Page 32 - Volume 14 Issue 3

30 • KING AIR MAGAZINE
MARCH 2020
issued stating that all discussions had ceased, and everyone went back to work with no hard feelings.
The greatest challenge facing Walter Beech and Dwane Wallace centered on what kind of airplane to build for the postwar market. Both men knew that when the fighting ended there would be thousands of war-surplus airplanes such as the Aeronca Chief, Piper Cub, Taylorcraft, Interstate Cadet and Boeing/Stearman PT-13, PT-17 and N2S-series biplanes (to name only a few types), available at bargain prices. They also recognized, however, that many pilots wanted new, modern airplanes, not leftovers from the Great Depression and prewar era.
Beech Aircraft’s answer was the Model 35 Bonanza that had first flown late in 1944 and was in full production by 1946. At Cessna, however, Wallace directed his engineers to focus on the design of all-metal monoplanes beginning with an entry-level model and progressing to larger and more powerful aircraft. His directive led to the simultaneous development of three monoplanes: The Model 120, Model 140 and the Model 190. Wallace had hoped that the “Family Car of the Air,” also known as Project P-370, would become its premier, postwar product aimed at competing with the Bonanza, but he was also well aware that back east in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, the Piper Aircraft Corporation was designing a four-place monoplane dubbed the PA-6 Skysedan that was capable of speeds approaching 160 mph (Piper eventually canceled the PA-6 design and only two prototypes were built).
As a result, Cessna officials axed the P-370 project to concentrate on another concept known as the P-780. Although the prototype was built and flown strictly as a proof-of-concept design, it embodied as many parts and assemblies as possible from the Model T-50 while adhering closely
to the proven layout of the prewar Airmaster. In only six months, the first airplane went from the drawing board to first flight. When unveiled, it looked like an enlarged version of the Airmaster but with a larger cabin, more comfort and power, and it sat on Cessna’s new spring-steel main landing gear.1
The prototype featured a welded steel tube fuselage and sheathed in fabric made taught with dope, but the cantilever wing was all- metal using Alclad aluminum sheet. Powered by a seven-cylinder Jacobs R-755 static, air-cooled radial engine rated at 245 horsepower, the sole P-780 made its first flight in December 1944 (same month as the Beechcraft Bonanza). By 1945 the ship was officially designated Cessna Model 190. Production airplanes would feature an all-metal fuselage of semi-monocoque construction and complete streamlining from propeller spinner to the rudder. A second airplane was built that featured all of these refinements and took to the skies in October 1945 with a 300 horsepower Jacobs R-755 powerplant. Early test flights revealed a maximum speed of 180 mph, and it looked as though Cessna had a worthy competitor to the Beechcraft Bonanza without the weight penalty and complexity of a retractable landing gear.
Development continued and a third pre-production prototype was built featuring a seven-cylinder Continental W-670 radial engine rated at 240 horsepower (first flight was June 1946). Both the Jacobs- and Continental-powered ships possessed good performance, and it was decided that both types would be manufactured – the Model 190 (Continental engine) and the Model 195 (Jacobs engine). The Civil Aeronautics Authority issued Approved Type Certificate 790 for the Model 195 in June 1947 that also applied to the Model 190 that was