Page 24 - Volume 12 Number 8

Cessna’s Last StandPart Three
As the United States plunged deeper and deeper into economic depression during 1930, the Cessna Aircraft Company designed gliders and small, lightweight aircraft in a last-ditch effort to generate revenue.
by Edward H. Phillips
America’s love affair with “Flying Fever” went into an inverted flat spin after the collapse of Wall Street that began in October 1929 and continued into 1930. Since 1927, in the wake of Charles A. Lindbergh’s solo transatlantic flight from New York to Paris, the nation’s commercial aircraft industry had experienced phenomenal growth.
Throughout 1928 and the first nine months of 1929, airframe and engine manufacturers were swamped with customer orders, and the aviation business in Wichita, Kansas, was no exception. The Stearman Aircraft Company had recently relocated from an old facility to a new, large factory and was busy building air mail ships as well as biplanes for the sportsman pilot and businessman.
Across town on East Central Avenue, Walter Beech was leading the Travel Air Company to new heights in terms of sales, and the 600-man workforce was operating two shifts and completing 25 airplanes per week but needed to build 50 per week to meet demand. The Swallow Airplane Company was rolling out biplanes for flight training at a feverish pace, and the Cessna Aircraft Company was hurrying to ramp up production in its new factory.
In addition, Wichita was home to five aeronautical investment organizations, three airport engineering companies and one export corporation. By late 1929, 16 airframe manufacturers and six engine manufacturers were doing business in the city and investors had poured more than $10 million into the town’s largest industry.
On a national scale, sales of new aircraft soared and the stock market found prospective buyers eager to loosen their wallets and invest in aeronautical ventures. Among those affecting Wichita directly were the giant Curtiss- Wright Corporation and the United Aircraft and Transport Corporation that in 1929 absorbed Travel Air and Stearman Aircraft, respectively, into their expanding portfolios.
Looking back on the industry’s health in 1929, the 1930 edition of the Aircraft Year Book reported that 96 aircraft manufacturers had built more than 6,000 commercial and military airplanes worth $44.5 million. Commercial production of aircraft had increased 51 percent compared with 1928. By contrast, at the end of 1930 the Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce of America reported that production of new aircraft had
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fallen by nearly 50 percent from 1930 levels to only 2,684 commercial and military ships. Total value of those aircraft fell to about $21.5 million.
During the early autumn of 1929 the Cessna company’s board of directors met to decide on a strategy that would help them cope with an increasingly weak and uncertain marketplace. One of the first actions taken by the board was to cancel a contract with the Curtiss Flying Service that had placed orders for hundreds of
Clyde V. Cessna cranks the inertia starter on the Cessna- Roos Design No. 2, powered by a Wright J-4 static, air- cooled radial engine developing 200 horsepower. By 1929 sales of Cessna monoplanes were increasing, particularly the Model AW. (TEXTRON AVIATION)
AUGUST 2018