Cessna 195: Snub-nosed limousine from Wichita

Flight Journal, Jun 1999 by Davisson, Budd

On the surface, it looked like a stupid thing for Cessna to do. It made no sense to build a fuel-guzzling, roundmotored airplane when, just down the road (literally), Beechcraft was launching its brand-new, hyper-efficent, faster-than-a-speeding-Gooney-Bird Bonanza. It looked as if Clyde Cessna's boys had taken leave of their collective senses. Cessna, however, is a model of coperate conservatism and wasn't then, and isn't now, known for making too many stupid moves. If it were, something like half the general aviation airplanes in the world wouldn't be wearing the cessna logo. The company tends to know what it is doing. In the case of the 190)/195 series of airplanes, cessna had a specific market and purpose in mind. Its brilliant young engineer and soon-to-be president, Duane Wallace, was told to build the most luxurious, most comfortable

airplane his nimble mind could create. The beauty he designed into the airplane turned out to be a bonus. Basically, Cessna management wanted an airplane that gave the businessman an aerial packard-big and roomy, with plenty of space for golf clubs, briefcases and luggage. Yes, speed was important: but not at the expense of comfort. The airframe profiles would be laid out around a huge cabin, and the performance would come from making those profiles as efficient as possible.

In discussing speed, it should be remembered that in those days, the 170 to 180mph DC-3 Gooney Bird was still the mainstay airliner and you didn't need blazing speed to compete. Besides, the 195 was designed to master any runway available, from long and paved to short and nasty. It would be the businessman's alwayscomfortable connection to any runway, anywhere.

The concept for the airplane was actually developed in 1943/'44, before Cessna's wartime Bamboo Bomber production line had begun to slow down. But the company was planning ahead. The Model P-780, as the project was called, borrowed heavily on Cessna's earlier mini biz-liner, the Airmaster. The Airmaster was long of line and small of cabin, but its little Warner radial engine pulled it along at 150mph, an impressive speed for the day and the horsepower. The role of the P-780, however, called for massive size increases that, in turn, demanded a bigger motor.

The early 1940s was the absolute heyday of the radial engine, as it was being manufactured in every horsepower imaginable, from 165hp to 2,200hp. Wanting economy as well as performance, however, Cessna decided to stick with what it knew best: the little 220 to 240hp Continental and 245 to 300hp Jacobs radials.

Looking backwards through this end of the historical telescope, we might think it would have made sense to use a more "modern," horizontally opposed engine. However, we tend to forget that before WW II, the flat engine, four- and six-cylinder horizontally opposed configuration that we now consider standard general aviation fare existed only in rag-and-tube trainers. Flat motors were the 65hp four-bangers that powered Cubs, Taylorcrafts and every puddlejumper in between. During the War bigger flat motors were designed but weren't readily available in anything much over 190hp, and Cessna needed something with a lot more guts. Besides, the cabin they envisioned was so wide that they could easily fair the wider bulk of the radial engine into the fuselage, a la the old Airmaster. Also, the larger flat motors engine was still fighting to prove themselves, and the radial engine was still considered absolutly modern and very much a proven commodity.

The original Model P-780 was definitely "son of Airmaster," right down to the rectilinear rag-and-tube fuselage and ling, subtly tapered cantilevered wing (this time in aluminum, not wood). The concept was right, the size was right, but Cessna executives decided the execution wasn't; they needed something more modern.

Wallace and his boys went back to the drawing board and came up with a conceptually similar airplane but done entirely in aluminum. And done extraordinarily well. Wallace had taken the search for efficiency and comfort to the limit and designed an aluminum airframe envelope that faired the Jacobs/Continental radial so tightly that cowl bumps were needed to make room for the rocker arms. The lines then ran straight back to the compound curved tail cone without a single bump, wiggle, or protruding "draggy" to hinder the airflow. Everything about the airframe was laid out with maximum efficiency in mind. Only the Steve Wittman-patented spring-steel landing gear broke the lines, and that was as thin as they dared make it. Even the door to the 220-pound baggage compartment had no handle; it was opened by pushing a button that was recessed into the inside edge of the door frame. When the main door was closed, it retracted the boarding step. The final airframe appeared to have been a block of aluminum shaped by the passing wind to offer the least resistance possible.

The airplane was an instant classic. It had one foot rooted firmly in historical beauty and the other in down-to-earth utility. Further, with the short-lived exception of Beechcraft's decision to build 20 final Staggerwings (the undeniably beautiful "G" model), Cessna had the postwar, single-engine limousine trade to itself. There was no other airplane being produced that could compete with its pure comfort and raw utility. They had done their market research well.