Original subtitles

(mellow music)

- I'm Matthew Burchette and this is "Behind the Wings"

and bam!

That is a Cessna 172 Skyhawk.

Oh yeah.

(upbeat music)

Okay, all goofiness aside because we always have

to have some of that in an episode of "Behind the Wings."

I'm actually standing in front of

our Boeing Blue Sky Aviation Gallery,

which is actually phase one of Wings Over the Rockies'

much larger exploration of flight campus

here on Centennial Airport.

That's pretty exciting.

Speaking of flying, this episode is not about Blue Sky,

it's about that little guy, the Cessna 172 Skyhawk

and that baby looks like she needs a pilot.

Luckily, you got me.

Okay, I'm not a pilot, but I know where to find one.

(upbeat music)

Now I say this a lot, but how cool is this?

You guys are getting a really inside look at this thing.

Not everyone gets to do that.

Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.

(mellow music)

In 1911, the aviation bug bit Clyde Cessna hard

and he ended up building one of the first monoplanes

west of the Mississippi.

He taught himself to fly it less than a decade

after the Wright brothers' first flight.

After years of trial and error, Cessna moved to Wichita,

Kansas and started his own company,

the Cessna Aircraft Company in 1927.

Over time, the Cessna Aircraft Company designed

and built hundreds of thousands of aircraft

for commercial, general and military aviation,

but none more popular than the little 172.

The first Cessna 172 went on sale in 1956

and the Cessna Aircraft Company

continued to refine the design.

Since its first flight in 1955,

Cessna has sold more than 44,000 172s,

making it the single most widely produced aircraft

in history.

Let's catch up with a current 172 pilot

who can show us this innovation firsthand.

So we're here with Brooks Dickerson

who's a student in Metropolitan State University of Denver.

And you are part of their aerobatic team.

Is that correct?

- Yes, sir I am.

- So what's it like to be a part of the aerobatic team?

I mean, what are you flying for those guys?

- So the aerobatic team, we actually have a team

of about 20 members now at a school and we go out

and fly a series of aerobatic maneuvers

in front of three judges, sometimes four,

and then that gets scored against the other schools

and we compete in that way. - That's very cool.

- It's a really neat collegiate program to be a part of.

- All right, so Brooks, I know that this thing

has got like a wingspan of like 32 feet

or something like- - 36.

- 36 feet.

See, that's why you're the expert.

But what is this doohickey?

- So this thing here is something

that you actually are gonna see

on almost every single airplane that has ever been produced.

It's what's called a pitot tube.

- Okay. - And what this does

is gives the pilot an accurate indication

of airspeed.

So that's how fast the airplane's moving through the air?

- So at our museum, we have mostly military aircraft.

A lot of the pitot tubes are like way out in front.

So it's kind of odd, I guess, to see it here,

but it makes perfect sense.

I mean, you kind of need clean air.

- Right, you're gonna need clean air and you know,

on something, let's say take the F4, for example.

You know, you got a big old pitot tube right on the front.

- Right. - On the F4

you don't have a prop out front that's polluting the air,

turning it up. - Oh, that's true.

Now, when I was messing around earlier,

I saw something on the wing tip of this thing

that I wanna show you and ask you about

'cause it makes no sense to me.

So here we are in a wildly sophisticated airplane

yet we got a little tiny piece of Plexiglass

hanging out here.

What the heck is that thing?

- [Brooks] What that does is it indicates to the pilot

that our navigation lights are working.

If they are, we should see one red light on our left side

and one green light on the right side.

- Just like a boat. - Exactly.

- Okay. - Just like a boat.

- Now, I got it, I got it.

All right, so this guy is the elevator,

it controls the pitch of the aircraft,

otherwise up and down.

But what are these little doohickey thingies?

- So these little things here,

and you can see them that they're also on the ailerons

on an all-metal airplane like this,

these are what's called static wicks.

What these do is as the airplane moves through the air,

it causes a static buildup,

similar to if you are walking across carpet in socks,

right? - Okay.

- So what this does is discharges the static back

into the air so it doesn't interfere with your

radios or navigation. - That's really cool.

Well, you know, that's probably a good thing

because this is not got what they call

a steam gauge cockpit. - Correct.

- This thing is like fully glass.

- Absolutely.

- Let's go check that out. - Sure.

