By Kent Carder, EAA 676328
This piece originally ran in the September 2025 issue of EAA Sport Aviation magazine.
My Cessna 180 has been in my family since the early 1970s. The 180 came to be a part of the family before my mom and dad even met. My father and two other friends purchased this airplane from Briggs Aviation just after it was restored/repaired from an incident it had in Florida. One could possibly say that the reason I am here is because of the old 180. I grew up hearing the story of how my dad asked my mom out on a date, and for that first date he took her flying to dinner. She was initially scared to death in her words, but I guess it impressed her.
Unknowingly I was pretty lucky as a kid, because I grew up flying in this airplane with my dad almost every weekend. We spent a lot of time at the airports around Oklahoma where my dad had made friends with what seemed like everyone there. We would show up, and they would all say, “Hey Doc! (That’s what everyone called him.) What’s going on?” The luckiest thing for me was that shortly after getting my pilot certificate, my dad let me use it to get my tailwheel endorsement.
In addition to flying around Oklahoma on the weekends, we made several family trips from Oklahoma to Idaho in the late summers where we spent time with family friends. I absolutely fell in love with flying, airplanes, and the Cessna 180 at a young age due to my father’s influence and love of it. I knew one day that I wanted to own a 180 because of my experiences growing up with one in the family.
I always remember the airplane being white with blue and gold stripes, but it had a different paint scheme on it when I was a kid. Sometime around 1996 my dad made the decision to update the paint on the airplane. Lucky for him there was a well-respected paint shop in El Reno, Oklahoma, on the airfield where he kept the airplane and we spent our weekend flying. My dad contacted Ken Norris at Cimarron Aviation paint shop to come up with the paint design that is on it today. After getting the 180 back from the paint shop, it emphasized how badly the old 180 needed an interior. So again, lucky for my dad, there was an aircraft interior shop on the airfield that did fantastic work. He enlisted Dean from Dean’s Aircraft Interiors to make and install the interior that you see in the airplane today.
When my wife and children would go home to Oklahoma to visit, my dad couldn’t wait to share flying with our family. It was often the highlight of the trip home for the kids, to get to go flying in papa’s airplane. He loved sharing it with them as much as they loved going flying with him. So, in 2022 after his passing, I knew that I wanted to keep this airplane in the family. As soon as I brought it up to my wife, she didn’t even let me finish; she insisted that we do just that. My wife and I approached my mom, and we made a deal to purchase the 180 from her.
I brought the airplane home in September 2022. We fly the 180 regularly and have made several trips in it. We have gone to see the eclipse in Illinois, to Oklahoma, and for regular pancake breakfasts. On one trip to visit my mom in Oklahoma, we got caught in some weather that was worse than forecast and had to make a stop about midway. This weather delayed us for a couple of days.
The reason for the delay is that the airplane had minimal avionics and instrumentation. And the stuff that it did have was of the rather antique variety. It worked but didn’t fulfill the needs of instrument flying. My wife started asking questions about why we couldn’t continue and what would it take to be able to do that kind of thing. She made the decision that we were going to fix the problem. So, on our return we started looking for an avionics shop. Again, in the good fortune that seems to follow this 180, there was a fantastic group of guys that were local and could make that happen. We enlisted Stein and his employees at SteinAir to create the custom panel that is in the 180 today. He came up with a list of Garmin equipment that would not only meet but also exceed the needs we would have to be able to continue a trip when the weather closed in. The one thing I knew I had to do was create some sort of tribute in this airplane to my dad. That is why you see the name Doc with a halo over it on the panel. Everyone he knew called him Doc, and now I still get to fly with him every weekend and every trip I take. I even got to take him to AirVenture with me last year.
Attention — Aircraft Builders and Restorers
We would love to share your story with your fellow EAA members in the pages of EAA Sport Aviation magazine, even if it’s a project that’s been completed for a while. Readers consistently rate the “What Our Members are Building/Restoring” section of the magazine as one of their favorites, so don’t miss the chance to show off your handiwork and inspire your peers to start or complete projects of their own. Learn more ->