B&W 170 Art

[GAHorn]

Yes, Cessna made office furniture on gov't contract as well as accy's such as aluminum ash-trays, trash cans, etc. embossed with a Cessna logo. Wouldn't it be fun to find some of that stuff in an antique/curio shoppe somewhere...??

[GAHorn]

Yes, I had (have) a large photo collection of the stuff on my old laptop (the one ruined when I left a window open at my crash-pad and the yard-sprinklers showered thru an open window.) I'll attempt to recover the hard drive now that the subject has come up.

[n2582d]

I talked today with someone very familiar with the L-19 (amazing what you can learn when walking around airports and hangars).
Early L-19; Tail section is identical to the 170B...identical. The only differences to the exacting eye; the L-19 horizontal stab has a row of rivnuts on the outer ribs, top and bottom for the attachment of ventral fins for float ops and L.E has provisions for homing antennas. All parts have zinc chromate finish. After an upping the gross weight made to the L-19 by Cessna, now the parts are a bit different. ... .

Knowing this makes it tough to see usable parts being made into furniture at Motoart as seen in the Sept. issue of AOPA Pilot magazine. But maybe there is some comfort to be found in the fact that the pinnacle of Cessna’s artistry — the 170 tail feathers — are reincarnated into artistic furniture, something Cessna also made.

[n2582d]

Click to Enlarge

Reviving an old thread here. This C-170A on floats has N number 41693. Doing a registration inquiry on the FAA's website shows that the number was once assigned to s/n 18002. Here Bruce writes, "1948 C170, serial numbers 18001-18002, 0 sold. Prototypes scrapped by Cessna". What's up with that? Did Cessna rebuild this 1948 C-170 ragwing prototype into a C-170A prototype or do you think they recycled N numbers?

[GAHorn]

They likely recycled N-numbers. I believe entire “ranges” of registration numbers were assigned to mfr’s to apply as production required.

[Ryan Smith]

I’ll play contrarian.

My bet is that was originally S/N 18002 and modified for an A model demonstrator/test bed. It seems silly to think they’d trash the (likely) more conformant of the prototypes for no reason.

A friend of mine has a 150 Aerobat that left the production line in 1966 as a G model and was a factory demonstrator for several years before being modified at the factory and sold as a 150 Aerobat.

[DWood]

My bet is that was originally S/N 18002 and modified for an A model demonstrator/test bed. It seems silly to think they’d trash the (likely) more conformant of the prototypes for no reason.

The last 2 1948 170 serial numbers 18728 and 18729 were also corporate airplanes.

EDIT: Removed "Cessna" however they were corporate airplanes. Ryan might be correct that the first 2 were used as prototypes for the 170A along with the 170. Not sure why the last 2 1948 170 serial numbers were listed as 170A's.

[n2582d]

Dan,
Interesting. The FAA shows those planes as 170A’s.

The FAA shows about 10 of the last 170Bs as 170s. I don't trust most of the FAA registration information as being accurate. My own 170A was registered with the FAA as a 170, 170A and a 170B at one time or another.

[GAHorn]

Cessna clearly used existing airframes to be modified or converted in developing subsequent models. As an example, the 170-B serial range indicates that 170 and 170-A models were modified into B-models and later remained so.*
It’s also clear they returned some airframes to previous status, as indicated by the anecdotes about the proposed 170-C converted back to round-tail, …and the tri-gear returned to conventional before being sold.


* The TCDS describes early serial 609 and serial 19401 as B-models.

[DWood]

This includes information and a pic of sn 609

https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/12-june-1955/