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Cessna Aircraft Company

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Cessna Aircraft Company
File:Cessna logo.png
Type Subsidiary
Founded 1927
Headquarters Wichita, Kansas
Key peopleJack J. Pelton (Chairman, President, and CEO)
IndustryAerospace
ProductsGeneral aviation aircraft
Business jets
Employees9,500[1]
ParentTextron
Websitewww.cessna.com

Cessna Aircraft Company, headquartered in Wichita, Kansas, is a manufacturer of general aviation aircraft, 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.

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.[2]

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. The first flew on August 13, 1927.

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.[3]

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.

In 1985 Cessna was bought by General Dynamics Corporation and in 1986 production of piston-engine aircraft was discontinued, 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, 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.[4][5] 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 will continue, unaffected by the purchase of Columbia.[6]

Since November 2007 the company has been involved in a public controversy regarding the outsourcing of production of its Cessna 162 SkyCatcher to the Shenyang Aircraft Corporation of the People's Republic of China.[7]

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 and 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 the flying public wanted and the work of the marketing department, Cessna built and sold more aircraft than any other manufacturer during the boom years of the 1960s and 1970s.

File:Cessna150BC-FOTK02.jpg
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
File:Cessna350N2546W01.jpg
Cessna 350 at Sun 'n Fun 2006
File:Cessna.195.750pix.jpg
1951 Cessna 195
File:Cessna 337 Skymaster.jpg
Cessna 337 Skymaster, a "push-pull" aircraft
File:340Aext.jpg
1979 Cessna 340A
File:Cessna.404.titan2.arp.jpg
1977 Cessna 404 Titan II
File:Cessna 525 citationjet g-sfcj arp.jpg
Cessna 525 CitationJet
File:Cessna.560xl.citation.excel.arp.jpg
Cessna 560XL Citation Excel of the Swiss Air Force

Marketing buzzwords

Cessna marketing buzzwords included:

  • Para-Lift Flaps – these were the large fowler flaps Cessna introduced on the 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 172. The marketing department chose “Land-O-Matic” to imply that the these aircraft were much easier to land and take-off than the preceding conventional landing gear equipped Cessna 170. They even went as far as to say pilots could do “drive-up take-offs and drive-in landings”, implying that 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 206 retains the original spring steel landing gear today.
  • Omni-Vision – This referred to the rear windows on some Cessna singles, starting with the 182 and 210 in 1962, the 172 in 1963 and the 150 in 1964. The term was intended to make the pilot feel 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 extra drag, while not adding any useful visibility.
  • Cushioned power – This was to announce the introduction of rubber mounts on the cowling of the 1967 model 150, in addition to the rubber mounts isolating the engine from the cabin.
  • Omni-Flash - This referred to the flashing beacon on the tip of the fin that could be seen 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 layout in the 1960s and this buzzword was to indicate Cessna’s panels were ahead of the competition.
  • Nav-O-Matic - This was the name of the Cessna autopilot system, which implied the system was relatively simple.

Chinese production controversy

One of the largest controversies involving the company began in late 2007.

On 27 November 2007, Cessna announced the new Cessna 162 would be made in the People's Republic of China by Shenyang Aircraft Corporation, which is a subsidiary of China Aviation Industry Corporation I (AVIC I), a Chinese government-owned consortium of aircraft manufacturers.[8] By manufacturing the aircraft in China, Cessna reports it saved USD$71,000 in production costs per aircraft, or about 40% of the cost. A second reason cited for moving production to Shenyang Aircraft Corporation was Cessna has no plant capacity available in the USA.[9]

Cessna received a high degree of negative feedback from 162 customers and potential customers regarding this decision. Complaints centered around the recent problems with Chinese production of other consumer products, China's human rights record, exporting of jobs, and China's less than friendly political relationship with the USA.[10] The backlash surprised Cessna and resulted in a company public relations campaign to try to explain the decision from a business perspective and assure customers that quality of the aircraft will not be compromised.[11] The reaction to the explanations and assurances has been overwhelmingly negative, although a small number of customers have applauded the production in China.[10]

After thousands of negative comments were posted, Cessna deleted the negative customer comments and the entire www.cessnaskycatcher.com website.[12] The company explained this by stating:

As the excitement builds, our site has also evolved. We’ve implemented new methods and editorial protocols to better facilitate communication.

Here’s how the site works: we now invite you to submit your comment to our site editors for consideration of online posting, much like traditional publishing. This will give us a better opportunity to respond with our own comments on a more regular basis. You can rest assured that views representative of all sides of an issue will be chosen for display on the site by our editorial staff.[12]

The press release from Cessna in March 2008, at the time of conforming prototype first flight, emphasizes, "All engineering work and testing of the 162 will be completed in Wichita", while avoiding any mention of production in China.[13] The aviation media continues to emphasize that, while the aircraft engineering development is taking place in Wichita, production will be in China.[14]

Aircraft models

References

  1. ↑ Cessna Aircraft Company (2008). About Cessna. Retrieved on 2008-03-12.
  2. ↑ Article in "Enid News"
  3. ↑ Phillips, Edward H: Wings of Cessna, Model 120 to the Citation III, Flying Books, 1986. ISBN 0-911139-05-2
  4. ↑ Textron (November 2007). Textron's Cessna Aircraft Company to Acquire Assets of Columbia Aircraft. Retrieved on 2007-11-28.
  5. ↑ Russ Niles (November 27, 2007). Cessna Gets Columbia. Retrieved on 2007-11-29.
  6. ↑ AVweb's NBAA 2007 Podcast #2: A Low-Wing Cessna Single? Cessna's Roger Whyte Explains Why It Makes Sense (September 26, 2007). Retrieved on 2007-10-01.
  7. ↑ Russ Niles (November 27, 2007). Skycatcher To Be Made in China. Retrieved on 2007-11-29.
  8. ↑ Textron (November 2007). Cessna Chooses China's Shenyang Aircraft Corporation as Manufacturing Partner for Model 162 SkyCatcher. Retrieved on 2007-11-28.
  9. ↑ Russ Niles (November 27, 2007). Skycatcher To Be Made in China. Retrieved on 2007-11-29.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Aniello, Tom (December 2007). Making the case for building the SkyCatcher in China (entire website since deleted). Retrieved on 2008-01-03.
  11. ↑ Grady, Mary (January 2008). Germany's Remos Aircraft Expanding, Challenges Cessna. Retrieved on 2008-01-03.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Cessna Aircraft (January 2008). Important Changes to the SkyCatcher Site. Retrieved on 2008-01-07.
  13. ↑ Cessna Aircraft (March 2008). Cessna SkyCatcher Prototype Completes First Flight. Retrieved on 2008-03-12.
  14. ↑ Grady, Mary (March 2008). First Flight For Cessna SkyCatcher Prototype. Retrieved on 2008-03-13.

External links

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