- All right, so this does not look like your standard

172 cockpit.

What is going on with all this glass?

- So what we're looking at here is the state-of-the-art

avionics package known as the Garmin G1000 NXi.

Now that's the top of the line,

most modern avionics that you can equip in a single

engine airplane here. - Okay.

- So basically what a glass cockpit does

and what the NXi has done here is taken all of our steam

gauges and put them in an easier to read compact format

here on this screen here so the pilot no longer

has to scan too far around.

He can scan his instruments right here.

Now the engine that's sitting in front of us

is 155 horsepower turbo diesel engine.

So this airplane is fueled by Jet-A,

which is actually about a dollar and a half cheaper

per gallon than Avgas. - Oh okay, I can start

to see the allure. - Exactly.

This airplane, we're showing about a max speed

of about 143 miles an hour. - Okay.

That's not bad. - So say 143 miles an hour

in a straight line.

That'll get you to your destination a lot faster-

- Yeah, no kidding. - Than a driving, right?

- Let's take this baby out.

You cool with that?

- Absolutely.

- I didn't think you'd say no.

You can't just be in the plane.

You got to fly the plane.

(upbeat music)

- So most of the airplane that you're gonna see

training out here today are Cessna 172s.

They are just good, honest planes.

- [Matt] Yeah, it's amazing.

This thing is fun.

- [Brooks] So Matt, whenever you're ready,

- Okay. - Just put your hands on here.

Now what we really like to do here

is I'm a big fan of not over controlling the airplane.

- Right. - If you got both hands

up here, oftentimes you're gonna be real,

you know- - Heavy handed.

- [Brooks] Heavy on the control.

So I really like like, to just kind of fly with one hand

and in your case you're gonna fly with your right hand.

So you got your left hand, that's the throttle here.

- [Matt] You do not have to have a lot of...

- [Brooks] There's not a lot of force on it.

It's, what I like to tell folks

is airplane's gonna wanna continue to fly.

Your only job as the pilot is to manipulate it.

There's a lot of misconceptions were you have as the trainer

when you don't keep the airplane in the air

and specifically with the 172,

especially that is not the case.

That was the idea behind the Cessna 172

is a easy flying, easy operating flight trainer

and Cessna hit it right on the-

- Yeah, no kidding.

This thing is about- - Successful airplane

sales wise and manufacturing wise that had been built.

And there's still, flight schools are still operating

it today.

Now, if you could kinda see this smoky outline

downtown there.

- Hey, - Why don't you give us

a slight right turn, head right towards downtown

and we can get a nice circling view of it.

(mellow music)

- We just got back from our super cool flight

with Brooks Dickerson, but now we're here

at Centennial Airport and we're actually

sitting in a 1998 Cessna Skyhawk that belongs

to the Aspen Flying Club.

And we're literally right across the runway

from our second location, the Blue Sky Gallery.

But, you'll notice I have this fetching young woman,

Hetty Carlson.

She runs our teacher flight program.

Hetty, tell us about this kind of old school Skyhawk.

- I love the old school by the way.

- It is kinda cool. - It is.

As you notice that there are analogs steam gauges

instead of our XTI G1000 glass cockpit.

- You know, if it was good enough for Lindbergh,

it's gotta be good enough for us.

- Exactly.

The engine is also different.

This has a Lycoming 180 horsepower engine,

and it's a normally aspirated gas powered

reciprocating engine.

So- - So the one

we were just in was actually a turbo diesel.

- Correct.

- Which is great for up here because the turbo

thinks it's the, you know, sea level all the time.

- Right. - Whereas this poor guy,

it's like, I'm at 6,800 feet already.

- Right, right.

Exactly. - Yeah, that's not fun

for a plane. - Yeah.

- So Hetty did you know that Cessna

has actually built 44,000 Skyhawks?

- That's amazing.

- That's a huge number.

And what's even way crazier

is the fact that America, China, any number

of European countries are all scrambling for Skyhawks

because they desperately need pilots.

- The need is great.

In fact, Boeing estimates that in the next 18 years,

we're gonna need 2 million more aviation personnel.

That includes pilots, air traffic control,

maintenance, flight attendants even,

and that's a worldwide number.

- That's nuts.

You know, it gets me to thinking,

how is Cessna gonna keep up with demand?

You know, since we are an air and space museum,

we probably could, you know, fly there

and knock on their door.

