Cessna 206 vs Cessna 207

[Singlecoil]

Didn't Cessna for a very brief period have a Cessna 208? And no I'm NOT talking about the Caravan. It was basically an 8pax 207. I tried looking it up but all 208 searches come up with the Caravan. I coulda sworn I saw it in an old Jane's book years ago.

I think some of the 207's were "Stationair 7's" and others were "Stationair 8's".

 

[imacdog]

I think the 206 had more flaps than the sled as well. Wasn't it 40 on the 206 and 35 on the 207?

That is right, I believe the 206 had 40 and the 207 had 30.

 

[Lead Sled]

That is right, I believe the 206 had 40 and the 207 had 30.

Some (the later ones) may have had 30 degree flaps. The three that I flew all had 40. I think that Cessna resticted the flaps on several models around the time the retricted the flaps on the 152. As for the Cessna 208, I remember reading and article or seeing an ad in the flying magazines. I think you're right.

'Sled

 

[ReverseSensing]

Here's another little known fact (best Cliff Claven impersonation) about the 206's and 207's: The landing gear in the 207 (tubular steel) is much wider and squatter than the 206 (spring steel). The 206 landing gear is actually narrower (!) than a 172's, but the airplane is 1,000 lbs heavier at gross than a 172. With the tall, narrow gear and all that fuel in the wings, the 206 is relatively top-heavy compared to the 207.

In my opinion, the 207 is a much better cross-wind airplane than the 206, but with a 200 lb. gross weight increase with the same engine, it doesn't perform as well in T/O, climb, cruise, or landing (distance). I always felt it was much easier to get consistently good landings in the 207. Along with the difference in landing flaps (30 v. 40), I could swear that the wings look different, even though the conventional wisdom is that they are the same. To me, the 207 wing always looked more like a 210 wing.

You hardly ever see 206's flying out of Bethel, AK and the YK Delta, for example, where stiff crosswinds are common. In fact, my last month up there, an operator from ANC (I believe) who was filling in for the hovercraft moving bypass mail, flipped two (2!) 206's on the ramp while taxiing, one at BET and one at one of the Tundra villages.

I also much preferred loading the 207, pax or boxes. The right front door and all that volume, along with the nose baggage area (120 lb. limit) are nice.

 

[Wang Chung]

Didn't Cessna for a very brief period have a Cessna 208? And no I'm NOT talking about the Caravan. It was basically an 8pax 207. I tried looking it up but all 208 searches come up with the Caravan. I coulda sworn I saw it in an old Jane's book years ago.

Yep, I've seen pictures and a short historical blurb about this thing in an old Cessna booklet. Looks like a monster 207...I'll dig out the booklet and check it out but if my vague memory is correct, Cessna developed the early "208" chiefly for the military as a small STOL transport back in the day, but the military chose the DHC-2 instead. The rest, as they say, is history.

 

[Cary]

The 205's aft most seats were for kiddies (or paraplegics), and it had to be one of the noisiest Cessnas ever made. My very first GA trip into old Denver Stapleton was in one, and the noise was tremendous (we weren't wearing headsets back then, but I did have earplugs in).

There's an STC available to put a passenger side front row door on newer 206s--one of the float manufacturers holds it (Wipaire, maybe?).

The only P206 Super Skylane I can remember seeing had doors on both sides of the front row and a smallish single door on the right for the rear seats. The U206 is a lot easier to get into in the back rows, with those double barn doors.

Cary

 

[Wang Chung]

Cessna 308!

Didn't Cessna for a very brief period have a Cessna 208? And no I'm NOT talking about the Caravan. It was basically an 8pax 207. I tried looking it up but all 208 searches come up with the Caravan. I coulda sworn I saw it in an old Jane's book years ago.

Found the book, and I'm not sure if this is what you were thinking about but Cessna developed the "308" in the early 50's. According to the booklet, in 1951 the Army needed a light transport but Army regs at the time limited the MTOW of such an aircraft to 5000#. The Beaver was the Army's choice but it weighed over 6000# so it wasn't considered. Cessna decided to produce the 5000-lb 308, which was a 6-seat taildragger powered by a 375-HP 8-cyl Lycoming. It looks like a HUGE L-19 in the picture. In 1952, After 6 months of development and some demo flights for the Army, the regs suddenly changed and the Army was allowed to fly heavier aircraft; they immediately purchased DHC-2's and the Cessna 308 faded into history. Only one prototype was built. It's probably in a crate someplace in Kansas.

Random fact of the day: Cessna built furniture under a military contract between 1947 and 1950.

 

[crash-proof]

Actually, no this isn't the Cessna I'm referring to...but here's a pic of the monster 308, from aerofiles.com (I love that site!)
http://www.aerofiles.com/ces308.jpg

No the Cessna I'm referring to was developed in the late 70s/early 80s, and looked just like the 207 but with one extra seat. I'm not sure if dimensionally it was any larger or not. Now I'm obsessing, I have to find a link on this. Even if that means ripping the page out of the Jane's from the public library.

 

[crash-proof]

Arghh I answered my question....it was the Stationair 8 I was thinking about, not 208. It was in fact an 8-pax 207. Don't think it did that well commercially.

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/399156/L

 

[Wang Chung]

I've got quite a bit of time in a TP-206 from my aerial photography days. The pax door is a great feature - too bad it's not more common.

One day I landed at a little airport so that the camera operator could change film, and so I could top the tanks. I was parked with the engine idling (letting the turbo cool down for a minute) as the camera guy hopped out the little aft door on the left side, and walked back to the FBO to hit the restroom. Some Feds were hanging out near the FBO and they were in a ramp-checking mood, so they walked out to the plane, assuming that guy who walked into the FBO was the "pilot" since he had emerged from the left side of a 206. When they came up to the left side and saw me, they were a bit baffled and basically asked who I was and what I was doing in the left seat since they clearly saw the pilot walk away from the plane. That's when I explained that it was a P-206 with little left-hand suicide door and the 'pilot' they saw was actually sitting in back working the cameras...