Clyde Cessna

A Kansas Portrait

Clyde Cessna was 47 years old and had already worked on several airplanes when in 1925, Walter Beech and Lloyd Stearman offered him a partnership in the Wichita Travel-Air Company. Cessna accepted and served as president of the company for two years, but a disagreement with his partners over monoplane versus biplane design eventually caused him to leave and form his own company.

He was determined to build a single wing plane that could outperform any biplane. When Cessna finished that task, during late 1927, his model "AW" as it was known, could reach speeds of 145 miles per hour and remain in the air for more than seven hours. It was innovative and a success.

But the very success of Cessna's new model led into financial difficulties. Over-extended, he went bankrupt in the depression, his business closing down completely in 1931. Three years later, Cessna re-opened his Wichita plant. When he sold the business to his nephews to return to farming in 1936, Cessna's company was on a firm footing. Clyde Cessna died in 1954 at the age of 74, but the company he left behind is now one of the largest makers of small aircraft in the world.