The Cessna 160 was an American single-engine, four-seater, high wing, strut-braced, prototype

monoplane A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing con ...

designed in 1962 by Cessna. Development beyond the prototype stage was not pursued and only one example was constructed.

Development

Cessna thought that a less expensive four-seater aircraft than the existing

Cessna 172 The Cessna 172 Skyhawk is an American four-seat, single-engine, high wing, fixed-wing aircraft made by the Cessna Aircraft Company.fuselage The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraf ...

skins as well as free-castering nose gear to save weight and decrease the

man-hour A man-hour (sometimes referred to as person-hour) is the amount of work performed by the average worker in one hour. It is used for estimation of the total amount of uninterrupted labor required to perform a task. For example, researching and wr ...

s required for construction. The aircraft was intended to be sold for

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

8,450, which would have been just US$955 more than the 1962 model two-place Cessna 150B and far below the cost of the 1962 model Cessna 172C, which was US$9895. The prototype aircraft was registered as N5419E and first flew in 1962, powered by a

Franklin Franklin may refer to: People * Franklin (given name) * Franklin (surname) * Franklin (class), a member of a historical English social class Places Australia * Franklin, Tasmania, a township * Division of Franklin, federal electoral d ...

engine of . The intention was to use a

Continental O-300 The Continental O-300 and the C145 are a family of air-cooled flat-6 aircraft piston engines built by Teledyne Continental Motors.Christy, Joe: ''Engines for Homebuilt Aircraft & Ultralights'', pages 60-63. TAB Books, 1983. First produced in ...

engine for the production model. Phillips, Edward H.: ''Wings of Cessna, Model 120 to the Citation III'', Flying Books, 1986. The aircraft was subjected to a

flight test Flight testing is a branch of aeronautical engineering that develops specialist equipment required for testing aircraft behaviour and systems. Instrumentation systems are developed using proprietary transducers and data acquisition systems. D ...

program in 1962 and 1963. The Franklin engine gave the aircraft a top speed of , while the proposed O-300 powered version was forecast to have a top speed of . A proposed military version, tentatively designated Cessna 160M and powered by a

Continental IO-360 The Continental IO-360 is a family of fuel-injected air-cooled, horizontally opposed six-cylinder aircraft engines manufactured by Continental Motors in the United States of America, now part of AVIC International since 2010. The engine is a ...

, would have had a top speed of . The flight test program showed that, while the aircraft met its goals, it did not offer enough cost advantages to proceed to production when tooling costs were accounted for. As a result, the project was abandoned. The sole prototype Cessna 160 was retained by the company until 1974, when it was sold as scrap. The scrap yard did not complete the destruction of the airframe and it was later offered for sale.

Development

See also