Page 26 - Volume 14 Number 9

IN HISTORY
24 • KING AIR MAGAZINE
SEPTEMBER 2020
Beginning in 1941 and continuing through 1944, the Cessna Aircraft Company manufactured 5,399 twin-engine advanced trainers, including this AT-17 Bobcat photographed on a post-production test flight. (Robert J. Pickett Collection)
from 200 in July 1940 to more than 500 and then 700 by November. Although many of the people were Kansas natives, a growing number hailed from every state in the union as Cessna, Beech Aircraft Corporation, Boeing Wichita Division and many other small companies in the city and surrounding areas clamored for more workers to build the wings of war.
The Air Corps accepted its first AT-8 on schedule and the first Crane 1 flew north in December. Before the end of the year the RCAF had ordered another 360 trainers bringing the Crane I backlog to 540 aircraft. In May 1941, the 100th Crane I was delivered and Cessna’s payroll had increased to 1,900 hard-working men and women. To keep pace with growing demand for the AT-8 and Crane I, in June Wallace announced a third expansion program to provide an additional 3,750-square feet of space for woodworking and assembly. The building was completed in August.
The new facility was humming with activity when in the autumn 1941 the War Department placed an order for 450 Cessna trainers designated AT-17 powered by Jacobs R-755-9 engines. In keeping with the practice of naming military airplanes, such as Hellcat, Wildcat, Corsair and Flying Fortress, Wallace held a contest to choose a name for the AT-17. Hundreds of suggestions were submitted, but the winning entry was “Bobcat.”1
By December 1941, the Cessna factory complex had been expanded yet again, this time by 20,000 square feet, bringing total floor space to 360,000 square feet. In the wake of Japan’s surprise attack on the United States Navy base at Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, on December 7, commercial production of the Airmaster and T-50 slowed dramatically and had ceased altogether by June 1942 as the company prepared for all-out war production.2
One month before the pivotal naval battle of Midway in June, the Cessna factory was placed on a 24-hour work schedule, six days a week. When Christmas rolled around that December, the company had built 1,839 AT-17 and Crane I trainers. The two airplanes were identical except that the RCAF ships had slightly different electrical systems. Only the early production AT-17 airplanes were delivered with Hamilton-Standard constant-speed propellers. Hartzell wood propellers equipped the vast majority of the AT-17 fleet in an effort to save steel and aluminum for combat aircraft.
In 1942 the RCAF ordered another 550 trainers but because of America’s entry into World War II, only 182 were delivered to the Canadians. The remaining 368 were built as AT-17A, AT-17C, AT-17D and UC-78C, differing only in minor equipment. The first C-78 airplanes were built in 1942 for light cargo duty before the designation