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The corrosion Pic's were posted on 1/7/16.

View them HERE.

Living in the desert, I don't see corrosion on a day to day basis. I bought a 310 a few months ago from a reputable salvage dealer. When I went to inspect it a month ago, I found the corrosion so bad that I could poke holes in the valve covers (the paint on the valve covers was hanging in space with no material behind it). The back sides of the props (which is what I really wanted from the airplane) were riddled with cancer. It had been parked outside, a few hundred feet from the ocean, for the last five years. I ask for and got my money back, as that airplane was completely dead with corrosion.

Barney & Ronald...Thanks for the help! I found the corrosion photos!

By golly they look scary! This seems way more important than if your engine is low time or not....as if your engine quits you got a glider and I used to fly gliders....but if your wing or tail fails because of corrosion that could give you a bad hair day!

Thanks a lot for the pictures everyone! It helps a lot! I have never seen corrosion on a 150 before and these were eye opening.

I've seen corrosion on WWII warbirds before but not a 150...a good friend of mine has a WWII Navy PV-2 Harpoon and was talking about the desert soil here in Arizona is very kind to aircraft ...but he said that some parts of the desert in southern California will destroy an aircraft parked over it.

Can you tell by the logs where the aircraft has been stored....the scary thing is finding a 150 in the AZ desert which should have minimal corrosion but then finding it had spent a lot of time near the ocean...

Bill,

You have to be a detective and hire a good A&P.

Logs may show where the aircraft was serviced and that can give clues to where it lived. The registration records available from the FAA can give clues to where the aircraft has been. Etc. But the logs won't state, "This C-150 slept here!"

Condition is condition. Good maintence, great hangar, anti corrosion measures, etc and a coastal aircraft may be in great shape. One that's been mistreated in a "dry" environment can be a wreck. Someone knowledgeable just has to get hands and eyes on the beast.

For an example of experience combined with the log book... During my annual, my sharp IA noticed the struts had been recently removed. That raised his eyebrows. I recalled the logs showed new appropriate Stene one piece strut cuffs had been installed by the previous owner. He lowered his eyebrows just a bit. I'm getting pretty good at navigating logbooks, but I never would have noticed the struts.

BTW, I've a few hours in 3435J!

Tim

Hey again everyone! Thanks for all the help and info!

Tim hey that's cool you spent some time with 3435J! Her appearances are very appealing....ok she looks like a desert rat BUT she flies great and I love flying her!

I think 40+ years ago most of the 150s I trained with were swept tail (not sure what its called....the later swept back style) but I know on occasion back then either flying a square tail 150 or 172 that had manual flaps and those I loved.....

I notice most 150Es (although not all)have the heavy duty nose gear....I never had any problems with the conventional one...but were they having problems with nose gear failures on models before this?

Anyway thanks for the help!

The Heavy-Duty Gear was an option on the straight-tail 150s. It was not a fix to a problem, and the old gear was plenty strong.

Straight-tail 150s had 5.00x5 Nose and Main tires. The "Heavy Duty Gear" option increased the tires to 6.00x6. The larger diameter made for easier rolling over 'soft' ground, such as grass or dirt strips.

Later 150s had 6.00x6 Mains and 5.00x5 Nose tires as the stock size. Since the Mains carry the majority of the weight, it made sense to increase their diameter and leave the nose wheel alone.

That being said, I took my 150D with stock 5.00x5 tires into grass strips (some *really* short) without a problem. If the strip is well-maintained, the smaller tires do just fine.

Kirk, thanks for this in depth explanation! Sorry took so long to respond to this, but I do appreciate it as I was always wondering about that.

I learned to fly 150s at Clark Air Base Philippines in 1974. Our USAF aero club had about 5-6 150s, a couple of 172s and a Commanche. We had a dirt strip that paralleled the main runway. One of the neatest takeoffs was as I was climbing out on takeoff a KC-135 took off right beside me and flew "in formation" for a few seconds.

I do know what you mean about grass runways. There was one civilian airport there where the grass was incredibly high...I was glad I was with an instructor as it was scary how much power you had to apply just to move....my instructor said it was ok though...the scary thing is the grass was so high if there was a rock or piece of wood several inches high, you would never see it.

But the dirt strip back at Clark was fine.

Thanks again!