- Maybe. - I say,

we take a little trip to Wichita and talk

to the people that are actually building these planes

and see what kinda information we can get.

(upbeat music)

We aren't in Kansas anymore.

Wait, oh, we are in Kansas anymore.

Specifically, we're in Independence, Kansas,

which is home to the Independence Community College Pirates

go Pirates!

Great football team.

But more importantly, bam, Cessna manufacturing.

How cool is that?

And so we're gonna go see where the Cessna Skyhawk

is made.

That is some cool stuff.

Let's go check it out.

(upbeat music)

We're inside the production facility

and this is Paula Schabel who's the GM here.

As you can see behind us,

there's a lot going on down on the floor here.

So you guys produce what?

- So what we built out here is the 132,

the 182 and the 206 single engine high-wing.

And then we also build the M2 jets and the 208,

208, the Caravan line. - All right,

so this is literally only one building out of five.

So as GM, you have a whole lot going on.

You're kind of like the Henry Ford of Independence, Kansas

aren't you?

- I guess you could say that,

yeah. - That's very cool.

So why did production move here to Independence?

We were in Wichita.

Why just kinda uproot and bring like

one little slice down here?

- Well, so we started with a single engine

high-wing aircraft.

It was originally built in Wichita, but in 1986,

they did cease production.

And our chairman at the time, Russ Meyer said

he would not bring those aircraft back

until we had some product liability relief.

So fortunate for us in 1994, President Clinton

signed a General Aviation Revitalation Act.

- It was an act to help you guys produce more aircraft

that obviously we desperately need.

- Right.

So there had been 18 year span in between that time.

So of course, Wichita picked up some other models

so at that time they weren't able to produce a single engine

high-wing so they had to look elsewhere,

- Okay. - For plants to build those

types of aircraft.

- Well very cool. - And here we are.

- [Matt Voiceover] Paula was kind enough to give us a tour

of the assembly line where the 172 Skyhawk

is being manufactured.

All of this stuff is assembled by hand.

There are no robots on the Skyhawk line.

It's a perfect example of an American made product.

You look at everything and realize just how much

goes into the production of this plane

and how many hours it takes for the finished product

to roll out the door.

As each Skyhawk finishes up in the assembly building,

it moves over to paint.

Let's catch up with Paula and see the next step

in the process.

- So when we bring the aircraft in

from the assembly building and we bring it over

to our sand and fill area and they'll wipe it,

plain down completely to remove all the excess dust,

debris that's on it.

And then they'll start the mask the aircraft with paper,

cover the windows to ensure that when we go in

to do the primes, the sanding, it doesn't get

inside the aircraft.

And then from there, then we bring it out of

the sand and fill booth and we bring it over

into our paint booths over here.

- Okay. - And that's when they receive

the first soft top or base coat.

- You know, I think one of the things

that people don't realize is that you don't just

unwrap a Cessna 172 Skyhawk and it's immediately

this beautiful thing that you've bought.

There's a whole process of getting it to look like this.

(mellow music)

(machines hum)

Right back there we were literally putting on top coat

and then we were buffing and then hand painting ribbons

where some of the buffing and taking the paint off.

So, tell us how we got from there to literally here.

- To finish off the paint detail

after touching up on those rivets,

we lay out the vinyl graphics on the aircraft.

- Okay. - And then after that position

we move into the engine install.

So we start installing engine, we start installing avionics,

and then we also install the interior.

- Wow.

And then obviously hooking everything up,

making sure everything kinda works.

I noticed actually this guy has got a light on,

so we've got battery power to it,

that kind of thing. - Yep.

So- - And then from here

you're gonna roll it out and test fly it I assume.

- That's right.

So it'll go on to our flight hanger

where we'll start putting everything into service

with the engine, putting fuel in the aircraft,

getting it ready for its first flight.

- This is a real plane.

- Yes, it is. - I mean, we're,

we've been everywhere, but this is the final,

final destination as it was.

And we're in the flight building.

- Yep. - And so,

what happens here that literally will get this guy

out the door into a customer?

- So we just left our paint facility

and with that, we'll start putting our oil into our engines,

- Okay. - And get our fuel

into our wings.

And then we'll take it outside the hanger here,

the doors and run over to the airport and do a compass swing

and do our engine runs.

