The honest pitch: I trust this airplane enough that when my wife was three months pregnant and we needed to bring it home, I put her in the left seat and let her fly it. That is not marketing copy — it actually happened. If a 172 is going to win that kind of vote of confidence, it has to be a really good one.

This is the 172M you fly off your grass strip or drop straight into a TAA training fleet — it already has the upgrades everyone else is still saving up for. A fresh annual was completed 6/10/26 with every cylinder compression-testing above 72/80. Clean leather seats, modern Garmin glass, and an honest logbook. The airplane wants for nothing — turn-key and ready for its next adventure.

Powerplant — Air Plains O-360-A4M 180HP STC. The Air Plains conversion is the upgrade every 172 owner wishes their airplane had: the 180HP O-360 turns this airframe into a useful-load, climb-rate, and hot-and-high performer that flies more like a small Skylane than a stock 150HP Skyhawk. Engine reads 1,570.3 hours since new with 180.5 since top overhaul — strong, well-documented, and freshly annualed.

Airframe — clean, complete, 2,676.7 TT. Complete and original logbooks. One honest disclosure: the rudder was dinged during ground handling and professionally repaired — no other damage history. Hangared and pre-buy ready at KSFB (Sanford, FL).