Caravan

Cessna's Swiss Army Knife with Wings!

LeRoy Cook, J.D. Lewis

• Publisher: Aviation Supplies & Academics, Inc.
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781619549432
• Topic: Technik & Maschinenbau
• Subtopic: Luftfahrt

Known for being one of the most versatile and robust aircraft ever produced, the Cessna Caravan has become the DC-3 workhorse of our current times—as Cessna nicknames it, a "Swiss Army Knife with wings"! This pilot favorite does it all, on land or sea: bush flying, geophysical exploration and mapping, patrol, air ambulance, military, sightseeing, corporate, commuter airline, skydiving, cargo, missionary and humanitarian flying, and much more. The Caravan's almost legendary reputation of safety and reliability remains a comforting constant for those who affectionately refer to the aircraft as their "flying SUV, " "Suburban with a turbine, " or "aerial truck."

From its coverage of the Caravan's colorful history to its innovative-yet-conventional aircraft systems, to interesting pilot stories, tips, and beautiful photography throughout, Lewis and Cook's book is both entertaining and enlightening—Caravan edutainment at its best! The chapters parallel flight phases on a typical mission, and are chock-full of experience, insights and trivia from preflight to postflight—a truly amazing story for all pilots interested in this legendary powerhouse.

Every chapter contains a special topic along with the related phase of flight, comprised of Lewis and Cook's coverage of pertinent Caravan characteristics, or stories told by pilots flying Caravans in unusual circumstances and faraway places. Two sections of color photography are included, and multiple appendices with further information on specifications and industry contacts for Caravan owners, as well as extensive footnotes and bibliography. Foreword by Steve Stafford.

Chapter 1

Preflight

“Plan the flight and fly the plan.”

—Ancient Aviator Proverb

The Caravan is Born!

The advent of the largest single-engine airplane in the history of the Cessna Aircraft Company began just before Christmas of 1982 when Cessna unwrapped the B-I-G secret of its “skunk works” division: the Caravan! It was indeed a very merry Christmas that year for both Cessna and aviation in general for a new aerial workhorse—the DC-3 of our era—was born!

The Caravan was an enigma. Innovative yet conventional. New school yet old school. Single-engine yet propjet. Originally designed to be the ultimate bushmaster airplane, the Caravan has been turning heads ever since its first flight, not just due to its enormous size but also because it was the first time that a major airplane manufacturer had horse-powered a single-engine production airplane with a turbine engine. That was truly revolutionary!

Actually, it was amidst the energy crisis of 1975 that Cessna first had its vision of a turbine-powered utility-type single-engine airplane. In a word it optimally fit Clyde Vernon Cessna’s earliest visions of aircraft designs based on strength, durability and performance.¹

Not only was the Caravan revolutionary, it was brave. To introduce an all-new utility aircraft in the financially rugged ’80s, as the aircraft manufacturing industry was losing altitude, was, well, gutsy! These were the times of layoffs. Even as the leader in general aviation aircraft manufacturing, Cessna’s workforce spiraled down from 18,000 to 3,000 by the mid-80s. It makes sense that such a rugged utility airplane would come out of these rugged, utilitarian times! Remember, it would still be 12 long years from the Caravan’s introduction until President Bill Clinton signed the historic General Aviation Revitalization Act into law—and, fittingly, with Cessna’s own chairman Russ Meyer looking over the president’s shoulder in the worth-a-thousand-words photograph.

The idea for an all-purpose, turbine-powered, rugged, bush-type utility plane officially hit the engineers’ drawing boards at Cessna on November 20, 1981.² The “Dream Team” who designed the Caravan includes some heavyweights in both U.S. and Canadian aviation. For starters, Cessna’s legendary director and industry leader Dwane Wallace, nephew of Clyde Cessna and nicknamed “Mr. General Aviation” by his peers, helped see to it that the Caravan was designed with very long-range fuel tanks and very strong and forgiving landing gear for remote bush operators.³ Cessna had the foresight that a rugged utility single-engine turboprop would be more successful than a sleek and sporty 350-mph six-place pressurized executive airplane. Actually, a few were trying to make such an aircraft: the “Laser 300” built by OMAC, which was a canard pusher with a PT6A-135A in the back, the “Smith PropJet” built by Mike Smith, which combined a fiberglass fuselage, a Baron wing, and a PT6A propjet engine, and the “Lightning” by Beech Aircraft, which used the Baron fuselage and wing and a Garrett TPE-331.⁴ The fact that you may not have ever heard of these other planes is a clear sign that Cessna went the wise route with their simple-but-not-Spartan design.

