Classic Cessna 180

Designing the Cessna 180

Former Cessna engineer and test pilot Harry Clements shares his personal history of designing the Cessna 180. As you might expect, not everything went smoothly during this bush plane's development.
Aviation books

12 aviation books I like

Here is a brief list of my favorite aviation books, making special note of the practical hands-on airplane knowledge they impart. And what’s more important, they’re all in easy-to-understand English. Do you have a favorite aviation book? Add it to our list.
Me262

WWII Watson’s Whizzers

It was a mission late in the war. Lieutenant Robert Anspach was flying cover in his P-47 Thunderbolt for a group of B-26 Marauders near the Messerschmitt factory airfield at Lechfeld, Germany. From out of nowhere an enemy airplane rocketed past, blasting off a few rounds. It looked like nothing they’d seen before. Ever.
Colored Air Circus sign

Blackbirds and the Colored Air Circus of 1931

More than two decades after the Wright brothers made history, only one African American, Bessie Coleman, possessed an international pilot’s license. That didn’t sit well with William Powell, who sought to expose more African Americans to the art of flying. In the process he inspired blacks to take a greater role in aviation, and along the way he formed history’s first all-black aerobatic team.
50s Cessna 172

Tracking the conception, birth and life of the 172

The author, an engineer at Cessna in the 1950s, helped to design the legendary Cessna 172--but didn't realize it until much later. Read Harry Clements' fascinating story of how the iconic Skyhawk came to be.
Tenzing-Hillary Airport

Crappy runways

It’s known as the Pucker Factor, and everyone contracts it at that particular airport where, frankly, it sucks to land. Phil Scott reviews some of the worst, from Catalina Island to the Himalayas. Read his list, then add your own nominees.

Bob Hoover and I share a secret

Did this sixteen year old notice what no one else did--the great Bob Hoover making a mistake at the Reading Air Show? New author Cragg Utman tells the story, including his conversation with Hoover years later.
Cessna 620

Cessna’s 620 – the stillborn prodigy

The Cessna 620 was unique because it was a small version of the modern airliner of the day, sized to carry half a dozen or so executives in luxury accommodations, above the weather, in pressurized, air conditioned comfort. Why did it get canceled? Harry Clements worked on the project, and shares his opinion.
Engine stopped in a Cessna

Mnemonic Devices: words to fly by

Who can forget how much there is to remember piloting an airplane? FARs, cockpit procedures, and a bunch of other stuff I can’t recall right now. To make it worse, after age 26, the brain starts shrinking to the tune of two grams of tissue each year. Sometimes I’m just happy to remember to put on socks in the morning. Luckily for pilots, there were the ancient Greeks.
Piper's Comanche 400

When was general aviation’s golden age?

What era would you consider general aviation’s golden years? A fellow pilot asked me this question recently and it was quite thought provoking. Today’s glass cockpits, avionics, and electronic charts are wondrous devices that make technology from the 1990s seem positively quaint. But what about the exciting and innovating days of the 1950s and 1960s, or the early 1970s when gas was still cheap, airplanes were abundant, and the interiors oh so groovy?
Palacios Airport

My time machine: a trip to a WWII training ground

I crossed mid- field, announced my intentions, and entered the pattern on the 45 for runway 13. Runway 13 is an expansive 5000 feet long and 150 feet wide. More than enough needed for my rented 1985 Piper Warrior. More than enough indeed, after all, this airfield wasn’t built for my Warrior but rather for a warrior of another type.
Lincoln crew including George

My friend George, the Stuka pilot

In late 1952, the sole Royal Australian Air Force contribution to the defence of Darwin was two Wirraways, a Lincoln bomber and a Dakota. A few weeks before my first arrival at Darwin, one of the Lincoln pilots, Warrant Officer Jack Turnbull, a former Spitfire pilot, wrote off a Wirraway in a crosswind landing. The Wirraway was tricky to land in crosswinds and Jack had lost control and ground-looped seconds after touch down. He exited stage left quickly as it caught on fire.
Hurricane

Hurricane, inside

"This remarkable account of a remarkable flight first appeared in the January, 1945, issue of Air Facts. Hurricanes haven't changed a bit but hurricane research flying sure has." –Ed. The airplane we use is a B-17, but it's a lot different from most 17s. The turrets are off and so are the guns and the armament, and instead there is a lot of test equipment that we don't talk about out loud.
Sopwith Camel

Power to the people

Birds did it. Bees did it. Even uneducated fleas did it. But every time a man strapped wings to his arms and stepped into the void, he simply ended up splattering himself. It felt as though winged creatures mocked mankind for mocking them. Then one day in 1809 a man stood up and did what any wealthy guy does when he keeps losing a game: he changed the rules.
TWA DC-4

Osmosis aviation

Back in February of 1958, my father and I took Leighton Collins’ first Cessna 182 back to the factory in Wichita, where it was traded for a brand new Cessna 182 Skylane. I was eight years old and the adventure was the first time my father had taken me beyond local flights, usually from Linden Airport in New Jersey. It was also a gamble for him
Hal Shevers

Too bad you’ll never be a pilot

I heard that many, many times as a young man. You see, I was born with 20/400 vision in my right eye. Today we call that a lazy eye condition. It could have been corrected before the age of five if only they had known. In school when I took a vocational aptitude test, pilot came out on top. Surprisingly enough, minister and funeral director came out on the bottom. I wonder how many pilots would like to make their avocation the church or a funeral parlor? So, I was doomed to a life behind a desk, or so I thought.
Hal Shevers

Speaking our language

Look, I rarely fly during the wintertime. VFR, warm blooded, no way to get to Lincoln Airport except on the motorcycle, that’s me. Instead, I—nerd alert—build model airplanes and—double-nerd alert—read and reread The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright (Volumes One and Two). Don’t hate me—I led a wasted childhood.
Hal Shevers

Feature: Personal Air Transportation in the Good Old Days

Note to the reader: This is the first chapter of a book that I started but will probably never finish. It was to be about the history of general aviation as seen through the eyes of two Collins boys, Richard and Leighton. Richard wasn’t born in the time covered by this first chapter but I have my father’s logs and papers to use in covering this slice of the good old days.