Cessna 182: 50 Years of FLying Skydivers
By Ed Scott

Fifty years ago, the roll-out of the Cessna 182 changed aviation—and became a blessing for skydiving.

When the Cessna Aircraft Company’s test pilot advanced the throttle of the prototype Cessna 182 on September 10, 1955, no one foresaw the changes to general aviation—and the implications for skydiving—in that first takeoff.

The first production 182 rolled out of Cessna’s Kansas factory in January 1956. By year end, Cessna had sold 843 of the model. Like car makers, Cessna tweaked each model year, either making improvements or adding new features.

To no one’s surprise, the 182 soon began to appear in DZs’ stables. It offered plenty of what skydiving operators wanted: good short- and grass-field performance and good climb rate at heavy weight. And when you pulled the yard-wide door off, you had a yard-wide opening onto a landing gear and strut arrangement custom-built to make the perfect launch platform for skydiving. And imagine the joy skydivers felt when someone discovered in 1963 how simple modifications to the door, including re-hinging it at the top, turned it into an excellent in-flight door that could open on jump run.

Today, the skydiving world has changed in many ways, but even with the inclusion of turbine aircraft, the 182 is easy to find. In fact, DZs reported using a total of 223 182s last year. The majority of those are pressed into service every weekend at the scores of Cessna-only DZs around the country. At most turbine DZs, you can still find a 182 jump plane, often tucked into the back of the hangar. Either way, the Cessna 182 has well earned its reputation over the past half century as skydiving’s tried and true workhorse.

Back to top
Back to Parachutist Online