Overview of Cessna Aircraft Company - A Giant in Small Aircraft Manufacturing

Overview of Cessna Aircraft Company - A Giant in Small Aircraft Manufacturing

Located in Wichita, Kansas, USA, the Cessna Aircraft Company is one of the country's most renowned airplane manufacturing companies. Cessna is most famous for their smaller aircraft, driven by pistons, but in recent years, the company has taken the plunge into the upscale market, developing and releasing business-class jets, including the luxury CitationJet.

This is due to the large base that Textron, Cessna's parent company, has. Cessna was first founded by Clyde Vernon Cessna, born in Iowa in 1879. After other business ventures in related fields, Clyde formed his own company, the Cessna Aircraft Company, in 1927.

Always interested in monoplanes, Clyde began building the type of planes he wanted - a vision of his ideal aircraft. His first major plane was the full-cantilever-winged monoplane called the Phantom. The Phantom, along with other Cessna originals like the Model AW and DC-6, were experiencing moderate success until the Great Depression hit. Instead of focusing on building and selling planes, Clyde and his son Eldon had refocused, putting emphasis on building racing planes.

Their CR series were hits in the racing world, and their CR-3 set a speed record in 1933. However, Clyde quit the aviation business after one of his closest friends was killed in a crash. He would still dabble in some of the construction and other areas of the business, but he never officially returned in any capacity.

Clyde's family took over the business and designed the C-34 Airmaster monoplane in 1934, once again placing the Cessna Aircraft Company in the spotlight. This plane positioned the company as one of America's leading aviation businesses, even with the Great Depression still going strong.

Throughout the mid 1900s, the Airmaster would take on many different forms, all of which became popular planes, known for their durability, affordability and excellent flight history. The last Airmaster was the C-165; the line ended during WWII.

After the war ended, Cessna was right back at work, turning out plane after plane, each with a new innovation greater than the last. Although their bread-and-butter plane was the monoplane model, they also started introducing bigger and better planes for military use. Other models throughout the 1960s and 70s worked to further cement Cessna as the crown prince of American aviation.

Cessna continued to produce multiple planes, including their famous piston-engine planes, until 1985 when they became a subsidiary of General Dynamics Corporation. Soon after that in 1992, Textron acquired Cessna and began releasing light aircraft models again. This is the era when Cessna began making the push toward the business jets, in hopes of driving up revenue.

Cessna still does well today, but with the market saturation, there are dozens of companies producing reliable airplanes. When the company was first started by Clyde Cessna in the early 1900s, Cessna was one of the best aviation businesses on the planet. Today the brand is still among the top, but there's plenty of stiff competition out there waiting to dethrone the aviation group.