Mon, Aug 25, 2008
One of the more enjoyable aspects of doing the "Oshkosh Crawl"
is the chance to catch up with the movers and shakers of aviation.
And few of those movers and shakers seem to have as much to be
happy about as Cessna CEO Jack Pelton, who is leading some of the
industry's most watched programs.
It was a good week for Cessna... Just a year after the bird's
intro, Cessna unveiled the first production Model 162 SkyCatcher
light sport aircraft, complete with a production interior, as the
event got underway.
The unveiling comes one year from the date, and at the same
venue where Cessna officially launched the light sport aircraft
program. Since the launch, Cessna has taken orders for more than
1,000 SkyCatchers and completed three airframes for the
program’s development.
Cessna says the 162 prototype and the first production aircraft
have accumulated more than 90 hours for ASTM (American Society for
Testing and Materials) flight testing, which will be completed
later this year. A third airframe serves as an ASTM test article
and has started static testing. The primarily aluminum aircraft
will meet ASTM standard F2245 for the light sport category.
Pelton also updated progress on their "BIG JET" Columbus
program. Columbus is the company's newest and largest variant of
the Citation business jet line. Pelton reports excellent progress
on t he program, even better sales activity (some 50% of which is
foreign...), and that the effort to bring this aircraft to market
is an extensive one.
On the Cessna 350 and 400 front, Pelton reports that the
airplane seems to be impressing them in that the aircraft is "even
better" than they had first thought and that as they learn more
about the aircraft, that it will become a more visible part of
their marketing efforts.
All in all, 2008 is being fairly kind to Cessna, while other
players in the industry are dealing with less than sterling
scenarios.
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