Used Aircraft Guide: Cessna 150/152

On the cover of Aviation Consumer’s July 2010 issue is one of the most forlorn photos we’ve ever published: The nosegear of an LSA sitting in the middle of a lonely runway, having dropped out of the airplane after takeoff rotation. Although we didn’t intend it that way, the photo ended up as a testament to another airplane entirely, the Cessna 150. The reason? Venerable old 150s are still flying side-by-side on the rental line with new-age light sport designs and the older airplanes, despite decades of abuse, still hold up better than some of the newer designs and often require less maintenance. The harsh lesson here is that despite advances in materials and computer-aided design, the 1950s engineers who designed the 150 knew their way around structure and half a century later, what they built still remains serviceable for the foreseeable future. The airplane that trained thousands of pilots endures.