And then we'll bring it back into the facility

and start getting ready for our pilots,

- Okay. - To get it released

for first flight.

- So once the pilot gets a, one of a corporate pilot,

a Cessna pilot gets this, they'll take it up

and then they'll SQUAWK it, come back

and you'll do any little tweaks to that.

- Yep. - And then literally

it's right onto the customer.

- In the same area right here

we'll do our SQUAWKs as well.

- Oh okay. - And then once that's,

those are completed and the pilots have bought off on it,

then we bring in our ODAR inspectors

and they inspect it one last time

before we close it all up and it goes

to the delivery center.

- So, I mean, you guys are really putting it

under the microscope to make sure

that it's ready for the customer.

- Yes, it goes through- - That's probably

a good thing. - Several inspections.

Yes. - Yeah,

that's probably a good thing.

Well, Paula, thank you so much.

You guys have been awesome.

I mean, we've spent literally all day with you

and we have seen more than probably 99% of Skyhawk pilots

we'll ever see, and we thank you for that.

- You're welcome. - But,

I think it's time that we do what we always do

and let's go fly.

Right off the assembly line, a Cessna 172 Skyhawk,

that's pretty cool.

This is even cooler.

Mindy Lindheim.

She is gonna be our demo pilot today.

She is the regional sales director.

Mindy, thank you so much. - Of course,

I'm happy to be here. - This is really cool.

You got a cake gig, girl.

- I don't know about cake, but it is fun.

- Oh my gosh, this is so cool.

So, tell us a little bit about how you got this job.

Where did you come from?

How did you become a pilot?

- I'm from Florida.

I was originally interested in aerospace medicine,

got to reading about pilots and how they can't take

certain medicines.

So, the more I read about pilots,

the more interested I was in that.

So I talked to a neighbor who was a Delta pilot,

and he suggested to go on a discovery flight and I loved it.

So I- - Wow, that is so cool.

- Went through school for it, got my ratings,

started flight instructing and then

I got picked up by Textron.

- That is, man, I cannot think of a better job

except maybe the job I have 'cause this is pretty fun.

So, earlier we literally went through everything.

We have seen how these things are built

and now we've got one right behind us.

- Absolutely.

I'd love to show you around

the Skyhawk. - Okay, let's start

right here with the engine.

- So, this is the Lycoming IO-360.

It's 180 horsepower, normally aspirated,

so a little bit different than what you saw with the JTA.

- Right. - This takes a 100 low lead.

It goes 124 knots

is the max cruise speed at about nine

to 10 gallons per hour. - Okay.

All right, quick.

Knots to miles per hour, 124 knots equals...

- About 145 miles per hour.

- Oh, all right.

Very cool.

Well then let's take this bad boy out.

- Let's do it. - All right.

(mellow music)

I will say this.

This is not what I had in mind when I thought of Kansas.

- [Mindy] Yeah, it's nice and green.

- It is. - Portions of rolling hills.

So there's a little bit of terrain out here.

- [Matt] And you get to do this for a living?

- [Mindy] I get to do this for a living.

I get to take up people like you that are interested

in the aircraft, tell them all about it,

show up all about it, take them flying

and hopefully they'll wanna buy one.

This is the most widely produced aircraft trainer.

We've made, like you've mentioned before

over 44,000 Skyhawks and with that many Skyhawks out,

there's so many people out there that are knowledgeable

about how to work on them,

how to fly them. - Oh, that's a good

point. - So,

it makes it a really safe aircraft in that aspect too.

Just that there's so much information out there

that you could find about the airplane.

Same with the avionics, the engine,

they're well-proven avionic suites

and the Lycoming engine has been around for a long time,

especially this model.

It's a really easy stable aircraft

to fly, very forgiving and it can take

your first couple of hard landings.(chuckles)

- [Matt] Which I, sure I will have.

(Mindy chuckles)

- So this is the new G1000 NXi.

You've probably noticed how quickly it came on.

It has a faster processor, better resolution.

It even identifies what frequency is active.

So right now you can see us as KIDP UNICOM.

So we got Independence UNICOM active and that really helps

so you don't pull up to the runway ready to go

and let ground know that you're ready to take off

when you're supposed to be on tower.

So it can save you some embarrassing moments.

- [Matt] (chuckles) It sounds like you may have done that

once or twice. - Just once.

Only once, (chuckles).

