We'd known for some time that our A&P/IA has been cleaning & repairing
our 172's battery box every year. Usually it's just amounted to pulling
the battery, rinsing the box to neutralize the acid and sanding /
painting any areas where corrosion has gotten the better of it. The
last few years, however, the aluminum has been getting thinner, the
holes and cracks larger.

This year the word came down. "I've nursed it along all these years,
but if I put another patch on it we'll need to redo the weight and
balance", my mechanic woefully admitted. "Okay", I sighed. "What's the
damage on a new battery box?" "I don't know yet, but I'll let you know."

That was a couple weeks ago. Just got the call. A new battery box for
a 1971 Cessna 172L retails for (drumroll....) $1500. I nearly passed
out. And that's surprising only because I've been doing this airplane
ownership thing for a while so it takes a lot to phase me. I had to
ask. "Okay, that's ridiculous. You know I normally don't care if you
make some money on parts, but what's your cost on this?" He freely
admitted "$700...and I think that's crazy too, so I've decided that's
what I'm going to charge you for it."

All my partner (increasingly the miser) could say was "I could have
built it myself and welded the seams, etc. Would have been 10X better
looking & stronger than anything Cessna would build...and it would have
cost me maybe $50. I mean, it's a BOX for crying out loud!" I agreed,
but quickly pointed out that when I last checked we don't have any
"EXPERIMENTAL" stickers on the airplane and the feds wouldn't take
kindly to our "playing Cessna".

I don't know why, exactly, but I found myself actually happy to pay the
$700. It could have been worse, right? I suppose it only shows how bad
I have the aviation bug, even after all these years.

There's a long-running thread on a BMW message board I read called "You
know you drive an E36 when...." It contains lots of inside jokes about
all the stuff that goes wrong with these cars and the crap only a
diehard BMW owner would tolerate. It's actually really funny (at least
to us owners) though I'm fully aware others might diagnose our desire to
own these vehicles in spite of these problems as some kind of psychosis.
Browse here for a laugh, even if you don't own a BMW...

http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum...ad.php?t=56053

Anyway, in that same vein I think we should start a thread here about
"You know you own an airplane when..." in which we can each give a
one-liner about our experiences as airplane owners. It's been done
before, but it's always nice to refresh the list. I'll start. You know
you own an airplane when...

....you're actually glad to get the news that a battery box will cost you
ONLY $700.

-Doug

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Doug Vetter, ATP/CFI

http://www.dvatp.com
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