Cessna Aircraft Company-A Short History
Cessna Aircraft Company Info from (address no longer valid) http://www.wingsoverkansas.com/history/article.asp?id=627 Clyde Vernon Cessna, whose 250-year American lineage stemmed from French and German ancestry, was born in Hawthorne, Iowa, December 5, 1879. At the age of two, he traveled the long overland journey with his parents to Kingman County, Kansas, where they settled on a homestead along the Chickasaw River. In early boyhood his aptitudes revealed visionary creativity and mechanical talents that found instant outlets in the dire necessities and rugged demands of pioneer life. In this environment he became a self taught expert in developing and improving farm machinery and farming methods for producing food and for services that were non-existent. As the family increased to nine, the challenges and opportunities presented themselves in an extended world of the early automobile. Becoming the owner of a first horseless carriage, he followed avidly the trends in improvement and in this way became a mechanic salesman and in time operated an automobile sales agency in Enid, Oklahoma. He became captivated with flying after learning of Louis Blériot's 1909 flight across the English Channel. Traveling east to New York, Cessna spent a month at the Queen Airplane Company factory, learning the fundamentals of flight and the art of plane building. He became so enthusiastic about flying that he spent his life savings of $7,500 to buy an exact copy of the Blériot XI monoplane, shipping it west to his home in Enid, Oklahoma. Cessna flew this aircraft, along with others he designed and built, in exhibition flights throughout the Midwest, continuously modifying the planes to improve their performance.
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