The International Cessna 170 Association

That's great news. When do you bring it home and where will you keep it?

Dick Bryant
1954 170B
N2704C

Hi Dick, it's here and is based in Mansfield. We tried to fly over to Cranland yesterday, but the clouds were too low. Maybe next month...

counsellj wrote:
Bill, get off your computer and go fly!

LOL! Yes sir!

I have been up twice in the last few days practicing Short Field

Wow, you bought David's airplane? Lucky you. It's a gem.

I've been learning all the nooks and crannies these past few weeks. She's been enjoying the spotlight at her new home, but today she got upstaged by something a bit more . . . buoyant.

Christine, I really like your interior! Nice looking and functional too with all those pockets in the side panel and the door. And the seat looks comfy too!

Aryana wrote:David did a good job on the custom seats and side panels.

He sure did!

Made my very first airplane 'repair' tonight. Pulled all 7 light bubs from the instrument panel and sharpie'd them red. Night flying just got a lot more fun!

That looks like it worked very well. My '52 no longer has the 7 lights. Someone converted the lighting to the later center overhead panel that has two Grimes torpedo lights. They don't illuminate much of anything. I'm going to convert them to better illuminating LED's using George Horn's mod when I get a chance.

You picked up a nice plane. Great job. (And thanks to David for keeping it so nice.)

Gene

Wow, I would say from your picture, that those 7 lights are working exceptionally and perhaps unusually well. Didn't happen to take note of the type of bulb installed did you?

Looks great, Christine!

True to form, when I made a new shock panel for my airplane back in January, I took the hard way out.

I replaced all (7) light sockets, wiring, and bulbs with new OEM items. I wanted red bulbs, so I got some high-temp engine paint masked the bases of the bulbs off, and then painted them. I'm sad to say the state of the panel beforehand, but I'm happy with the result now. I even wired the compass light in; so now night flying is much easier than it has ever been. I did my night 100NM cross country for my commercial a few months ago, and fly at night 1-2 hours per month. The next "upgrade" will be to replace the landing lights with Whelen Prometheus LEDs to pull down the amp draw. The landing light quadruples the draw of all the other lights combined!

Anyway, here is my panel at night...I still need to put the felt on the backside of the panel so I don't have light bleeding through the top of the shock panel. I have a few extra bulbs, but I think I ended up with GE 1816s. I will check when I get home, even though the airplane is 100 feet away from me.

Bruce, they are 1816's and I think I'm supposed to have 1826's.

I already have the 1826's on order to see if that helps, and I will be reading up on rheostats this weekend. At the moment it goes full on or full off but no dimming in between. The white was much too bright, so most of the time I'm flying with a red headlamp instead of the panel lights.

Ryan,
Great picture especially when opened up a little, the panel lights, city lights and city lights reflection in the cowl so cool. It would be a good photo for a calendar.

rusbac wrote:Bruce, they are 1816's and I think I'm supposed to have 1826's.

I already have the 1826's on order to see if that helps, and I will be reading up on rheostats this weekend. At the moment it goes full on or full off but no dimming in between. The white was much too bright, so most of the time I'm flying with a red headlamp instead of the panel lights.

You could probably take the rheostat apart and clean the contacts.

Good idea - Added to my list of things to do this weekend. Every time I look under there I learn something new!

bagarre wrote: You could probably take the rheostat apart and clean the contacts.