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Cessna

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Cessna Aircraft Company
Company typeSubsidiary
IndustryAerospace
Founded1927
HeadquartersWichita, Kansas
Key people
Jack J. Pelton (Chairman, President, and CEO)
ProductsGeneral aviation aircraft
Business jets
Number of employees
9,500
ParentTextron
Websitewww.cessna.com

Cessna Aircraft Company, headquartered in Wichita, Kansas, is a manufacturer of general aviation aircraft, primarily specializing in small, piston-powered aircraft and medium-sized business jets.

History

The company traces its history to June 1911, when Clyde Cessna, a farmer in Rago, Kansas, built a wood-and-fabric plane and became the first person to build and fly an aircraft between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains.

Clyde Cessna started his aircraft ventures in Enid, Oklahoma testing many of his early planes on the salt flats. When bankers in Enid would not loan him the money to build his planes, he moved to Wichita.[1]

In 1924, Cessna partnered with Lloyd C. Stearman and Walter H. Beech to form the Travel Air Manufacturing Co., Inc., a biplane manufacturing firm, in Wichita. In 1927 he left Travel Air to form his own company, the "Cessna Aircraft Company", to build monoplanes.

Cessna Aircraft Company closed its doors from 1932–1934 due to the state of the economy. In 1934, Dwane Wallace, with the help of his brother Dwight, took control of the company and began the process of building it into a global success.

After World War II, Cessna created the 170, which, along with later models (notably the 172), became the most widely produced light aircraft in history. Cessna's advertising boasts that its aircraft have trained more pilots than those of any other company.

Cessna was bought by General Dynamics Corporation in 1985. Production of piston-engine was discontinued in 1986, with the company citing product liability as the cause; then-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 production of the piston-engine 172, 182, and 206 designs was resumed after passage of the General Aviation Revitalization Act of 1994.

On 24 September 2007 it was announced by Columbia Aircraft that Cessna has purchased Columbia and their line of high performance single engined aircraft.[2][3] There had been speculation that the acquisition of the Columbia line spelled 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 will continue, unaffected by the purchase of Columbia.[4]

Currently, Cessna produces 2, 4 and 6 place single engine airplanes, utility turboprops, and business jets.

Marketing Initiatives

Cessna has always had an active marketing department. This was especially notable during the 1950s and 1960s. During this period, the marketing department followed the lead of Detroit automobile manufacturers and came up with many marketing slogans or buzzwords to describe Cessna’s product line in an attempt to place their products ahead of the competition.

Other manufacturers and the aviation press widely ridiculed and spoofed many of these marketing terms but between Cessna’s designers producing a product that the flying public wanted and the work of the marketing department, Cessna built and sold more aircraft than any other manufacturer during the aviation boom years of the 1960s and 1970s.

Cessna 150s produced before 1964, such as this 1962 Cessna 150B, lacked the later Omni-Vision rear window
File:Cessna150EC-FGAU.jpg
A 1965 Cessna 150E. The 1964 model 150D and the 150E introduced Omni-Vision rear windows on the Model 150
Cessna 560XL Citation Excel of the Swiss Air Force
File:Cessna.195.750pix.jpg
1951 Cessna 195
File:Cessna 337 Skymaster.jpg
Cessna 337 Skymaster, a "push-pull" aircraft
1977 Cessna 404 Titan II
Cessna 525 CitationJet

Marketing buzzwords

Cessna marketing buzzwords included:

  • Para-Lift Flaps – these were the large fowler flaps that Cessna introduced on the Cessna 170B in 1952, replacing the narrow chord plain flaps then in use.
  • Land-O-Matic – In 1956 Cessna introduced sprung-steel tricycle landing gear on the Cessna 172. The marketing department chose the buzzwords “Land-O-Matic” to try to convey that the these aircraft were much easier to land and take-off than the conventional landing gear equipped Cessna 170 that preceded the 172. They even went as far as to say that the pilots could do “drive-up take-offs and drive-in landings” in an attempt to make it seem like flying these aircraft was as easy as driving a car. In later years some Cessna models had their steel sprung landing gear replaced with steel tube gear legs. The Cessna 206 retains the original spring steel landing gear today.
  • Omni-Vision – This referred to the introduction of rear windows on some Cessna singles, starting with the Cessna 182 and 210 in 1962, the Cessna 172 in 1963 and the Cessna 150 in 1964. The term was designed to make the pilot feel that visibility was improved on the notably poor-visibility Cessna line. The introduction of the rear window caused most models a loss of cruise speed due to the drag of the window shape, while not adding any useful visibility.
  • Cushioned power – This was to announce the introduction of rubber mounts on the cowling of the 1967 model Cessna 150, in addition to the rubber mounts that isolated the engine from the cabin.
  • Omni-Flash - This referred to the flashing beacon on the tip of the fin that could be seen 360 degrees all-around.
  • Open-View – This referred to the removal of the top section of the control wheel in 1967 models. These had been rectangular, they now became “ram’s horn” shaped, thus not blocking the instrument panel as much.
  • Quick-Scan – Cessna introduced a new instrument panel lay-out in the 1960s and this buzzword was to indicate that Cessna’s panels were ahead of the competition.

Aircraft models

References

  1. ^ Article in "Enid News"
  2. ^ Russ Niles (September 22, 2007). "Cessna Reportedly Interested in Columbia". Retrieved 2007-09-24.
  3. ^ "Cessna-Columbia Deal Confirmed; Cirrus Says That's a Good Thing". September 24, 2007. Retrieved 2007-09-25.
  4. ^ "AVweb's NBAA 2007 Podcast #2: A Low-Wing Cessna Single? Cessna's Roger Whyte Explains Why It Makes Sense". September 26, 2007. Retrieved 2007-10-01.


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