Word: cessna
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...Leaders. The Big Three of the private-plane industry are Cessna Aircraft Co., whose President Dwane Wallace is called the "Henry Ford of the light-plane business"; Beech Aircraft Corp., whose President Olive Ann Beech is the only woman to boss a big plane maker, and Piper Aircraft Corp., whose President William T. Piper is the dean of the industry...
...Detroit of the small-plane industry is Wichita, Kans., where the two biggest companies-Cessna and Beech-account for 70% of all the dollars spent on light planes. Between them, they offer customers twelve different models, priced from $7,000 to $210,000. Beech concentrates mainly on higher-priced planes, while Cessna rules the middle and lower brackets. And though Beech leads in total business, with 1957 sales of $104 million (66% military), Cessna is the world's biggest private-plane builder, with commercial sales of 2,489 planes worth $33 million (total sales: $70 million). First-quarter fiscal...
Beech and Cessna might be one huge company today were it not for a personality clash between Walter Beech, a Tennessee farm boy turned pilot, and Clyde Cessna, another farm boy from Kansas. The two started off together, formed Travel Air Co. in 1925 with Cessna as president, Beech as sales manager. But after building two types of planes, one of which was the first commercial aircraft to fly the Pacific to Hawaii, Cessna went off to form his own company. Beech merged Travel Air with Curtiss-Wright and later, in 1932, formed his own company...
Pilot Beech's only trouble was making a profit: he was no financial man, left most of the details to his wife Olive Ann, and the company barely kept aloft. Cessna had even deeper problems. In the Depression he had to close his plant. What saved the company was Cessna's nephews, Dwane and Dwight Wallace, one an aeronautical engineer who once worked for Beech, the other a lawyer. By sweet-talking creditors they reopened the plant, and, though Clyde Cessna sat as president until he retired in 1934, the man in charge was Dwane Wallace, then only...
Right Plane, Right Price. He kept the company in the air, but it was shaky flying. Cessna had only $3.97 in the bank when it got the first World War II order for its T-50 trainer, went on to produce 5>359 by war's end. Beech, with a bigger, six-passenger Model 18 transport-trainer, made 7,400 units and millions in profits from every branch of the armed forces. With peace both companies faced some agonizing reappraisals. Beech wanted to merge with Cessna. Dwane Wallace refused, doggedly set about finding civilian markets once it became crystal...