Cessna

The Cessna Aircraft Company is an airplane manufacturing corporation headquartered in Wichita, Kansas, USA. Their main products are general aviation aircraft. Although they are the most well known for their small, piston-powered aircraft, they also produce business jets. The company is a subsidiary of the U.S. conglomerate Textron.
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 refused to lend him more money to build his planes, he moved to Wichita.[3]
Cessna Aircraft was formed in 1927 when Clyde Cessna and Victor Roos became partners in the Cessna-Roos Aircraft Company. Roos resigned just one month into the partnership selling back his interest to Cessna.[4] In the same year, theSecretary of State approved a name change to Cessna Aircraft Company.[5] The Cessna DC-6 earned certification on October 29, 1929, sharing this day in history with the stock market crash of 1929.[6]
1955 saw Cessna's first helicopter, the Cessna CH-1, receive FAA type certification.[14] In 1956, Cessna released the Cessna 172 which went on to become the most produced airplane in history.[15]
In 1960, Cessna affiliated itself with Reims Aviation of Reims, France.[16] 1963 saw Cessna produce its 50,000 airplane, a Cessna 172.[17] Cessna's first business jet, the Cessna Citation I performed its maiden flight on September 15, 1969.[18]
In 1975, Cessna produced its 100,000th single engine airplane.[19]
In 1985, Cessna became a wholly owned subsidiary of General Dynamic Corporation. Production of the Cessna Caravan began.[20]
In 1992, General Dynamics announced the sale of Cessna to Textron Inc.[21]
On 27 November 2007, Textron announced that Cessna had purchased the bankrupt Columbia Aircraft company for US$26.4M and would continue production of the Columbia 350 and 400 as the Cessna 350 and Cessna 400 at the Columbia factory in Bend, Oregon.[22][23]

Features Which Allowed Cessna to improve its sales and reputation of the company are :
 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.[46]
 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 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.[46]
 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 in most models a loss of cruise speed due to the extra drag, while not adding any useful visibility.[46]
 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.
 Camber-Lift – This marketing name was used to describe Cessna aircraft wings starting in 1972 when the aerodynamics designers at Cessna added a slightly drooped leading edge to the standard NACA 2412 airfoil used on most of the light aircraft fleet. Writer Joe Christy described the name as "stupid" and added "Is there any other kind [of lift]?"[47]
 Stabila-Tip - Cessna started commonly using wingtip fuel tanks, but carefully shaped for aerodynamic effect rather than just tubular-shaped. Tip tanks do have an advantage of reducing free surface effect of fuel affecting the balance of the aircraft in rolling manoeuvres.

Production Models :
Currently Cessna has the following models in production:[48]
 Cessna 162 – high-wing, single piston engined, two-seat light sport aircraft in production since 2009
 Cessna 172 – high-wing, single piston engined, four-seat aircraft in production since the 1950s. More Cessna 172s have been built than any other aircraft.
 Cessna 182 – high-wing, single piston engined, four-seat aircraft in production since 1996 (was originally produced between 1956 and 1985)
 Cessna 206 – high-wing, single piston engined, six-seat utility aircraft in production since 1962.
 Cessna 208 – high-wing turboprop utility aircraft in production since 1984.
 Cessna 400 – a turbo-charged variant of the Cessna 350, in production since 2004
 Cessna 510 – twin-engined very light business jet produced since 2005.
 Cessna 525 – twin-engined light business jet produced since 1991.
 Cessna 560XL – twin-engined small-to-medium business jet produced since 1996.
 Cessna 680 – twin-engined mid-sized business jet produced since 2004.
 Cessna 750 – twin-engined long-range medium business jet aircraft produced since 1996.