Page 20 - Volume 11 Number 7

C.V. Cessna
— Wichita’s Aviator
Thanks to a group of aviation enthusiasts in Wichita, Kansas, in 1916 Clyde Vernon Cessna relocated to the “Peerless Princess of the Prairie” to pursue his dream of manufacturing and selling “aeroplanes.”
At the beginning of the 20th Century on the Great Plains of America, wheat was king. It was the Midwest’s bread of life and flourished unchallenged as the leading economic driver of the region. That grain ruled in Kansas, too, and the bustling town of Wichita celebrated the harvest each year with the Wheat Exposition held during the first week of October.
The “War to End All Wars” had been raging in Europe for more than two years, and the death toll shocked the world. From that bloody conflict emerged a new method of warfare that caught (and held) the public’s attention – aerial combat. Sensing a financial opportunity to boost revenue from the exposition, officials invited a popular aviator by the name of Clyde Cessna to make a series of flights during the event.
Clyde had been flying before the public
eye since 1911, and by 1916 was making
a handsome annual profit thanks to
the success of the Cessna Exhibition
Company. More than a century later,
many pilots flying Cessna airplanes
are unaware that the farmer from Rago,
Kansas, had always harbored a desire
to build and sell airplanes of his own
design. Flying was exhilarating, but was
always a risky and dangerous business.
Cessna’s interest in aeronautics went
beyond flying, and in 1913 he was
prepared to take his enthusiasm to the
next level. As early as 1913, he believed that people were ready to buy airplanes and learn to fly. Cessna was a visionary, even to the point of telling the press that one day people would fly in airplanes large enough to enjoy ballroom dancing while crossing the Atlantic Ocean from New York to Paris, nonstop, of course.
18 • KING AIR MAGAZINE
During a three-day visit to Wichita in October 1913, Clyde began to realize that the “Peerless Princess” held great potential as a site to manufacture aircraft. He was so convinced about the location that he held a press conference. Clyde informed the newspaper reporters that he planned not only to build flying machines, but to train pilots at the city’s first flight school. Unfortunately, Cessna’s initial encounter with Wichita’s bureaucracy resulted in his arrest! He was distributing handbills advertising demonstration flights when J.A. Blair, superintendent of street cleaning, charged the aviator with unlawful distribution on the city’s avenues.
Hauled into court, Clyde told W.D. Jochens, the presiding judge, that he was unaware of the ordinance and asked that the charges be dropped. The judge disagreed and fined Clyde one dollar. Adding insult to injury, Jochens suggested that the next time Cessna wished to deliver handbills to the public, he should drop them from an airplane. There was no ordinance against that!
Despite his brief clash with the law, Clyde remained optimistic that Wichita was the best place to make his ambitious dreams come true – all he needed was money and people to help him get started. Three years later, in August 1916, that help arrived in the form of George Sherwood, production manager for the local J.J. Jones Motor Company.
By that time Cessna already had become acquainted with J.J. Jones, whose “Light Six” touring car was produced in a factory north of the city.1
Visiting Clyde at his home in Rago, Sherwood represented a small group of businessmen who were
by Edward H. Phillips
Clyde Vernon Cessna was a farmer, a natural mechanic, automobile salesman extraordi- naire, and a true pioneer aviator. Unlike his close friends Walter H. Beech and Lloyd C. Stearman, Cessna never held a pilot’s license and preferred to pursue his dream of manufacturing and selling airplanes of his own design. His career began in 1911 and spanned another 25 years. He died in 1954 and is remembered as one of the “Founding Fathers” of America’s general aviation industry.
(EDWARD H. PHILLIPS COLLECTION)
JULY 2017