After 47 years of service,
N20836 leaves for a new mission

In October 1972, then Aeronautics Administrator Darrell Manning traveled to Wichita, Kansas to pick up a new airplane for ITD.  He handed over a $22,000 check for a shiny, new Cessna 182 N20836 and flew it to Boise to support the ITD mission.

“They let me read the pilot’s operating manual the night before, handed me the keys the next day, and I flew it home with only one stop,” said Manning. 

For the next 47 years and nearly 8,000 flight hours, “836” transported passengers, carried equipment and flew search missions for numerous state agencies. In that time, 836 ran through five new engines. The only known accident was when a duck hit the airplane’s tail sometime in the 1980s. The collision required the tail skin to be replaced. The logbook did not record what happened to the duck.
 
With the recent acquisition of the new Quest Kodiak, 836 was no longer needed, and the $73,100 surplus value was in turn invested into the new airplane.  Old #836 was sold to a new owner in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to begin a new life. 

“We were kind of sad to see it go,” said mechanic Tim Henderson, who has maintained the airplane for the past 20 years. “It had been here longer than anyone.”

          


Published 04-05-19