Cirrus, with its SR20, sets the style for revitalisation of the USGA industry-
-while Cessna delivers on its promise to put piston singles back in production
New-production piston-singles are being taken off the endangered-species list as designs old and new become available.Graham Warwick/Atlanta
CESSNA WILL DELIVER the first new-production Model 172 Skyhawk to a customer in January 1997, fulfilling a promise made when the USA introduced legislation to revitalise its general-aviation (GA) industry. The company cannot alone fulfil the intent of that legislation, however, which is to rebuild an industry which, 20 years ago, sold 14,000 piston-powered aircraft a year and which produced fewer than 600 in 1995.
Cessna was, and likely will be again, the largest producer of piston-powered aircraft in the USA, but the General Aviation Revitalisation Act of 1994 will be judged a success only if it draws other manufacturers, and newer products, into the single-engined piston-aircraft market.
Product-liability reform
As a fierce advocate of the product-liability reform which was essential for revitalisation, Cessna has been first to respond because it has put existing designs, with improvements, back into production. The architects of the legislation, however, foresaw the future of the industry in new aircraft which offer better performance, safety and value.
Usefulness has replaced excitement as the criterion against which the success of a GA aircraft will be judged, believes Alan Klapmeier, president of Cirrus Design. This company and its aircraft, the SR20, are promoted as models of what the revitalisation act was intended to achieve - a new manufacturer with an advanced product, re-invigorating the GA market.
Klapmeier argues that the SR20, although slightly slower than the Cessna 172, is a more useable aircraft because of its quieter, roomier, automobile-style cabin and it has features such as a large flat-panel map display and an air-to-ground telephone built into the pilot's headset. The aircraft is also safer, he believes, because of its standard ballistic recovery-parachute.
Cessna is not unduly concerned, at least initially, about competition from all-new designs. Cirrus will not certificate the four-seat, all-composite SR20 until the fourth quarter of 1997. Lancair, likewise, will not certificate its slightly larger LC40, also an all-composite four-seater, until the third quarter of 1997 at the earliest. Both companies' initial production plans - each hopes to be building 250 aircraft a year by 1999 - pale alongside Cessna's stated intent to produce 2,000 aircraft a year by 1998.
Cessna was careful not simply to restart production of the "old" 172, 182 and 206 piston singles - although there was a ready market for the existing aircraft - but to incorporate improvements to the engines, avionics, systems and interiors, which increases their perceived value and offsets higher prices. In fact, the company argues, the 172, at about $134,500, has increased in price less than comparable products in the decade since it was last produced.
That achievement is due largely to the way in which the company builds aircraft at its new single-engined piston production plant in Independence, Kansas. Although stored tooling was retrieved and refurbished for use at the new factory, the production concept was totally changed. Instead of an assembly line, there are team cells responsible for sections of the aircraft, such as the forward fuselage, or wing.
Within cells, assembly workers are cross-trained to perform each other's tasks. Cross-training between cells and between aircraft types are the next steps. The result, Cessna says, has been a substantial reduction in the number of manhours required to build an aircraft. Production of the 172 began at Independence in July and the first aircraft was rolled out in early November. Production of Model 182 Skylanes began in September, and the first aircraft will be delivered in February 1997.
Cessna's larger models
Cessna will also produce the larger Model 206 Stationair and T206 Turbo Stationair at the Independence factory, beginning in the third quarter of 1997. Flight-testing of re-engined prototypes has "-exceeded expectations", the company says, and, as it did with the 172 and 182, Cessna will build a handful of pilot-production 206s at its Wichita, Kansas, plant, to prove the refurbished tooling before relocating it to Independence.
When the factory is running at its full production rate of 2,000 aircraft a year, scheduled to be achieved by the end of 1997, 172s will make up about half the output. The 172 accounts for about 65% of Cessna's single-piston backlog, the larger 182 about 15% and the utility 206 about 20%.
Restarting piston-single production has enabled Cessna to reshape its relationships with suppliers, enabling it to reduce its inventory costs by requiring just-in-time delivery of expensive items such as avionics and engines. Avionics supplier AlliedSignal Aerospace has a permanent presence at Independence, where it receives, stores, tests and assembles complete ship sets of avionics for installation as aircraft come off the line. Cessna is not billed for the avionics until each aircraft has been test-flown and received its certificate of airworthiness.
Cessna's sister company, Textron Continental, is responsible for delivering fully built-up engines ready for bolting on to aircraft as they roll off the line. A "supplier city" has been set up in a hangar at Independence where vendor components are warehoused until required on the assembly line. In addition, detail parts for the piston singles are fabricated at other Cessna plants in economical batches, but delivered to the final-assembly plant as required. All these measures reduce Cessna's inventory costs.
The Independence workforce has largely been recruited locally, and will reach 300 by the end of 1996, and 900 by the end of 1997, when the full 2,000-aircraft production rate will be achieved. Cessna plans to build almost 600 Skyhawks in 1997, plus 300 Skylanes. Production of the 172 will increase to "at least" 1,000 in 1998, plus some 600 182s and 400 206s.
Inevitably, Cessna is already looking beyond its existing designs at its next generation of piston singles and its thinking is likely to be influenced by the new aircraft from companies such as Cirrus. The Duluth, Minnesota-based company intends the SR20 to be the first in a family of new GA aircraft. The initial aircraft, priced at $144,500, competes with the 172 and already the company is planning a more powerful version to compete with the 182.
Cirrus has flown two prototypes of the SR20, powered by a 150kW (200hp) Continental giving a cruise speed of 160kt (295km/h). A certification flight-test aircraft is scheduled to be flown in the second quarter of 1997. Cirrus, meanwhile, is gearing up for production and has began construction of a manufacturing plant in Grand Forks, North Dakota, where composite components for the SR20, including the wing, will be fabricated.
The aircraft will be assembled at Duluth, but Cirrus has undertaken that assembly and flight tests of a future design, designated the SRX, will take place at Grand Forks. State and local governments at both locations have been instrumental in helping former kitplane maker Cirrus arrange funding for its venture into light-aircraft production.
Similarly, Redmond, Oregon-based Lancair is making the transition from kit-built to factory-produced aircraft. Its first production machine is the LC40, a competitor for the Cessna 182. Powered by a 230kW Continental IO-550, the low-wing, tricycle-gear, LC40 is based on Lancair's ES four-seat kitplane design. An aerodynamic prototype of the LC40 was flown in July, and the certification flight-test aircraft is expected to be flown by January 1997. The all-composite machine is priced at $180,000, with instrument-flight-rules avionics, compared with $190,600 for a similarly equipped 182.
The LC40 has a cruise speed of 190kt, although Lancair is looking at using a 225kW engine to reduce noise. A version with a 115kW power plant is planned for the flight-training market, to compete with the 172 and SR20. Lancair will build the LC40 at a new factory being constructed at Redmond's Bend airport.
Healthy order book
The company says that it holds 56 orders for the LC40, and plans to manufacture 140 in the first full year of production. Cirrus holds more than 125 deposits on SR20s, which it is now converting to firm orders "with about a 55% conversion rate," says Klapmeier.
New designs are also on the way from companies such as Diamond Aircraft and New Meyers Aircraft, both of which are working on new four-seaters. While the numbers are still small compared with Cessna's planned output, they are a sign that the GA-revitalisation legislation may yet have the desired effect.
Source: Flight International
