Cessna 195

"Cessna 195" by bomberpilot -- CC BY-SA 2.0

The Cessna 195 is one of the oldest planes in our lineup, and its beauty is inextricably tied both to the technology of the era and Cessna engineers' ingenious attempts to find ways around those technologies. The look of the Cessna 195---dubbed by the company the "Businessliner"---is dominated by a handful of features that are impossible to miss. First is the big seven-cylinder Jacobs 300 radial engine up front (and the gorgeous annular cowling that surrounds it), which gave the plane a lot of juice and a serious attitude. Second, the plane is unmistakably and unapologetically a taildragger, which was by the mid-1940s, when the nosewheel began to dominate, as much a statement of philosophy as a configuration choice.

Photo by Florent Peraudeau

Though inspired by designs from the 1930s, the 195 didn't fly until after the war, in 1945. As such, it's an amalgam of prewar thinking and WWII-era materials. Despite its vintage (even then) radial engine and taildragger configuration, the plane features modern sheet-metal construction both inside and out. Another signature feature of the 195 is its beautiful cantilever (strut-less) wing, the last high-wing Cessna to go without struts until the Cessna Cardinal in the late 1960s. While the '40s were giving birth to new music and new fashions, the interior design of the 195 is Art Deco classic. Featuring beautiful branding details and a number of luxury-level flourishes, the generous cabin of the 195 is done up with an eye to craftsmanship and beauty as opposed to the bare-bones look of Cessnas to come.

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J BeckettWriter