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AOPA is "retiring" their ambassador fleet.

I do like that Skyhawk they're advertising! Pretty nice! Expensive, but nice.

I wonder what's driving them to liquidate the fleet.

Maybe we'll see one of them show up in Clinton this year.

It doesn't appear that the two seaters were flown much over the past five years based on the times since major overhaul.

I'm strangely drawn to those airplanes for some reason? The thousands of hours are concerning, but Aviat definatly knows what their doing. I'm kind of new to the club. Anybody here have one?

Thanks for the pdf, Cary.

I was not aware AOPA was doing that. Like Goeff, I really like the C-172. It is expensive, but look what you would be getting. About as good as a brand new one from Cessna at about half the price.

As far as the wonderful color, Uncle Eddie, where I fly there are quite a few ag planes. The yellow color shows up really well compared to white.

Like Jim, I am very curious about the reason for the clearance of these airplanes which are their "ambassador aircraft." AOPA had originally partnered with Aviat to extensively refurbish the Cessnas and offer them to flight schools and clubs. Not sure how many they produced.

I am a little surprised that the selection criteria did not include lower airframe times, and that they chose not to put glass and an autopilot in for the prices they were asking. More details:

Reimagined Cessna [aopa.org]

When compared to these aircraft, Jim's Cessna would offer a great deal more value.

A copy and paste from the Aviat website:

152 ReImagined Cessna for Sale, refurbished, overhauled, new paint jobs and interiors by Aviat Aircraft and are made available at a base price of $164,640.


I don't know how old this quote is or if it's still even good or the 164,640.00 they list is still valid.

Knowing first hand what it costs for a shade tree mechanic to restore a 150/152, I could never connect the dots on their 100,000.00 selling price when they first started this program.

Down deep, I thought that someone had to be subsidizing this program in order for it to work at the 100K price point.


Not my business so it is what it is and I guess we'll never know what all was involved.



Oh,and thanks for the compliment, Cary but I've always said that there is a broad number of very nice 150/152's in the club that would blow these ReImagined planes into the weeds and there's no question that the AOPA planes are very nice examples of what can be done.

You look at planes like Woodstock, Snoopy, Songbird, Wilbur, Ashley's 152 (just to name a few for the sake of brevity) along with a host of others, AOPA might have made a mistake not coming here first to sample what our world in this type club is like. I sense we know these planes better than almost anybody else?

I think where these airplanes shine is what Yingling and Aviat did to restore them. Hours matter not when you look at what was done to these airplanes. I remember reading about it in AOPA and talking to one of the Aviat guys at Sun N Fun years ago. He said they could not restore them for that kind of money, it cost them WELL NORTH of what they were asking for them. Pretty much new EVERYTHING and a complete teardown inspection. With the low hours since they were restored, these birds are in nearly like new condition and with newer coatings, materials etc, will be probably better than the originals.

Perhaps, but 14,000 hours TTAF in an ostensibly abusive environment implies a wear level beyond what the best of shops may be able to detect or feasibly address. Substructures, load-bearing components,skins, rivets, etc...who knows what lurks deep in the airframe. New is new. Refurbished is well....not.

Having owned flight schools and knowing the narrow margins and intense competition, I could never make a business case for these based on the acquisition cost. No doubt they're nice, but back when these were launched, for the price of a "reimagined" airplane you could assemble a small fleet of very clean comparables and offer them at a much more competitive price. In that end of the training market, the price elasticity of demand cannot support much of a premium on a "super spiffy" airplane. A club, well that may be a different story.

Interestingly one of the reimagined birds did suffer a premature engine failure a few years back.

C150 Engine Failure [aopa.org]


Cary