The Cessna 206, a stretched 182/205/210, has a nose that’s perhaps a little too prominent for some folks. So when Cessna decided to give its backcountry operators an extra passenger seat by stretching the 206, the effect was very odd, like looking at a 206 in a stretchy funhouse mirror. But the plane made all kinds of sense in other ways. The 45-inch stretch at first gave a single extra seat in back, which was later joined by a second additional passenger section.
The lengthening also gave operators a coveted new feature, a forward baggage storage area, allowing more passenger bags (because there were more passengers) to be stuffed in front. An extra passenger or two might not seem like that big a deal, but to charter operators, it’s huge, expanding margins substantially.
After a few years, Cessna gave the 207 a turbocharged Continental engine of increasing power and reliability. Turbocharging was, again, a feature prized by charter and tour operators, as it gave better high-altitude performance and takeoff margins.
These commercial operators voted with their wallets for power over beauty. Cessna built 624 207s in a 15-year period between 1969 and 1984, and true to predictions, they were overwhelming bought and operated by short-haul charter companies that could fill the seats and still get where they were going.
