Why did Cessna drop the 210 line?

txflyer

txflyer

En-Route
Joined
May 3, 2013
Messages
4,509
Location
Wild Blue Yonder
Display Name
Display name:
Fly it like you STOL it ♦
Just wondering ...

The 210 seems like the next logical step up for 180/182 drivers looking for more range. The 206 is a work horse, but no more speed and not much more utility than the 182.

The 210 seemed to fill a nice niche. :dunno:
 
Not sure but it may have had something to do with demand and insurance. There was a time when insurance premiums were considerably higher for things like retracts and light twins and that had an effect of driving a lot of folks out of those markets.
 
I just don't think the demand was there when they restarted production to justify a new 210. Building/selling a 210 now would probably be incredibly expensive for Cessna which would mean a huge price tag for a new 210. The ttx doesn't fit in the space the 210 left but Piper has the mirage that does a lot of what the 210 did.
 
Last edited:
They can't compete with the plastic airplanes.
 
I asked them this question at the plant in independence. They told me that the 210 won't pass new certification requirements as I remember. Said that's why they bought the columbia line to replace. Said the 210 will never be back.
 
Probably because they looked at how many new Bonanzas were selling and decided it wasn't worth it at the restart. Now Cessna sells Bonanzas and Barons too so they are back in the HP retract single, and light twin markets again plus cabin class twins with the King Air.
 
Nonsense.
Many planes are still in production as car3
They fed you a line of bull because it sounds better than its too expensive to build and no one would buy one. Just look at how many new 36 bonanzas sell, it's only a handful per year. If beech had ever stopped production there is no way they would have restarted it.
 
No demand. As for the bonanza, much too expensive. A lot of this is the glass cockpits the pilots demand. Out of sight prices.
 
One word. Retract.

Second word. Liability.

They didn't include any retracts after the the restart.
 
timwinters said:
One word. Retract.

Second word. Liability.

They didn't include any retracts after the the restart.
Click to expand...

They just bought the entire Beechcraft line which are all retracts, that has absolutely nothing to do with it. Retracts don't increase their liability one bit.
 
Consolidation,some models that aren't popular have to be sacrificed.
 
Jimmy cooper said:
No demand. As for the bonanza, much too expensive. A lot of this is the glass cockpits the pilots demand. Out of sight prices.
Click to expand...

Many working 210s, lots in the African bush, quite a few police ones.
 
Henning said:
They just bought the entire Beechcraft line which are all retracts, that has absolutely nothing to do with it. Retracts don't increase their liability one bit.
Click to expand...

Whatever. We're so glad you're here as the authoritarian since Ron is gone. And Cessna didn't buy Beech Textron did.
 
Doesn't the 172 and 182 share the same wing while the 210 wing is different? Could that have been another factor?
 
asicer said:
Doesn't the 172 and 182 share the same wing while the 210 wing is different? Could that have been another factor?
Click to expand...

But they didn't bring back the retract 172 or 182 either. They simply didn't bring back retracts when they restarted. Bringing back the R182 would have been easy...and I'm sure demand would have been ample.
 
My uneducated theory:

When Cessna sold thousands of airplanes every year, there was a large enough market for a full line of airplanes.

Now they sell no more than a few dozen. Every 210 sold would be one less 206 out the door.
Very expensive to have twice the tooling without twice the sales.
 
Theboys said:
I was thinking that the wing did have something to do with it. Think that had something to do with recertification problem.
Click to expand...

Yes I heard that too.
 
asicer said:
Doesn't the 172 and 182 share the same wing while the 210 wing is different? Could that have been another factor?
Click to expand...

I think the 210 and the 177 had the same wing.
 
The 210 has no strut, unlike their other high wing products..

One of the GA magazines had an article about 5 years ago that explained Cessna couldn't meet an updated certification requirement when they started light aircraft production again in 1996. I might be wrong after 5 years, but here's what I recall reading: When the 210 was originally certified without the struts the FAA had more lax requirements for spars. Much later, in 1996, they were unable to use the previous grandfathered status.
 
Henning said:
They just bought the entire Beechcraft line which are all retracts, that has absolutely nothing to do with it. Retracts don't increase their liability one bit.
Click to expand...

Irrelevant.

Like Tim Winters said, Cessna did not buy Beech. Their parent Textron did and it was years after Cessna stopped production of their retracts. As was already mentioned, when Cessna resumed their production lines, they decided it was not financially worth it to produce a retract single.
 
timwinters said:
Whatever. We're so glad you're here as the authoritarian since Ron is gone. And Cessna didn't buy Beech Textron did.
Click to expand...

And they sure as hell didn't buy it for the piston products. I expect them to get the axe any day now.
 
James331 said:
I think the 210 and the 177 had the same wing.
Click to expand...
Same planform and airfoil, though the 210 never had the modified, rounded leading edge of the 177B and 177RG. But the 177's wing had a much lighter structure, with thinner spar, ribs and skins. The 177's lightweight skin flexed in flight enough to negate any advantage to the "laminar" airfoil, and it still had the high drag increase at high AOA. The 210 had enough power to accelerate through the high drag on a rushed takeoff; the 177 did not, thus the modified leading edge.
 
Pilawt said:
Same planform and airfoil, though the 210 never had the modified, rounded leading edge of the 177B and 177RG. But the 177's wing had a much lighter structure, with thinner spar, ribs and skins. The 177's lightweight skin flexed in flight enough to negate any advantage to the "laminar" airfoil, and it still had the high drag increase at high AOA. The 210 had enough power to accelerate through the high drag on a rushed takeoff; the 177 did not, thus the modified leading edge.
Click to expand...