Super smart, it makes flying pretty easy.

Of course we have the moving map on the right side.

You can have your flight plan in there,

get airport weather information.

We have radar onboard.

- Now, I also notice it has SiriusXM.

- [Mindy] Yeah, so it has XM radio and weather.

So Sirius provides our weather service,

that's our onboard weather radar that we have.

And it looks just like you would have like on app

on your phone, you could see- - Oh yeah.

- [Mindy] The weather out here by Louisiana.

And then it has all the same radio stations,

just like you do in your car.

And whenever you or air traffic control starts talking

it'll automatically mute the radio

so that you can listen in.

- [Matt] It's amazing how much cooler automobiles

and aircraft are now starting to become.

I mean, almost one in the same.

- Yeah, and on purpose.

There's a lot of features in aircraft

that they make kind of like cars

so that you feel more comfortable

and your family feels comfortable in it too,

so that they can see what's going on

and read that you're only 30 minutes from your destination

so that everyone's not so in the dark.

- Right. - Everyone can easily read

and see what's going on.

So we're just gonna start slowing up, getting flaps in.

We're gonna start turning in here in just a second.

Independence traffic Skyhawk six tango alpha

is turning left (mumbles) at seven Independence.

(mellow music)

- All right, that was awesome.

I love flying.

I really love flying when Mindy is the pilot.

- Thank you. - Mindy, you're awesome.

- Thank you. - Thank you so much.

This was really great.

I hate to do this but we're gonna leave you.

- Where are you going?

- Well, we're going back to Wichita,

which you guys are not gonna wanna miss

because it is gonna be well worth the trip.

(mellow music)

I'm here with Jay Robert, who is the director

of operations for Textron Aviation's East Campus.

Jay, it's nice to have you here.

So give me a real quick overview of what you do.

- So my responsibility is basically to make sure

that the aircraft are built in the assembly lines

when we need to build them.

- That's kind of a big job.

- Yes it is. - Wow, all right.

Well, speaking of aircraft, can we go see some?

- Absolutely. - Let's go.

Ooh, it's a big building.

So it's a little bit different than Independence.

What's going on here?

- So we've got a lot of manufacturing going on.

A lot of the King Air products.

We also got the piston products that we'll see down line,

and then we've got the next generation coming

with the Longitude. - Ooh,

I bet that's kinda cool.

- It's really exciting.

A lot of new technology.

A different way of building an aircraft

compared to what we've built in the past.

- I bet.

So, how exactly big is this building?

- So a little over 450,000 square feet

that we actually have from manufacturing space.

- Woo.

Literally, it's kinda like Independence.

I mean, everybody is been here quite a while.

They take pride in what they're doing.

- A huge heritage within this business.

A lot of people have a lot of passion

around what they build.

Right from the very beginning there's a lot of generations

that pass, you know, from mother

and father down to their kid.

It even dates back even to grandfather and grandmother,

- Wow. - Of who comes

into this business and works.

So yeah, I would say, you know, with Wichita, Kansas

being the air capital of the world,

it's passed on with passion.

You know, it's a very good livelihood for anybody

and it's carried on throughout the generations.

- If you thought the facility in Independence

was impressive, this place is enormous.

Like the 172 Skyhawk, the aircraft here

are mostly assembled by hand.

Well, except for the Citation Longitude,

that's Textron's super secret sauce.

Jay was telling me that it's built

with monolithic structures, has bonded metal technology

instead of rivets, and they even designed it

to be uber quiet with new soundproof tech.

Talk about innovation coming out of Cessna.

I guess they don't call Wichita the air capital

of the world for nothing.

This is an aircraft everyone has seen

and everyone knows about.

It's the most widely produced aircraft of all time

and we got to see it like no one else has before.

From flying the 172 Skyhawk over downtown Denver,

to going onto the production line in Independence, Kansas,

and even seeing what Textron has in store

for the future in Wichita, we've taken you

behind the wings of the Cessna 172 Skyhawk.

(upbeat music)

So, did you know that...

(chuckles) No, I didn't. - Ah ah.

- Out in Denver.

- (chuckles) All right, that was the only one, I swear.

(Matt mumbles)

- Hey.

Jay, it's nice to have you here.

Thank you so much. - Whatever.

(Jay and Matt laugh)

- We set you up, man.

That was good, that's good.