Flying a Historic Cessna 195 — INCOSE Chesapeake Chapter

by George Anderson, ESEP

*Figure 1. Cessna 195, Taildragger with Radial Engine and Constant Speed Propeller*

Systems Engineers oversee and sometimes operate systems during their operational lifetime. Risk management is a major responsibility and is not always played out in a meeting or spreadsheet. This story is an example of applying the Systems Engineering Operations Process as presented in the INCOSE Systems Engineering Handbook and ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288.

Agents of the U.S. Drug enforcement Administration (DEA) seized the property of a suspected drug dealer in Northern Ca in the summer of 1982. In addition to a significant amount of gold bullion, a classic Cessna 195 aircraft was impounded. This would be the second aircraft that the DEA had asked me to move to Travis AFB, CA for safekeeping. The first was a WWII era B-26 bomber impounded after it made an emergency landing at Marysville, CA Airport. My unique 4-year career moving historic aircraft to museums included both flying and disassembling them for transport by C5 cargo aircraft. In all I moved over 30 historic aircraft to Travis and other museums in the US.

The DEA was anxious to move the Cessna 195 to the safety of Travis AFB and asked me if the USAF could quickly move the aircraft from Lincoln Regional Airport (KLHM) to Travis Air Force Base (KSUU)-a distance of about 70 miles. As the then Director of the Travis Air Force Museum, I was also able to provide the needed preventative maintenance and security needed for a relatively expensive asset. The Cessna 195 was valued at over $100,000 in 2020 dollars. Once secured at Travis the Museum would expect to be granted custody if a forfeiture was declared by a Federal Court. The aircraft type had been flown by the USAF as the LC-126 and would be displayed to the public in that external appearance.

Cessna 195 aircraft are rare in that only 1180 were built from 1947 to 1954. It was the last radial engine powered aircraft built by Cessna and had a tail wheel landing gear configuration often called a tail dragger. Today there are over 400 still in the FAA registry and many of these are still flying.

A quick Google search will show many YouTube videos of this aircraft. It will also reveal that there are serious challenges to operating it. Like many tail wheel aircraft, it is prone to ground looping. It also has poor visibility looking over the nose and is not the most stable aircraft in flight.

On the plus side it has exceptional climb performance and carries a load of 5 plus baggage about 800 miles at 140 mph.

The day after my meeting with the DEA agents, I boarded one of their single engine aircraft for a flight to Lincoln Airport.

There I met several other DEA Agents who were preparing the plane for flight. One of them had an A&P mechanics license and was familiar with the 195. [Airframe and Powerplant (A&P) certificate issued by the FAA. Needed to approve repairs on aircraft.] I had never seen a Cessna 195 before but had significant experience with operating radial aircraft engines and making tailwheel landings on other aircraft.

Travis Approach Control and Tower had been notified to expect me to arrive on a visual flight plan before noon and I did not want to be late.

After a quick engine start and runup instruction provided by the mechanic, I felt prepared enough for the short flight.

My conditions for success were:

Get off the ground without veering off the runway because of P-factor.
Clear the obstacles in the climb out path.
Once airborne, get the feel of the aircraft in preparation for making a safe landing.
Fly a power on approach to landing with little or no flare and active use of the rudders and wheel brakes on touchdown to prevent yawing that would almost surely lead to a ground loop.
Taxi into the congested main parking apron at Travis without running into anything.

I had plenty of fuel and oil and I knew the area so was not going to need help finding the main runway at Travis AFB. The short duration of the flight meant that other failures short of engine failure were not likely.

*Figure 2. Jacobs 755 cu. In., 7 Cylinder Radial Engine & Hamilton Standard Variable Pitch, Constant Speed Propeller*

The second engine start was around 11AM and as the engine warmed up, I reviewed the primary controls: throttle, mixture, propeller RPM, and carburetor heat. These were all familiar and I mentally reviewed the speeds and manifold settings that I would use. Fuel boost pump and tank selection were checked. Finally, I rolled in full right rudder trim and somewhat reluctantly backed off one crank in case I was slow to correct any adverse yaw after takeoff.

Next, I made a quick call on Unicom announcing my taxi to the runway and requested that my takeoff time be relayed to Travis Tower. I wanted to have no other airplanes getting in my path.

I lined up on the runway, reviewed the checklist, and then brought the power up. The Jacobs 300hp radial engine was loud, and I backed off slightly from full power knowing that I was light and could reduce the anticipated P-factor force during takeoff and initial climb.

P-factor deserves a short explanation. On most small aircraft it is not a major problem. With larger propellers and higher horsepower in combination with a tail wheel aircraft it can be a difficult control problem during takeoff. Basically, the propeller creates a yaw force to the left that can be powerful and sudden. The pilot many times must correct at speeds where rudder effectiveness is low. This forces the pilot to also use differential breaking that requires skillful application.

