First Flight Tuesday - Cessna 172 Skyhawk

"Jayhawk Jake" (jayhawkjake) 12/17/2013 at 12:45 • Filed to: FIRST FLIGHT FRIDAY, PLANELOPNIK

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If you had to guess, what would you say is the most widely produced airplane in history? The DC-3? The P-51? Actually, it's the Cessna 172, and it's not even a close race.

The ubiquitous single engine trainer, over 60,000 Cessna 172s have been produced since the first flight in 1955. No, that's not a typo: sixty thousand of these basic high wing, single engine, fixed gear airplanes have rolled off the assembly lines in Wichita, KS and Independence, KS, with a few built under licence in France.

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The next closest aircraft by production numbers? The Ilyushin IL-2 fighter with 36,183 total production. Seeing as the 172 is still being produced, there's a decent chance that by the time it is retired from production it will have doubled the production numbers of any aircraft in history, a title that is likely to stand for a long time.

So why have so many been produced? The 172 can be considered the perfect training aircraft. It features a high wing, which is great for visibility and stability. Tricycle gear makes landing the 172 a breeze. It has seating capacity for 4, meaning flight instructors can take 2 or 3 students up at once. With a range of about 700 nautical miles, it's also very practical for weekend flights or the famous $100 hamburger.

The 172 is extremely popular for flight schools and with a huge used market it's a very easy aircraft for the private pilot to obtain and operate. It doesn't really hit any superlatives, but as much as any other machine it does the job it was designed for better than anything else.

The 172 certainly deserves recognition as one of the world's great airplanes, and if you fly today there's more than a decent chance that your pilot has piloted one of these classic general aviation icons. Heck, even I've flown one of them, and I'm not a pilot!

HammerheadFistpunch > Jayhawk Jake 12/17/2013 at 12:49

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What blows me away about these planes...aside from their longevity...is their stubborn old fashionedness. That engine is so incredibly ancient! but it works, though we really REALLY need to get off leaded gas in the skies.

Jayhawk Jake > HammerheadFistpunch 12/17/2013 at 13:03

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I think we are less than 10 years away from a 100LL alternative

Certification costs really hold back small airplane engines. There isn't as big of a market for them so companies don't really have sufficient incentive to do anything radically new, just updates to existing engines.

Plane makers have been moving towards diesel/jet-a powered piston engines, but slowly because it's a relatively small market with relatively small profit margins compared to larger aircraft.

HammerheadFistpunch > Jayhawk Jake 12/17/2013 at 13:08

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I get that, i mean...how many f150's will roll off the line this month? probably around 60,000 the idea of an air cooled, lead powered 360 cubic inch pushrod boxer 4 still blows my mind a little. And that its only 160 hp...for 360 cubic inches running without cats!

Jayhawk Jake > HammerheadFistpunch 12/17/2013 at 13:12

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The O-360 was first certified in 1955 . It really is insane to think about how old that engine is.

Blame certification though: It's a heck of a lot easier to update the engine on the same cert basis than it would be to certify a whole new one.

Another great example of certification keeping old technology around is the King Air. You literally could not certify a King Air today, it violates a bunch of regulations put in place after it received certification. That's what makes it such a valuable aircraft for Beechcraft, no one can really compete with it using an aircraft designed today.

HammerheadFistpunch > Jayhawk Jake 12/17/2013 at 13:18

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We have a beachcraft in our air med fleet. Cool planes.

Chris Clarke > Jayhawk Jake 12/17/2013 at 13:32

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What's the cheapest new plane that Cessna still makes? $289,000! $289k for a plane designed in the 50's, that can't carry 4 adults and doesn't go very fast. With the market shifting to big dollars in corporate jets, I see Cessna hanging the single trainer out to dry.

Jayhawk Jake > Chris Clarke 12/17/2013 at 13:38

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I don't see Cessna hanging it out to dry.

$289,000 isn't enough . The plane still sold out this year, frankly Cessna should be charging more and making more of them. So long as there's money in the single engine market, Cessna will make them and for the time being there's enough to keep it going. Engineering effort and R&D dollars will continue to go largely towards the business jet side because it makes more money, but it's not coming at the expense of the single engine side.

magman007 > HammerheadFistpunch 12/17/2013 at 13:56

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I loved that little IO360L2A

still remember the designation from private pilot.

Chris Clarke > Jayhawk Jake 12/17/2013 at 14:05

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Cessna has traditionally owned the flight training market and built it profitability on the idea that if you taught people to fly in basic aircraft they would upgrade to higher margin models. Now dropping the 162 Skycatcher and pricing the Skywawk at $300k -$400k is to high for most flight training markets. The original Skyhawk was only $77,000 in todays dollars. Selling out of 172s when you're only delivering barely 250 piston aircraft total a year doesn't mean too much. I think its pretty obvious that Cessna is shifting their focus away from the training market and towards corporate aircraft and that might be a good thing, at least to keep their business successful, but I don't think its a good thing for the small piston general aviation market.

Could you imagine $77k for a brand new plane!

Jayhawk Jake > Chris Clarke 12/17/2013 at 14:21

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Yes, the 172 is very expensive today, but that's because it's not the same market.

Cessna used to pump them off the line to private buyers. We couldn't build them fast enough. There were huge lots of planes sitting outside waiting to be picked up.

The training market is still the big market for the 172. Flight schools gobble them up. We make a lot less than we used to, back in 2006 nearly 400 of them were delivered compared to a mere 140 last year, and the numbers used to be closer to 4 digits per year.

Cessna has been focused on the business jet market for years . It's a much bigger market these days. It may not be great for the light aircraft GA market, but there isn't as much of a market there as there once was. The real market there is used aircraft, with 60,000 172's produced it's much easier and cheaper to get a used one than a new one, and there's more than enough inventory to support the market without new construction planes.

Chris Clarke > Jayhawk Jake 12/17/2013 at 14:46

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The market is a conundrum. The used aircraft market is an excellent point, but I think that can only be a temporary. Hopefully the surplus of quality used aircraft will be enough incentive to create pilots and get existing pilot's to become owners. And in turn that will eventually spawn more new aircraft customers and bring prices down.

Jayhawk Jake > Chris Clarke 12/17/2013 at 14:50

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Exactly. If used market stocks begin to dry up there will be pent up demand for new airplanes, and the new market can grow again

WhiskeyGolf > Jayhawk Jake 12/17/2013 at 16:59

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I wonder how many are still flying? Given most aircraft's longevity, especially with proper maintenance, it's interesting that so many are still made today.

Jayhawk Jake > WhiskeyGolf 12/17/2013 at 17:04

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I'm guessing it's in the 10's of thousands. Probably a good 70% of them are still flying.

grahamrh808 > Jayhawk Jake 12/25/2013 at 21:34

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I took some flight lessons, all in a 172. Seemed to be a great airplane for the job, but MAN was I surprised by how simple the thing was! I was flying an early-2000s 172s, and even in that, it was like rolling down the runway in a car from the 70s, and then you take off!