Cesna

Cessna Aircraft Company

Former type	Subsidiary
Industry	Aerospace
Fate	became a brand of Textron Aviation in March 2014
Founded	1927; 91 years ago (1927)
Founder	Clyde Cessna
Defunct	March 2014
Headquarters	Wichita, Kansas, United States
Key people	Scott A. Ernest (CEO from May 31, 2011)
Products	General aviation aircraft Business jets
Number of employees	8,500 (2013)
Parent	Textron Aviation
Subsidiaries	McCauley Propeller Systems
Website	cessna.txtav.com cessna.com

The Cessna Aircraft Company (/ˈsɛsnə/) was an American general aviation aircraft manufacturing corporation headquartered in Wichita, Kansas. Best known for small, piston-powered aircraft, Cessna also produced business jets. For many years the company was one of the highest-volume producers of general aviation aircraft in the world. It was a subsidiary of the US conglomerate Textron. In March 2014 Cessna ceased operations as a separate company and became a brand produced by Textron Aviation.

Clyde Cessna, a farmer in Rago, Kansas, built his own aircraft and flew it in June 1911, the first person to do so between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. Cessna started his wood-and-fabric aircraft ventures in Enid, Oklahoma, testing many of his early planes on the salt flats. When bankers in Enid refused to lend him more money to build his planes, he moved to Wichita.

Cessna Aircraft was formed when Clyde Cessna and Victor Roos became partners in the Cessna-Roos Aircraft Company in 1927. Roos resigned just one month into the partnership selling back his interest to Cessna. In the same year, the Kansas Secretary of State approved dropping Roos's name from the company name.

The Cessna DC-6 earned certification on the same day as the stock market crash of 1929, October 29, 1929.