The brakes come off and the sound of the engine changed as the constant speed propeller adjusted to the rapidly building speed. In a flash I am drifting to the left runway edge and just as I approach it, I pull the airplane into the air. I hold it level momentarily to build airspeed and then pull back again to clear the row of trees at the airfield boundary.

Acceleration on the runway was unexpectedly rapid and left my instrument cross check lagging behind. Now, I focus on the feel of the controls as I climb to 3000 feet and trim the control forces off including the rudder trim. At climb out speed the P-Factor is fading and I use the turn and slip indicator to take out all the yaw. In old airplanes this is called “stepping on the ball”

I have 25 minutes estimated time to arrive at Travis and I start planning my approach and landing. Normal final approach speed is 70 MPH, but I plan on maintaining 100 until over the threshold and bleeding off to a minimum of 80 before touchdown. I contact Travis Tower and request a straight in approach and a descent to 1000 feet.

At 10 minutes out I have the runway in sight, and I reduce power and begin my descent. To my surprise the aircraft descends slowly. I am not willing to reduce power further fearing carburetor icing or other possible engine malfunctions. I fly several wide S turns and try a slip to get down to 1000 feet and establish my proper glide path to the runway.

Tower clears me to land immediately and the radio falls silent as if I am alone in the sky. The prop rpm is pushed up to the maximum rpm and the aircraft is holding 100 knots and about a 250 feet per minute rate of descent. Given the long runway, I plan to be at 50 feet over the runway threshold. As I pass 50 feet, the airspeed remains steady at 100 mph. The airplane is stable and responsive at this speed and I decide to continue the established descent to touchdown.

As the airplane nears the ground, I level off a few feet above the runway to adjust my depth perception, kill the drift and then slowly fly the airplane down to contact the runway with the main gear. There is no attempt to flare and no bounce. My control forces keep the tires in contact with the runway.

Once my main wheels are on the runway I cut power and at 80 MPH test the brakes carefully and then begin a gradual increase in braking pressure making sure the tail stays horizontal and the airplane is tracking straight down the runway centerline. My viewing perspective outside is left and right only making it hard to make rapid corrections to my track down the runway. Below 50 MPH the tail settles to the runway and differential braking is necessary to keep moving straight ahead. At 30 MPH, I can feel the airplane begin to wander off center line and I apply full right rudder and enough symmetric brake pressure to come to a full stop.

Sitting for a minute stopped on the runway at a slight angle, I realize that I had beaten the ground loop that was sure to have happened if I relied only on asymmetric braking to correct the low speed yaw. I simply did not have enough experience in the aircraft to allow any lateral movement on my first landing. As I used to say to my C5 aircraft students: “Fly it until you are in the chocks”.

The long taxi route into parking was another challenge as vehicles drove in front of me in my forward blind spots and I finally had to request wing walkers to come out and keep other vehicles and aircraft away from my taxi route. Nobody at Travis that day seemed aware of the lack of forward visibility inherent in the Cessna 195 design.

I realized after shutting down the engine that this was not my best flight but that my experience and training in similar aircraft had been helpful. My physical piloting skills probably saved the takeoff while my tail wheel flying experience allowed me to remain in control of the landing rollout even though I was flying this aircraft for the first time.

The next day a DEA agent called me and mentioned that my takeoff from Lincoln was exciting to watch and that two DEA contract pilots had ground looped the aircraft attempting to takeoff several days before me. I did not ask how much damage they might have inflicted on the Cessna 195 before I flew it.

With this mixed review, I closed a chapter on flying unfamiliar aircraft without a checkout. It is likely that more was wrong with the Cessna 195 than I knew. I later read of general fleet problems with misaligned main wheels and malfunctions of the tailwheel centering mechanism. These unknowns could have aggravated my ground handling difficulties as they did for a famous stunt pilot, Walter Eichhorn, at an airshow

It is easy looking back on this flight and say it should have been done another way but that ignores the unique challenge that it held for me. Would I turn it down or intentionally send a less qualified pilot?

I was at that time responsible for restoring vintage aircraft to temporary flight status and flying them to air museums in the US and overseas. I normally had military pilots that had extensive experience in each aircraft, but the Cessna 195 was a special challenge. There were no locally available military pilots that had reasonable experience flying similar aircraft.

I was left with my own experience and I made the decision to take what I knew was a larger than normal risk. Legally I was qualified by the FAA to fly the aircraft using my Commercial and Instrument license but flying an aircraft solo for the first flight has its moments of excitement.

I succeeded with the challenging Cessna 195, but I learned that the margin of safety was much smaller than I had initially imagined, and I returned to more routine flying as an instructor pilot on the C5A aircraft.