The Cessna Story
The history of
Cessna aviation began in June
1911, when Clyde Cessna, a farmer in Rago,
Kansas, built a wood-and-fabric airplane and
became the first person to build and fly a
powered
aircraft in the heartland of America, between the Mississippi River and
the Rocky Mountains.
Clyde Cessna started his aircraft ventures
in Enid, Oklahoma testing many of his early
designs on the salt flats. When bankers in
Enid balked at providing capital, he moved to Wichita.
In 1924, Cessna partnered with Lloyd C.
Stearman and Walter H. Beech to form the
Travel Air Manufacturing Co., Inc., and
served as its president. In
January 1927 he left Travel Air to form his own
business, the Cessna Aircraft Company. The first
of his new monoplane designs, the "Phantom," flew on August
13, 1927. Following that, the company
created a series of successful four and
six-place monoplanes.
With the collapse of Wall Street in the
autumn of 1929, Cessna and other
manufacturers soon found themselves with
dramatically shrinking sales. Cessna slashed
prices, but to no avail. Faced with the
prospect of bankruptcy, the
company's board of directors voted to oust
Cessna and closed the factory doors in 1931.
Undaunted, Cessna, along with his son Eldon,
rented facilities in the abandoned Travel
Air complex and created the C.V. Cessna
Aircraft Co. It built small, custom racing
airplanes. Sadly, Cessna was dealt another
blow in 1933 when his close friend Roy
Liggett died in the crash of the CR-2 racer
built by Clyde and Eldon. Cessna's grief ran
deep and he withdrew from aviation.
Retreating to his farm in Rago, Clyde Cessna
would never involve himself in aviation
again.
During this period, Cessna's
nephew, Dwane Wallace, had been working for
Walter Beech doing engineering analyses on
biplanes. Wallace, whose love of flying had
been kindled as a teenager, soloed in a
well-worn Travel Air in March 1932 and later
earned his private pilot license. Although
he continued to work diligently for Beech,
Dwane had a dream: he was contemplating
plans to reopen the Cessna Aircraft Company.
His gamble was that the public would buy an
upgraded version of Cessna's 1928 Model AW
cabin monoplane.
In January 1934, Dwane Wallace with his brother Dwight,
a talented attorney, wrested control of
their uncle's derelict company from the
board of directors. With Dwane at
the helm, the Cessna Aircraft Company was
reborn and the process of
building it into a global success
was begun.
In 1948, Cessna introduced the 170, a
four-place tailwheel airplane powered by a
145-horsepower Continental engine. The
airplane, an obvious upgrade from the
company's previous 140 model, was a popular
improvement. In November 1955 the tricycle derivative of
the 170 first flew. It entered service in
1956 and was an overnight success. Over 1400
were built in its inaugural year. This new airplane,
later to be known as the Skyhawk,
would become the most widely produced light
aircraft in history. Cessna's advertising
has boasted that its aircraft have trained more
pilots than those of any other company. In 1985 Cessna was bought by General
Dynamics Corporation and in 1986 production
of piston-engine aircraft was discontinued.
Over 35,000 172s had been manufactured up
until that point. The company cited product liability as the
cause for their demise. The corporation's CEO, Russ Meyer, said that
production would resume if a more favorable
product liability environment were to
develop. In 1992, Textron Inc. bought Cessna
and, after passage of the General Aviation
Revitalization Act of 1994, resumed
production of the piston-engine 172, 182,
and 206 designs.
On 27 November 2007 Textron announced that
Cessna had purchased bankrupt Columbia
Aircraft for USD$26.4M and would produce its
Columbia 350 and 400 as the Cessna 350 and
Cessna 400 at the Columbia factory in Bend,
Oregon. There had been speculation that the
acquisition of the Columbia line would spell
the end of the Cessna NGP project, but on
September 26, 2007, Cessna Vice President
for Sales, Roger Whyte, confirmed that
development of the NGP project would
continue, unaffected by the purchase of
Columbia.
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Clyde Cessna - 1914
Cessna with his "Comet"
1927 Cessna "Phantom"
Roy Liggett with the CR-2 that killed him in
1933
Dwane Wallace and Walter Beech
Cessna 170B -
Precursor to the 172 |