Full Throttle at Cessna

One day late in 1939, a tall, slender Kansan flew to New York to show the wartime British Purchasing Commission a light, twin-engined plane he hoped to sell as a trainer for fledgling pilots. Before he could close the deal, Dwane L. Wallace, then only 28 and president of the Cessna Aircraft Co. of Wichita, Kan., was asked for some financial data on his company. The bank balance, said he, was $3. Without batting an eye, persuasive President Wallace explained that he had a good line of credit, landed a $6,800,000 contract for 640 R.C.A.F. Cranes (modified Cessna T-50s).

The order was the turning point for struggling Cessna. Since then, the company has built more than 21,000 planes for civilian and military pilots, and has blossomed into the largest U.S. commercial light-plane manufacturer.* Its total assets are more than $21 million, and 1953 sales topped $43 million. The company has three plants (all paid for), 4,000 employees and a booming military business (backlog: $43.4 million), making everything from light liaison planes to tails for Boeing's B-47 jet bomber.

Transports & Jets. Last week President Wallace opened the throttle for an even steeper climb with a new line of big civilian planes, helicopters and light military jets. The new items:

P:A four-engined Cessna 620 executive transport, to give flying executives the big-plane comfort, safety and speed they expect at the economy prices they like to pay. With four 320-h.p. Continental engines, Cessna's 620 will carry nine passengers (plus pilot and copilot), cruise at 235 m.p.h. for 1,300 miles, and climb to an altitude of 30,000 ft. Estimated price: about $300,000 v. up to $400,000 for a converted World War II bomber.

P:A twin-engined Cessna 310, which is a smaller, five-place transport that can cruise at 205 m.p.h. for 875-mile hops. Cessna already has orders for 130 at $49,950 each, is booked into July 1955.

P:A CH1 helicopter, first flown a fortnight ago. Developing a net 260 h.p., it can carry four passengers. Estimated price: $35,000-$40,000.

P:A twin-jet T-37 trainer with side-by-side seats and 400-m.p.h. speed. Last week the Air Force, choosing from among 15 designs, gave Cessna a preliminary $5,000,000 contract for T-37s, with the possibility of more if the plane lives up to expectations.

Sunday Pilots & Spotters. The credit for Cessna's new planes and its soaring business goes to President Dwane Wallace, who took over in 1934 from his uncle Clyde Cessna (the company's founder). Since its founding in 1927, the company had not made much money. But Wallace, who graduated from Wichita University with a degree in aeronautical engineering, knew how to build a speedy, airworthy plane. His first Cessna Air-master could cruise at 140 m.p.h.; private U.S. flyers bought 212 of them in six years, and Wallace was able to stay in business.

In World War II Cessna's twin-engined T-50 trainer was so successful that the U.S. Army Air Corps followed the R.C.A.F. with a flood of orders. During the war, Cessna built 5,360 of its twin-engined T-50s. Sales zoomed to $71 million in 1943, and profits to $2,000,000.

Like the rest of the industry, Cessna had to cut back after V-J day, but it was soon able to step into a new market of flying executives and Sunday pilots. In short order President Wallace put out three models of a high-wing, single-engined Cessna monoplane that could fly at 120-140 m.p.h., watched sales climb back to $14 million in 1948. When Korea hit, Cessna's civilian planes became L19 artillery spotters. Observers used L-19s to spot camouflaged tanks hidden from 600-m.p.h. jets. Signal Corpsmen slung rolls of wire beside the wings, hedgehopped over the hills laying communications at 70 m.p.h. When President Eisenhower visited Korea, he flew to the front in a Cessna L-19.

Today, peacetime flyers are finding Cessna's puddlejumpers just as useful. One California lumberman uses a Cessna 170 monoplane to check on his surveyor teams; a Texas undertaker even uses his Cessna as a flying hearse. With his new helicopters, jets and multi-engined transports, President Dwane Wallace takes a cheery view of the future. Says he: "In our business, it's early morning and the sun is shining."

* Beech Aircraft is first in total business, with $140 million in sales for 1953, largely because of its bigger military business.

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