Page 30 - Volume 15 Number 2

IN HISTORY
hours of June 6, 1944, acting as the spearhead of a massive Allied force invasion.
When 1943 arrived, Cessna management was looking to the future when demand for the military T-50 would inevitably decline as Germany, Japan and Italy were defeated. That year the Allies were in ascendancy across every front as Germany was battered by bombs and weakened by fighting on two fronts; Japan was on the defensive throughout the Pacific and Italy was on the brink of collapse.
Meanwhile, back in Wichita as hundreds of Cessna twin-engine trainers continued to roll off the assembly lines, the engineering department was working on an-
other airplane that could help the Army transport supplies to soldiers fighting at the European and Pa- cific fronts. It would be built of non- strategic materials, possess good overall performance and be capable of operating from short, unimproved airstrips that were commonplace in a war zone.
Designated Project P-260 and nicknamed by Cessna as the Loadmaster, the design featured the company’s characteristic all- wood, full-cantilever wing mounted atop a welded steel tube fuselage. The conventional landing gear was fully retractable, and two Pratt & Whitney R-1340S3-H1 radial engines that each produced 600 horsepower (takeoff rating). The forward fuselage section around
the cockpit and the wing nacelles were the only assemblies that used aluminum alloy – the fuselage was covered in fabric doped and shrunk to fit. The wings were sheathed in plywood as were the horizontal and vertical stabilizers. The flight control surfaces were made of welded steel tubing covered with fabric.
The Army Air Corps like the Loadmaster and assigned the des- ignation “C-106” to the high-wing monoplane. The prototype made its first flight January 1943 and was the largest Cessna airplane built up to that time. As the flight test program progressed, the engineers needed a pilot with experience flying large aircraft, and they had just the right man in mind. “Deed” Levy, well known and a highly experienced pilot for the Boeing-Wichita Divi- sion, was called in to help evaluate the airplane’s handling character- istics. Levy’s suggestions coupled with those of Air Corps pilots led to construction of an improved, second prototype, the C-106A. It featured three-blade propellers, geared en- gines and a redesigned fuselage that included a larger cargo door to bet- ter facilitate loading and unloading operations.
With a wingspan of 64.7 feet and a length of 51.1 feet, the C-106A weighed in empty at 9,000 pounds and could be loaded up to a maxi- mum takeoff weight of 14,000 pounds. Maximum speed was pro- jected to be 195 mph. The C-106A took to the skies over Wichita April 9, 1943, and won Cessna Aircraft Company a contract for 500 of the transports. Unfortunately, the Air Corps later decided it could not justify manufacturing the airplane due to high priority for materials to build other aircraft. The contract was canceled and both the C-106 and C-106A were scrapped at the factory.
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28 • KING AIR MAGAZINE
FEBRUARY 2021