailwheel CFI down at that airport, but I still see 2017 as being lighter than this year in terms of hours logged in 56D.

What say you? I don't see the option to create a poll here, so it looks like everyone that wants to respond will actually have to reply. I don't think that's a bad thing - dialogue is good.

[counsellj]

I flew 156 hours in my -170 this year. This is well below average for me over the 8 years I have owned her, but slightly above average since I moved back to Washington State. We don't have 12 good months of flying wx out here and most of my flights are very short duration playing at local spots. Plus we have lots of other really cool things to do out here.

I flew two longer trips this year. The first was to Oshkosh, accounting for about 25 hours and the second was to the High Sierra Fly In which was about 20 hours.

Jughead

[daedaluscan]

I flew 155 hours, from March 1 to Dec 1. Wish it could have been more. I also built a hangar which I love.

[Bruce Fenstermacher]

This year celebrates 30 years as a rated helicopter pilot. About 27 years as a rated fixed wing pilot and aircraft owner. I've been flying helicopters in a civilian job for 17 years. Three quarters of my estimated 7500 hours has been flown with 1 hours time of my house. Most time spent in cruise flight I've always found boring and if it where not for Association conventions I'd probably not have ventured outside of that 1 hour circle many times. My current 170 partner did not have a medical for the first 3 months of the year and our engine was removed for rebuild late October.

This year N7A got flown about 25 hours, most by me and 1/3rd of that time to convention in Indiana and back. My Cub has been in the air about 15 hours. Of course I've flown about 150 hours in helicopters an another 15 or so as a CFI doing flight reviews and tailwheel/170 transitions and maybe 10-15 hours riding as passenger to breakfast with friends.

Quite frankly, I've flown enough and really don't have the passion to fly any more. I think this natural as a pilot gets on in his life. Not that as I turn 60 next month, I'm particularly old. It becomes more the ability to be able to fly when you want. Actually going flying becomes much less important.

Ryan, I think you will find while flying 100 hours a month as a CFI, you will have little desire to climb in the 170. I predict in fact, so long as you work flying, that you will never again fly as much for personal pleasure in a year as you did last year. You are the young bull ready to run down the hill to meet all the cows. You have just started on your path to becoming a mature bull, who realizes walking down the hill to meet the cows and sometimes just standing off to the side is much more advantageous.

[counsellj]

Ryan, I think you will find while flying 100 hours a month as a CFI, you will have little desire to climb in the 170.

I personally found the opposite to be true for me. When I was instructing In the T-38, the last few years of my USAF career, I would often climb out of the jet after 2 or 3 sorties in the hot Texas sun and on the way home, jump in the C-170 to do some fun flying, before going home. The hours spent instructing don't necessarily fill one's personal needs to fly.

.02

Jughead

[Pdogace]

Just did the math and we flew Sweet Caroline 46 hours in 2016. Almost all that time was loaded up with me, the wife, and 2 boys and going to visit friends and family. We use our 170 as the family hauler. My parents live 510nm away in NC, so we did two trips there, and a trip to ATL. Also flew out to Marathon in the key's, and several trips to my friends fly in house in Ocala FL. With two boys, 3 1/2 and 2, I don't really have time to do a lot of local flying. I plan trips to go on adventures for the whole family. We plan on heading out to the Bahamas in 2017. I might give you guys a full report after we do it. My real job I flew about 850 hours but who cares it's all about the fun flying. Hope everyone has a great new year.

[fishdoc]

Since picking up my new to me 170B in Anchorage in July I've put 100 hours on her - airplane camping, gravel bar hopping, pumpkin bombing and flying all over the pacific northwest. And I'm only home 2 weeks per month to fly her.
What a pleasure this airplane is to fly with the O360, constant speed 3 blade MT and all the other user friendly mods.
I also managed to put about 50 hours on my stock A model From January till July before selling her to buy the B.
It's been a good year of flying!

[c170b53]

Can you tell us more on the MT in another thread?

[Ryan Smith]

Only six 170 owners flew in 2016?

It's worse than I thought!

[cessna170bdriver]

No time in the left seat of a Cessna 170 this calendar year (for reasons most of you know), but in June I did renew my expired medical certificate and BFR. Since then I've managed to put about 22 hours on a very generous friend's RV-6A and about 8 hours on another friend's Cessna 140 (in exchange for my providing hangar space) to keep the tailwheel skill less dull than it would be otherwise.

[DaveF]

I'm not sure how many hours because I'm way behind in my logbook. I'd guess about 30 hours, but also another 50 flying right seat with my son. My big accomplishment was restoring my instrument currency, which came in handy on our trip to and from OSH. We also made a couple of trips up to Leadville, plus a bunch of local flying to grass and dirt runways.

[KG]

56.3 hours in the 170 this year. Less than I had been flying it the last few years. Limited mostly by difficulty getting time off work. I'm optimistic about more 170 flying in 2017!

[ghostflyer]

I have done 110.6 hrs in the 170A for 2016 . But most of my trips are very long legs and a average of 3.1 hours between landings . However a small amount of hours has been in a variety of other aircraft due to work . On one trip in the 170A ,it was 10 hours in one day and then return over 2 days . So it isn't that hard to count the hours up. I am hoping to do a trip out to Lake Eyre again and that's a 12 hour flight [weather included] .Thats out and back so a total of 24 hours and not including local flying . Lake Eyre is nearly in the middle of Australia and normally a salt lake of a very large size but due to massive rains in northern Australia its starting to fill up with a massive amount of wild life just appearing out of nowhere . The scenery is mind blowing.

[LToxvard]

I have put 35 hours on the 170B since we purchased her the first part of June, the first five hours were dual instruction, as my insurance company wanted 15 landings and two hours, and it is hard to get 15 landings in two hours and cover all the other things I wanted to cover in the airplane. That being said the first five hours were dual, and money well spent. I have yet to fly a long cross country, due to bad weather cancellations, but will be soon. I spent about eight hours flying at night, two of those taking friends up New Year's Eve to look at Christmas lights. Before we purchased the 170 I flew about ten hours in mostly rental Citabria's in 2016. I also logged around twenty hours in our hot air balloon, down about ten hours from normal years, due to, again bad weather cancellations. I am loving the 170, and feel as comfortable flying her, or even more so than any other airplane at this point.

[edbooth]

About 75 hours in these two, 55 in the RV-7 and 20 in the 170. Nothing like the 70.5 hours put on the 170 in three weeks during the Fairbanks convention. it seems like I fly less now with the planes in the back yard than I did when I had to drive to the airport. I guess just knowing I can go anytime I want makes the difference.