I knew that were related but didn't know the details, thanks :yes:
 
timwinters said:
Whatever. We're so glad you're here as the authoritarian since Ron is gone. And Cessna didn't buy Beech Textron did.
Click to expand...

And Cessna and Beech work out of the same offices in Wichita. Textron owns them both and essentially merged them.
 
JHW said:
Nonsense.
Many planes are still in production as car3
They fed you a line of bull because it sounds better than its too expensive to build and no one would buy one.
Click to expand...

Not nonsense. Look at, for example, the seats in the restart 172s compared to the pre-'86 models. Cessna had to meet the updated FAR 23 requirements, which calls for 26G seats. Those things are built like bridges and weigh about as much. Other parts of the airplane also had to be beefed up. Between those changes, and adding fancy interiors and Garmin stuff, the airplane gained 300 pounds.

Those updated standards applied to all the restart airplanes. I work on them all and it's easy to see what they had to change. If they'd have restarted the 210 they'd have ended up with a far too heavy airplane that would sell for well over a million bucks.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Irrelevant.

Like Tim Winters said, Cessna did not buy Beech. Their parent Textron did and it was years after Cessna stopped production of their retracts. As was already mentioned, when Cessna resumed their production lines, they decided it was not financially worth it to produce a retract single.
Click to expand...

Exactly it was a financial thing. If it was liability over retract, Textron wouldn't have bought Beech.
 
Ok, show me how or why having retract gear increases their liability. If they thought the market was big enough to tool up for them, they would have.
 
A new Centurion with latest avionics IF it could hold around $700K I think it could fit a role. Maybe. I don't know, I'm no statistics guy.

It's such a fine line you need gross sales to tool up for it, so they're gone for good or until hydrogen electric motors take over or something ... cue iH ;)

The turbine and composite experimental singles have made it obsolete sounds like. :sad:
 
Last edited:
timwinters said:
One word. Retract.

Second word. Liability.

They didn't include any retracts after the the restart.
Click to expand...

Another, more general word: Rivets

Lots and lots of rivets.

If and when you tour the Cirrus factory, you get to see the giant molds for the two fuselage halves, which are then "simply" glued together. "Simply" is in quotes because everything involved with the composite structure is highly controlled with precise mixes, temperatures, humidities and that sort of thing.

But overall the process appears to be much less labor-intensive.

Pretty sure that's why the prices of new "legacy" planes have moved into nosebleed territory.

An updated P210 would be a marvelous thing. I have a bunch of hours in a nearly new one back in the 1980's and loved it. But I'll bet it would be pushing $1,000,000 today, and the market for such a thing would be vanishingly small, I'd guess.
 
I'm fairy certain the reason Cessna stopped production of the c210 is because it was so popular they were unable to meet production demands. :goofy:
 
timwinters said:
You should know better than anyone! :rolleyes2:

:rofl:
Click to expand...

Exactly right, and as with the vast majority of gear up incidents (the damage was so little it was not deemed an accident) there were no injuries involved. A person who porpoises and collapses the nose gear on a FG plane ends up with the same or more damage.
 
Dan Thomas said:
Not nonsense. Look at, for example, the seats in the restart 172s compared to the pre-'86 models. Cessna had to meet the updated FAR 23 requirements, which calls for 26G seats. Those things are built like bridges and weigh about as much. Other parts of the airplane also had to be beefed up. Between those changes, and adding fancy interiors and Garmin stuff, the airplane gained 300 pounds.

Those updated standards applied to all the restart airplanes. I work on them all and it's easy to see what they had to change. If they'd have restarted the 210 they'd have ended up with a far too heavy airplane that would sell for well over a million bucks.
Click to expand...

Typical brand new part 25 jet seats weigh anywhere from 50 to about 80 pounds upholstered. Most have some sort of machined aluminum base/frame with seat pans etc made from formed aluminum sheets.

IRRC the seats in the Cardinal where under 30 pound each including the bench seat.

210s were typically equipped with some bulky radios of the era so I would think there could be substantial savings there with modern avionics.
 
Last edited:
bnt83 said:
Typical brand new part 25 jet seats weigh anywhere from 50 to about 80 pounds upholstered. Most have some sort of machined aluminum base/frame with seat pans etc made from formed aluminum sheets.

IRRC the seats in the Cardinal where under 30 pound each including the bench seat.

210s were typically equipped with some bulky radios of the era so I would think there could be substantial savings there with modern avionics.
Click to expand...

That's exactly right. My '66 Mooney has front seats that probably weigh about 25lbs upholstered. The lap belt that is attached to them isn't going to help that much if the seat tears off it's tracks and in a bad forward impact, it will. It is only held on by little bits of aluminum. The shoulder belt I added will help a little as it is fasted to the steel frame of the fuselage.

Most of the planes we are flying now were certified in a time when smoking cigarettes in the cockpit was accepted and normal. This is why I would love to see the certification for the airbag seat belts fast tracked for all makes and models and if the Feds really want to get the fatality numbers down, dare I say they should subsidize them.
 
Henning said:
Exactly right, and as with the vast majority of gear up incidents (the damage was so little it was not deemed an accident) there were no injuries involved.
Click to expand...

So, am I not remembering correctly that the insurance company totaled it? If so, that's not exactly what I'd call "little damage."

Henning said:
A person who porpoises and collapses the nose gear on a FG plane ends up with the same or more damage.
Click to expand...

Red herring. Fixed gear aircraft are no more likely to be porpoised than retracts and, when they are, can withstand more abuse before they collapse than the typical retract can...especially Cessna retracts...

i.e. Porpoising incidents are completely unrelated to whether a plane is FG or retract thus they likely don't impact a company's liability decision making...except, if anything, Cessna might view it as yet another reason not to build retracts since they are less robust than fixed gear.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top