The most-produced airplane of all time, the Cessna 172 Skyhawk, has been such a phenomenal sales success because it was pretty good at everything and not particularly bad at anything. In other walks of life, that might have made it mediocre, but the 172 is anything but. It’s a star, albeit one that’s fine shining less brightly than some other heavenly objects.
Still, it helped create a presence in the world of aviation for Cessna that was so great, the company’s name took over from the Piper Cub as a generic moniker for “airplane.” And let me go on record as saying the 172 isn’t solely responsible. There are a lot of other Cessnas that flew countless hours at countless large- and small-town airports over the years, cementing in the public’s consciousness the image of a Cessna as being what a small plane, any small plane, looked like.
