Cessna 162: Cheap But Unwanted

Video Description

The downfall of the Cessna 162 Skycatcher is a story stitched together from Wichita boardrooms, Chinese assembly lines, and disastrous spin tests over Kansas. Launched by Cessna Aircraft Company under CEO Jack Pelton and later terminated by Textron Aviation CEO Scott Ernest, the Skycatcher was meant to replace the aging Cessna 150 and Cessna 152 fleets designed decades earlier by engineers like Herb D’Oliva and Bill Thompson. Cessna announced the program at AirVenture Oshkosh 2007, promising a modern Light Sport Aircraft powered by the Continental O-200D, built in partnership with Shenyang Aircraft Corporation under AVIC in Liaoning Province, with final work done back in Wichita, Kansas. Early prototypes, equipped with the Garmin G300 avionics suite, Cessna’s new tail, and a weight-saving interior, performed well until two airframes, including test ship N162CE, were lost in spin testing near McConnell Air Force Base, forcing Cessna aerodynamicists like Mike Buttrell to redesign the vertical stabilizer and add a ventral fin. When production aircraft finally reached schools in places like Addison, Texas, San Diego, California, and Orlando, Florida, instructors immediately compared them to rival LSAs like the Flight Design CTLS, Tecnam P2002 Sierra, and Evektor SportStar, as well as certified trainers like the Diamond DA20-C1 and long-serving Cessna 172N and 172SP. The Skycatcher’s limited useful load, tight LSA weight ceiling, fragile gull-wing doors, cold cabin, and poor high-density-altitude climbs, especially at airports like Santa Fe (KSAF) and Sedona (KSEZ), made schools question its value. Aviation media outlets such as AOPA, Flying Magazine, and AVweb, with writers like Paul Bertorelli and Dave Hirschman, criticized the rising price, which ballooned from $109,500 to nearly $150,000, putting it in the same bracket as a used Cessna 172 or a well-equipped DA20. By the time Scott Ernest stepped onstage at the 2013 NBAA Convention in Las Vegas and announced that the Cessna 162 program “had no future,” the aircraft had already been overtaken by European LSAs, outclassed by older Cessna designs, and rejected by many flight schools from Florida to Colorado. Fewer than 200 Skycatchers ever reached customers, leaving the aircraft remembered not as Cessna’s next great trainer, but as one of the most visible miscalculations in modern general aviation.