Page 24 - Volume 12, Number 7

In 1929 airshow and aerobatic pilot Art Goebel ordered the special, long-range CPW-6 to compete in the
Los Angeles – Cleveland air race scheduled for September as part of that year’s National Air Races.
Fuel capacity was more than 600 gallons; the Pratt & Whitney radial engine developed 420 horsepower. Poor climb performance with a full fuel load forced Goebel to withdraw his entry. (ROBERT PICKETT COLLECTION/TEXTRON AVIATION)
for exclusive rights to sell Cessna ships in the United States and Canada. To sweeten the deal further, CFS placed orders for 39 monoplanes that swelled the total order backlog to 96 airplanes. There was, however, a catch: CFS stipulated that after orders from other Cessna dealerships were fulfilled, it would become the company’s sole distributor.
Groundbreaking ceremonies were held late in March for the factory. The complex would consist of six buildings totaling 55,000 square feet of floor space compared with only 18,000 square feet at the other facility, where 50 employees were working overtime in a vain attempt to meet delivery schedules. In addition to the new factory, Clyde Cessna unveiled the next generation of his cabin monoplane – the Model DC-6. It was a major improvement over the Model BW, which was no longer in production. Larger, with a spacious cabin and a redesigned cockpit, the DC-6 would have a maximum speed of 130 mph and cost $9,250. Unfortunately, the DC-6’s Achilles’ heel was its powerplant: Cessna’s agreement with CFS essentially obligated him to use the company’s six- cylinder Curtiss R-600 Challenger radial engine rated at only 170 horsepower.
As a result, the DC-6 was woefully underpowered and performance suffered accordingly. Only five were built and were delivered to CFS. Later, four were converted to 225-horsepower Wright J6-7 engines. Fortunately, Cessna engineers had already redesigned the DC-6 into the DC-6A Chief and DC-6B Scout powered by the 300-horsepower Wright J6-9 and the 225-horsepower J6-7, respectively, which increased performance significantly. The DC-6A had a maximum speed of
22 • KING AIR MAGAZINE
160 mph and a range of 600 statute miles, while the DC- 6B cruised at 125 mph. Both versions were awarded an Approved Type Certificate in September 1929.2
In late summer 1929, a mass exodus of equipment and personnel was underway from the Glenn Avenue site to the new factory on Franklin Road. Production of the Model AW and a few DC-6-series ships had reached five airplanes per week, with 47 built during the past 90 days. When equipment was in place, Clyde Cessna expected production to ramp up quickly to at least two aircraft per day, increasing to four per day before accelerating to as much as 25 per week by the end of August. The stakes were very high, indeed, for CFS had placed orders for 545 monoplanes worth more than 5 million dollars, and deliveries were expected to be made on schedule. Although factory workers were turning out four monoplanes per day by August, Cessna estimated that six times that rate would be required to fulfill the massive order by the contract deadline of Oct. 1.
The Cessna Aircraft Company was not the only airframe manufacturer in Wichita being hard-pressed to deliver airplanes to impatient customers. As of June 1929, the Travel Air Company was struggling to build 50 biplanes and cabin monoplanes per week, and Lloyd Stearman’s company was building ships for airmail contracts at a feverish pace, not to mention Swallow, which was turning out biplanes for flight training as fast as possible. In addition, there were five aeronautical investment firms operating in the city as well as three airport engineering companies and one export business. By the summer of 1929, Wichita was home to 16 airframe and six engine manufacturers that were designing, building and selling their products to an aviation-hungry public. Investors had poured more than $10 million into the city’s aeronautic industry and the future looked incredibly bright.
At the root of all that success was the national economy. The “Roarin’ Twenties” had produced more than its share of millionaires, and Wall Street was abuzz
JULY 2018