Cessna 182

As I was writing about the Cessna Cutlass a few days ago, I remembered that I forgot to write about the Cessna 182 (aka Cessna Sky Lane) that was in for her annual inspection at the same time that I was visiting with State Line Aviation in December 2010 to watch the annual of one of the Cessna 172P trainers. Some of you may recall that I wrote a nine part series a couple of months ago based on what I learned from watching an annual service of a Cessna 172P last December; go here to read this series and scroll down to April 29 to begin at the first post.

Back to the 182, the Cessna 182 that I saw at State Line Aviation one day last December had some sort of controllable pitch propeller (I think that it was a constant speed propeller) and a mechanism known as a propeller governor. She also had cowl flaps. I know from my reading about aircraft systems (chapter 6) of the Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge that cowl flaps are opened and closed by the pilot through a control in the cockpit, to facilitate engine cooling. For those who are so inclined, I found a short article cowl flaps here, it is written for simulator pilots, but I thought that some of you might enjoy it.

I was interested in the 182 because it was one of the first times that I been up close and personal with a single-engine plane that was more complicated than the Cessna 172P I had been in on my scenic airplane flights. Furthermore, I had heard about cowl flaps and prop governors through aviation books, wonderings on the internet, and e-mails over the past two years but had never seen any up close. I was very happy to be able to look at the 182 up close and personal and get a few (but not enough) photos.

The original intent of this post was to try to talk about some of the differences between the Cessna 172P trainer that I had flown in for my scenic flights and the Cessna 182 (differences in the types of propellers). After receiving some correspondence through this blog in July of 2012, I decided to keep things simple. So, I have deleted all of the text from the earlier version of this post, but I am leaving the photos of the 182 from the original post. I have revised the text and have added some links.

I believe that these were the only photos that I have of this particular 182, sorry. I got so intrigued by looking at the cowl flaps and the prop governor in the 182 that day that I forgot to take a longer shot of the182. And of course, I was very focused on my photos of the annual of the Cessna 172P!