The International Cessna^® 170 Association

Traci and I think about this all the time:
We were born a LONG, LONG, time after the C170's, so our perspective's might be a bit different.

To us, these planes are modern technology. That might be influenced by living in Alaska with mostly tail draggers. But when we fly our 170, we think of ourselves as the happening people. Jet Setters! Our non-pilot friends are impressed as well. If you compare a 1955 car to the 2002 models, they're nothing alike. But the 2002 - 172 looks close to the same as way back. I'm always asking her, Can you imagine what it would be like flying in our 55 170, in 1955? What it was like back in the 50's when all these Brand New Cessna's were flying around? And they really were modern technology. Those pilot's must have really felt special. I guess the Cessna 170 was THE Plane in 55 with no competition? I feel so fortunate to have discovered recreational aviation and be able to fly 100 mph and I hope that I never lose that fascination.
But I sure would like to peer into a time window and see what aviation was like, when all these Brand New Cessna's were the rage!
That sure must've been a wonderful time in History!
N4387B

Well, for one thing, red-orange or orange 80/87 Octane Avgas was .34 cents per gallon. ( clear 71/76 was .26 if you could get it, blue 91/96 was .38 cents, green 100/130 was .42 and purple 115/145 Octane was an outrageous .45 cents!)

Dave wrote: Traci and I think about this all the time:
We were born a LONG, LONG, time after the C170's, so our perspective's might be a bit different

OLE GAR writes: Boy talk about making a guy feel old! In 1956 I was in High School in Overland Park,KS ("57 Grad). Auto gas was $.19 during gas wars. There was a burger joint called Smaks that sold cheesburgers for two bits each! I could get really stuffed for a dollar!

"Oh the Class of Fifty Seven Had it's Dreams". We went down to Wichita in November of 1956 to see the "New Cessna 172". A friend of mine's father worked there and we got to see the assembly line. I decided that I would be involved with airplanes some way or another, that day. It was really so neat to see the newer designed 172 and it's modern look but when I saw some 170s outside waiting to be delivered I thought "Why would they change something that looked so good".

I rec'd an email from BlueLdr who caught my error on fuel colors. (I actually had it correct the first time, but then suffered a "senior moment" and convinced myself that my memory had it wrong, edited it until I got it wrong, and then posted it. I had gotten 91/96 and 115/145 colors reversed. I've now edited my edited version so that it's now correct.)
Dick also pointed out a fuel I've never heard of: He wrote to me that he'd also used: "112/132 oct. (Limited availability in '45/'46) Orange".
Now that one is new to me.
So I went back to my personal library and looked it up. According to "Aircraft Maintenance and Repair" by Ralph McKinley (c) 1949, Grade 80/87 was colored orange or red.
I confess tho', I've never heard of, nor can I find any reference to a "112/132" octane aviation fuel. Does anyone have any info on this?

I've always liked Paul harvey's saying, "The good old days that never were." This adds a little reality to our perspective of history, and memories of by-gone days.
Yes, things were less expensive in the '50s, but look where incomes were. When I carried groceries at the local supermarket in 1961, I earned $1.40 per hour. Dual in a Champ was $14 per hour, plane and CFI. That was 10 hours gross wages for 1 hour to fly.
Today, kids in my town get $8.50 an hour to start for the same work. You can get a C-150 and CFI for less than $85 an our. So it's cheaper today than it was then.
Same for airplanes. Even at what seems to be a horrendous price for a new 172, look what you get - tens of thousands of dollars worth of avionics, comfortable seats, more other options as standard equipment than were even thought of in 1956, and reasonable speed. Go back, if you can imagine it, and equip a 1956 airplane the same way, which of course you can't, then take constant dollars, and you'll see that the airplane is less today than back then.
The more things change, the more than may stay the same.