Cessna airplanes tend to fall into hundreds-series. For example, the 150, 172, 182; the 206, 207, 210; the 310, 337, 340; and the 500-, 600-, and 700-series.
The 100-series are single-engine airplanes with one (Model 188 Ag Truck) to four seats; and the larger ones (e.g., 185) often have six seats. The 300-series are almost all twins (the 305 Birddog being an exception).
So what makes a 200-series plane? The 205/206/207 and the 210 are single-engine aircraft with six seats. Except for being larger, and commonly having six seats instead of two or four, they don’t seem much different from the 100-series. So why the different series?
“Rise above the peons in their puny 1xx! Look! Retractable Gear!”
Just as marketing insisted on putting 4 seats in a PA28-140 ant the 17x, leading the mother of the 7-yr old killed when “flying” into a storm in a 177 - “How could it be overloaded? It had 4 seats and there were only 3 people on it?”
p.s. - why did the instructor take off in those conditions? Time. She was still 7, but would turn 8 the following week. An 8 year old had already “flown” across the country - in fact, he was in NY and a “celebration” was scheduled in which he would present her with some trinket.
and the stroy of the dead kid was in a Post Script (P.S.) - which is an after thought not necessarily directly applicable to the body of the text. This one was used to show that believing marketing can have bad consequences.
And do not think all decisions on naming (of all things) couldn’t possibly be at the behest of marketing - which, in addition to sex, uses status as a motive.
I don’t think so. A Cessna 185 and a Cessna 206 both have a 300 hp engine, and both have six seats. Both commonly have fewer than six seats, since they are often used for hauling.
Just going up the list of Cessna models it looks to me like the closest correlation is simply the date of introduction. It looks like maybe the convention you’re thinking of existed for a while in the 60’s (granted that was a period of prodigious new model introduction), but otherwise it seems like the bigger planes tend to have bigger numbers because they were introduced later as Cessna’s continually introduced larger and larger planes.
At least with cars, naming conventions tend to be pretty amorphous and change a lot. For example both Mercedes and BMW once had actual model naming conventions that meant something, but have both been essentially abandoned for a “bigger number is a more expensive car” one.
Johnny, Most of the 100 series Cessna aircraft started out as tail-draggers. IE the 120, 140,170,180, and the 190s are all tail wheel airplanes. The 150 is the exception to this rule. Note also that the 152, 172, 175, and the 177 are tricycle gear aircraft. The 185 and the 195 are tail wheel airplanes. Note also that the 152 is basically a 150 with a bigger engine, and a 172 and a 182 are basically a 170 and a 180 with a nose wheel. The 175 has a geared engine and the 177 has retractable gear. All of the 200 series Cessna aircraft are tricycle gear aircraft.
Of course the first airplanes produced by Cessna were tail-draggers. The next major development in landing gear was the retractable gear then came the tricycle gear. The 172 and the 182 were next after the 170 & 180. Then the newly developed aircraft got the 200 designation but by this point the tricycle landing gear was standard equipment.
I believe that as GreasyJack indicated, and Dorjän has mentioned, Cessna was running out of the 100 series designations to use for the newer, bigger aircraft. After all what could come after the 190 series? Logically the 200 series, then the 210 series with retractable gear.
I hope this makes sense as I really should have been in bed two hours ago.
IHTH. 48
Please also note that the 160 was a one-off prototype. Cessna sent it to the scrappers who resold it as an aircraft. If you are looking for a one-of-a-kind aircraft this would be a good candidate! I do not believe that Cessna officially acknowledges it. Factory support may not exist.
The 162 is like a 152 with many MAJOR differences. Composite components come to mind here. Thus it is not a 150 follow-on. Its designation could not be another 160, since one 160 actually existed, so it got 162.
Nitpicks:
[ul][li]The 152 doesn’t ‘really’ have a bigger engine. Well, it does; but it uses a 110 hp Lycoming O-235 instead of the 100 hp Continental O-200. If the horsepower were the only basis for the new number, then the 172N, which had ten more horsepower than the previous 172I through 172M, would have had a different number. The Lycoming engine had a 33% greater TBO than the Continental, and was cheaper to operate and maintain.[/li]
The 172I introduced the switch from the 145 hp Continental O-300 to the 150 hp Lycoming O-320. Again, the Lycoming has a longer TBO; and with two fewer cylinders it was cheaper to own and operate. There was no number change. IMO, the 152 should have been called the 150N after the powerplant change. But in any case, my nitpick is that it’s not ‘really’ a 'bigger engine; just one of the same approximate horsepower but from a different manufacturer.
[li]The 177 Cardinal was supposed to be the 172J, but people preferred the original design and the 172 was kept in production. The Cardinal was originally fixed-gear, with the retractable version being called the 177RG. The 177RG and the 177B fixed-gear model were produced concurrently until 1978.[/ul][/li]
In any case, it does sound as if the primary motivation to the 200-series is that they were just running out of 100-series numbers.
