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THE HISTORY OF OUR JAYHAWK WING’S
CESSNA UC-78B S/N 43-32578
WRITTEN AND SUBMITTED BY JOHN DAVIS
Just prior to Christmas 1943, Cessna serial number 6516 rolled off Wichita’s Pawnee Avenue production line, the twin 245 horsepower Jacobs R-755-9 radial engines were fired up, and S/N 43-32578 took off for the first time. The aircraft was UC-78B, Cessna S/N 6516 an aircraft number 816 of a contract for 1,000 that had been signed on July 30, 1942. Within a few days, all test flights were complete, and 43-32578 was delivered to Douglas AAF, Douglas, AZ and in exchange Cessna received $17,775.00 – the agreed upon contract price.
The UC-78B was one of the military designations applied to the Cessna T-50, Cessna’s first twin-engine aircraft. The T-50, the design of which commenced in 1938, made its first flight on March 26, 1939, with company president, Dwane [spelling is correct – Ed.] Wallace at the controls. Designed as a five seat light transport, with much input from Wallace, construction followed Cessna’s standard steel tube frame with fabric, plywood, and aluminum skins. Wallace’s concept was to sell the T-50 for less than $30,000, and pre-war examples were sold for $325 under that figure.
It is worth considering how small the aircraft industry was at this time. From the reorganization in 1934 to the date of the T-50’s first flight, Cessna had only built 126 aircraft. All had been single engine, high wing aircraft with fixed undercarriage. Now they built the T-50, a twin-engine low wing aircraft, with retractable gear. At the time the T-50 first flew, cross-town rival, Beech Aircraft, had built 268 aircraft since its formation in 1932. Of this total, 252 had been the single-engine biplane, Model 17; and 16 had been the twin-engine, low wing, Model 18.
The first batch of Cessna T-50s was comprised of 18 aircraft, eight of which were used by the Civil Aeronautics Authority principally in support of their airways engineering work nationwide. The T-50 was the first twin-engine fleet used by the U. S. Government outside the military. Other T-50s were used by individuals and companies, including Bill Lear, who carried out a number of experiments on aviation instruments in his aircraft.
Production of the T-50 had just started when two significant orders were received. First was an order placed on June 22, 1940 by the U. S. Army Air Corps for 33 AT-8 advanced transition trainers. The AT-8 trainers were fitted with 295 horsepower Lycoming engines and metal constant speed propellers.
The second order was one of the most significant in company history. It was from the Royal Canadian Air Force and was awarded on February 21, 1941. It was for the first 290 of a total order or 640 T-50s, known in Canada as the “Crane”. While there, the “Crane” was used as a conversion trainer for the Commonwealth Joint Air Training Plan. These aircraft were fitted with Jacobs 245 horsepower engines with wooden fixed pitch propellers.
A very important side effect of the award of this contract was to be felt 1,500 miles away in Seattle, WA. Boeing was in the process of putting the B-17 “Flying Fortress” into mass production, and also was making major modifications as a result of operational deficiencies encountered with early production aircraft. This was causing Boeing to have considerable cash flow problems. Dwayne Wallace had just completed some major expansions to the Cessna plant, and had an ever-increasing number of contracts in his pocket. This resulted in a deal, probably engineered by Wallace and Earl Schaefer, general manager of the Boeing Wichita Division, where the Fourth National Bank in Wichita covered the payroll of Boeing- Seattle for some weeks. The whole deal was guaranteed by Dwane Wallace, and the Cessna Aircraft Company. One wonders what would have been the result of a default. Would today’s Boeing Co., of Chicago be the Stearman Co. of Wichita?
In 1942, the U. S. Army Air Force adopted the T-50 as its light personnel transport, and designated it as the C-78 (later UC-78). It also officially became the “Bobcat”, whilst known to Army Air Force personnel by the popular nicknames “Bamboo Bomber” or “Double Breasted Cub”.At the beginning of 1943, with the demand for training starting to slacken, all outstanding orders for the AT-17 version of the T-50 were re-designated as UC-78s. No new orders were received, and the Army Air Force was starting to standardize on the Beech UC-45 as its light personnel transport. Then, just a couple of months after S/N 43-32578 was delivered, the last UC-78 left the production line on February 21, 1944.
In the five years since its first flight, Cessna had built 5,399 model T-50s. Most had served with the military within the USA and Canada, and small numbers were to be found in most of the wartime theaters. The only other major recipient during the war was Brazil. Meanwhile, Cessna only flew one more aircraft in 1944, the Model P780, which would eventually become the Cessna 190. No new production line aircraft would fly from the Pawnee plant until the end of 1945, when the Cessna 140 would start its six-year run.
Meanwhile Cessna T-50s were rapidly being removed from service, and passed to the War Assets Administration for disposal. By 1949, no variant of the T-50 remained in U. S. Air Force inventory. Aircraft S/N 43-32578 was sold by the WAA late in 1945, and was registered NC44795 to Robert D. Baer of La Jolla, California. Mr. Baer used the aircraft for personal transportation and flight training. Although the aircraft was based in southern California, it made several trips to the Midwest in the 1950's. Eventually, the aircraft was donated to the Commemorative (aka Confederate) Air Force unit Air Group One Wing in San Diego, CA Air Group One kept the aircraft for several years until they were unable to support it and returned the aircraft to Headquarters in Midland, TX in 1994.
The aircraft was kept at Midland until the Jayhawk Wing decided to sponsor the aircraft in 2000. A group of Jayhawk members made two trips to Midland to get N44795 ready for its ferry flight to Wichita. In March 2001 we flew N44795 to Westport Airport in Wichita to become part of the Jayhawk Wing of the Commemorative Air Force. Under the tender loving care of the Jayhawk Wing N44795 has been completely restored back to the condition it was at Douglas AAF. N44795 will now take to the Kansas skies from Westport Airport on the south side of Pawnee Avenue - just like its 5,398 sisters have done before. N44795 is one of the handful of “Bobcats” still airworthy and flying.
This UC-78 will be officially presented to the public in a special “roll-out” ceremony at Westport Airport (locally known as Dead Cow International) southeast of the intersection of Pawnee and West Streets at 2 PM on Friday, April 25, 2001.
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