Thanks all, Patrick you hit the nail on the head.. The way I see it. Owning the 150-152 will be exactly what I want. And if I ever need to on occasion, I'll just rent the 172.
Here we have owned a 150 for almost eight years now. And maybe only once or twice in that entire time have we desired a back seat. When we were looking to upgrade from our 100HP 150, I naturally started eyeing the older, square tailed, 172's. But, numerous people pointed out that we would not be gaining any real significant performance going that route. The Lycoming equipped 172's definitely had a better reputation. But there was no way we could even think about affording one of them.
Now, I would have considered a 170B. I would have sacrified some performance for just the looks of a 170. What a sexy looking airplane!! Unfortunately, just too pricey!!
