This was the first aircraft I owned, this was a big jump for me to go from flying on occasion to owning a plane. The big thing was where to keep it, the ongoing maint. was all new to me as well. Yes changing the oil, understanding the mechanical stuff and the like was not a big dealing being that I am somewhat mechanically inclined. I mean it was a big deal in that I had only read about all the required stuff in my research.

I bought N555SM (Triple Five Sierra Mike, really cool tail number) a 1973 Cessna 172M in September 2005 in Nampa Idaho (S67) which is 16 miles west of Boise (BOI). I flew it home to Grove Field (1W1) which is a short 10 minute drive from both my house and office. I had initially rented a tie-down at Grove and was on the waiting list for hangars at Grove, Pearson (KVUO) and Troutdale (TTD). Initially I thought I wanted one at Pearson as I had been renting there from Aero Maint. for quite sometime.

Upon arriving home after putting 3.3 hours on the hobbs meter I fueled up and had my first experience with aircraft maintenence. Turns out my battery was dead, they had seen some battery corrosion in the inspection before I bought it. I should have had them change the battery but did not think much of it as it was only a couple years old at the time. I was able to get a battery and replace it myself fairly easily and away I went flying my new aircraft.

I got a hangar after about a week, if that long and got the aircraft inside. I was not very happy the first time it rained, I had water starting to leak inside the left door of all places during our first good rain of the fall. I was lucky and found that Grove had just built new hangars. Everyone was shifting to the new hangars which left one of the older hangars empty.

I flew it quite a bit for the first few months while working on my Instrument Rating. I had some intersting experiences and expect that this will continue as I still am actively flying. I have been fortunate and have nothing major go wrong (knock on wood).

N555SM proved to be a solid aircraft, during the time I had it I did a few optional things to it. I replaced the intercom with a four place intercom. While a 172 is not a real four place aircraft I found myself frequently taking my younger kids or a third adult with me flying. Meaning that I needed a another headset so we could all talk or they would be sitting back in the rear seat screaming at us over the engine noise. I also added a Garmin GPS-150XL moving map GPS. As far as GPS's go this was pretty basic. I did not add this until I finished my Instrument training, some would say I should have done this ahead of time for more situational awareness. Well yes that would have done so, but I am now a firm believer in do the Instrument and the private training in steam guage airplanes. When all the glass stuff fails you need to fallback to basic navigation so learn the basics.

During the time that I owned 555SM I had a few problems with it, nothing earth shattering like an engine quitting or anything like that but lets see from memory:

• Battery died and replaced September 2005
• 20 year old strut straps AD never complied with, fixed in Annual March 2006
• Carb heat cable broken and replaced - April 2006
• Leaking front strut seal replaced November 2007
• Tumbled attitude indicator (VFR when it happened thankfully)
  

There were also various minor issues fixed in the two annuals I had done during the time I owned the airplane. Overall I enjoyed flyig it, I put 250 hours on N555S. For you non-flying types that is alot of time sitting in the same seat built in 1973. Think about how those older cars feel, lots of noise even with the headset (Not the noise canceling type either) on. I would guess without looking at my log book that most of this was either in IMC or simulated under the hood. Though I did fly it to various places for softball tournaments with my daughter Kasie who seemed to fall asleep about 80% of the time. I guess she trusted my flying.

I traded in N555SM on a new 2007 Cessna 182T (N2123Y) in December 2007.