If the Centurion represented the pinnacle of single-engine achievement for Cessna, the Cardinal represents the company coming up against the future and a marketplace of customers that was changing slower than its designs were. As you might know, Cessna envisioned the Cardinal, a four-seat, high-cantilever-winged, stabilator-equipped, fixed-gear (the retractable version came later) personal airplane, as a replacement for the 172 Skyhawk. In contrast to the launch of the 172, the coming-out party for the Cardinal was a disaster. It was close to a dealer revolt. The Cardinal had teething problems, true, but the biggest one, which necessitated the redesign of the horizontal tail, was quickly accomplished. The plane itself was a delight. Fun to fly, easy to get into and back out of, and it is one of the prettiest airplanes that Cessna or anyone else, for that matter, has ever made. But for all the Skyhawk lacked in sex appeal, it somehow more than made up for it in its homey and wildly utilitarian way. The Cardinal did all right, with Cessna building more than 4,000 of them over a 10-year span ending in 1977, but the Skyhawk never skipped a beat, maintaining its popularity through the introduction of the Cardinal and beyond, to the present day, in fact. First flight: July 15, 1966. Number built: 4,295. Status: Out of production.
Cessna 177 Cardinal
Key Takeaways:
- The Cessna Cardinal was envisioned as a modern, four-seat replacement for the popular 172 Skyhawk, but its launch was met with a disastrous dealer revolt and initial design problems.
- Despite being praised for its aesthetics and enjoyable flying characteristics, the Cardinal ultimately failed to surpass the utilitarian Skyhawk's enduring popularity, with over 4,000 units built before production ceased in 1977.
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