Evolution of a Revolution

Around this time, Cessna enlisted the help of recently retired president of de Havilland of Canada Russell Bannock and Dick Hiscocks, the recently retired vice president of engineering at de Havilland. Bannock and Hiscocks had urged de Havilland for some time to develop an airplane like the Caravan to replace the old Beavers and Otters. But de Havilland was not interested in such an endeavor. Needless to say, Hiscocks and Bannock were elated to lend a helping hand south of the border as Cessna turned a dream into a reality. Perhaps now you can see why the Caravan seems to have some of the rugged bush plane features reminiscent of the Beaver and Otter here and there.

Other notables on Cessna’s now famous Caravan construction crew include: John Berwick, chief engineer, Larry VanDyke, project engineer, and Phil Hendrick, principal engineer.

Cessna started by metamorphosizing the Cessna 206 Stationair. First, they widened it to carry three passengers abreast. Then they stretched its tail feathers to haul 55-gallon drums and 4x8-foot sheets of plywood. The only limitation was the size of the cargo door. No problem. They widened it to a mammoth 50-inch square door! “From there [the cargo door], the rest of the aircraft took shape,” said Phil Hendrick.⁵

“Basically, when we designed the Caravan, we designed a pickup truck with wings, said Chief Engineer John Berwick, “We really designed it specifically to handle the tough conditions where we knew the smaller cargo operators were going.”⁶ Although Cessna started by altering a 206, and a 207, engineers eventually found it easier to just get out a clean piece of paper and start from scratch. Their goal was simple: build a box that could hold 10 people and fly a NACA 23000-series wing with a turbine engine.

Originally, engineers had fitted the modified fuselage with the 450-hp PT6A-112 turbine, used on the Conquest I; however, wanting a more rugged engine for bush flying, they ultimately went with the PT6A-114, an 875-horsepower engine de-rated to 600 shp. This 350-pound turbine engine was an ideal choice because it would happily consume fuels common around the world, including flying limited distances even on avgas or diesel for emergency situations.

There’s so much that makes this airplane unique. For example, this Kansas-born plane had a wizardly short yellow-brick road from drawing board to first flight. “In less than one year, we went from go-ahead to first flight. That was unheard of at the time, and it still is!” said Phil Hendrick.

First Flight and Rave Reviews

The Caravan prototype, N208LP, piloted by W. K. “Bill” Bergman, made its landmark first flight on December 9, 1982. It departed McConnell Air Force Base, which is adjacent to Cessna’s Pawnee Division’s airfield in Wichita, Kansas.⁷ For sure, many perplexed pilots were clicking their flight boots together that historic day but finding that they were indeed still in Wichita, Kansas, which the locals call the “Air Capital of the World” due to all the aircraft manufacturers (Beech, Lear, Boeing, and Mooney at one time). Incidentally, the LP in N208LP, from what one Cessna engineer told us, was code for “Large Plane.” However, others contest that it stood for “Land Plane” since the “Sea Plane” version of the Cessna was planned to be next.

The Caravan prototype N208LP seen here during a flight over the Air Capital of Wichita, Kansas, home of the Cessna Aircraft Company. (Photo by LeRoy Cook)

And when the Caravan first started hitting the covers of aviation magazines in the mid-’80s, it was an instant hit, receiving rave reviews by all. J. Mac McClellan of Flying magazine flew the Caravan and described it with this high-flying accolade: “Exotic as a packhorse, the Caravan I may be the best-handling Cessna single.”⁸ Likewise, Peter Lert of Air Progress opined, “I’ve seldom been as enthusiastic about an airplane as I am about this one. It’s not the average personal machine we report on in these pages nor is it meant to be... but, twenty or thirty years from now, it may well occupy the same place in the history of aviation—not to mention the back country airstrips and nighttime freight ramps of the world—as the DC-3 does now.”⁹ Nigel Moll who reviewed the Caravan Amphibian for Flying magazine, reported, “The flying was spectacularly undemanding, so well executed is the seagoing version of this big, friendly airplane,” which “dwarfs just about everything on the ramp, including the fuel truck.”¹⁰ And finally, John W. Olcott and Richard N. Aarons of Business and Commercial Aviation magazine concluded that “the Caravan I is fun to fly” and that “Cessna appears to have an aircraft that possesses all the qualities of a winner. Utility operators should be flying versions of this pleasant-handling rugged workhorse well into the 21st century.”¹¹

Matt Amsden, manager of Caravan marketing/communications, explained how the idea of the Caravan concept evolved during a TV interview with Discovery Wings: “The original concept of the airplane was bush use—use out in the outback to deliver heating supplies and people and to provide services basically where there are no roads.” Amsden continued, “And what happened is when the airplane was originally conceived, Federal Express came to us and said we would also be interested in that airplane for a freight use, so...