I had 1974 C177B. Honestly the best airplane I ever had. Low cost maintenance, 125 knot cruise and easy entry and egress. A great Bahamas airplane at 10 GPH. Loved that airplane.

The Cardinal has one of the widest CGs I have seen. It is almost impossible to load it to a rear CG, but it is possible to load it forward of the CG. The result of a too far forward CG is very poor climb performance because of the drag of the stabilator trying to hold the nose up. Did you ever do a CG calculation? If it is just me flying my RG, putting 90 pounds of lead in the rear baggage compartment can give me another 4 knots in cruise and 100 fpm climb.

Vince (2600 hours in Cardinals)

What engine and HP? That’s seems mighty quick considering that wide body and 150hp?

What engine and HP? That’s seems mighty quick considering that wide body and 150hp?

Yep, that’s why I had him sitting aft. But if you’re looking for exact numbers...well that was 20 years ago plus or minus.

I’m not trying to knock the Cardinal, the snappy roll rate made it great for that mission, but for my personal preference in that range I’d go with a 172.

The FBO/Cessna dealer that I was working for when the Cardinal first came out in 1968 had brand new one. Everybody hated it because its anemic performance absolutely sucked. One day it was rented to a welder (because there was nothing else available). He and his young son piled in with load of welding rods in the luggage compartment; 40, 50 lbs or ?. When he returned, he raved about how much better it performed. Obviously, a CG situation. From then on, that was the only one in our fleet this customer would rent. Everybody else still thought it sucked.

To this day I can't understand how Cessna released that plane under those conditions. You're supposedly introducing the next generation of the 172, the airplane to replace the venerable Skyhawk. Why on Earth would you make it so under performing in comparison? It's so much better in every other way, why not put an engine in it that gave it equivalent or better performance?

Idiocy. And then, rather than switch production to the 177, they sold them both side by side. And the Cardinal didn't sell well... huh. Imagine that.

Morons.

John - if you have some spare time, a few minutes of google-fu will find the history of the C-177 line. It's an interesting history. The question you've asked has been asked at least a few thousand times before. Cessna had a contract for the 150hp engine, so that's what they put in the C-177. We know hindsight has proven this decision to have been a massive mistake, but at the time it looked like the only logical choice for Cessna execs. Penny wise, pound foolish.

WRT the Cardinal, it is now just about the only certified airplane that can be on our family's shopping list. Given my wife's mobility challenges, it's the only airplane she can enter and exit unassisted. This is a HUGE factor for anybody wishing to travel with aging or mobility-challenged passengers.

I've only flown the stock '68 model with 150hp. Yes, it wasn't stellar in climb, even with just two of us on board. But it did fly very nicely. If we weren't facing mobility challenges I'd still take a Grumman Cheetah over a straight '68 Cardinal - just a lot more fun to fly. Once you get into a 177B model I think you're getting into a much better airplane, one that competes reasonably well with other airplanes of the same installed HP. As an observation platform it's pretty hard to beat in terms of commonly available production airplanes. Oh, except maybe our Sportsman, thanks to its bubble windows and its strut mounted behind the cabin door.

Actually if you look into it, the '68 177 had slightly better performance than the '68 172. But because it was so much larger than the 172 people thought it would haule a lot more than the 172, which it didn't. The 177 is 48" wide at the shoulders, almost 3" wider than anything in the single engine Bonanza line (and most of their light twins). I believe its wider than any single engine cessna except for the 195. Pilots think that whatever you can fit the plane should be able to carry. Cessna could have put a much bigger engine in it, but it would have started to compete with the 182 and 210. With the turbo in mine, I am only about 10 knots shy of most 210's (Though they can carry much more weight). Most of the bad press the 177 received have been greatly exaggerated. Even the bent firewalls of the 68 was due to poor pilot technique. What you could get away with in a 172 did not work in a 177. Once they put slots in the stabilator, limited flap travel to 30 degrees and blunted the leading edge, sloppy pilots could once again operate the plane without major damage.

Vince

John I expected Vince to respond to your post and wasn’t disappointed.

Sadly in the case of the Cardinal the myth in the market place at the time killed it off. It did not perform badly compared to either the 172 or it’s competitors from other manufacturers. Sadly in marketing and sales it seems myth is more important than fact.

I suspect if Cessna originally introduced it with the 180 hp engine they would be more common now than 172’s

They are not as widely appreciated as they should be. Probably the easiest light single to get in and out of, very comfortable and spacious compared to other light singles, lovely flying characteristics, a stable IFR platform and fantastic views without the struts. They are also very efficient.

In my case, an rg, what’s not to like about 140 knots at 34 litres per hour lop or 150 knots at 42 litres per hour rop.

It was not the performance that killed the Cardinal it was the cost of manufacture. According to Bill Thompson, it cost as much to make the Cardinal than it did the 210. The main problem with building then was the thinner wing skins. They had to scrap a lot of Cardinal wings that just didn't conform. I believe it was a production Cardinal flight test that crashed (the pilot bailed out). The only production Cessna to do so. This was caused by a deformity in the wings.

Vince

I was in a partnership on a 180HP, fixed gear, 1974 177B and it was a great airplane. It was in the partnership for prolly 20 years or more, a few thousand hours, and flew from the west coast to Oshkosh and back 7 times. One field Overhaul in that time and otherwise just general maintenance and repairs. Never any problems with the single drive magneto arrangement but never like it. That wing is almost comically _Fat_ and the huge 40 degree flaps are like barn doors. Could come down like a rock if you wanted. With that stabilator, much more challenging to land than any other Cessna I've ever flown. I always heard _That_ is the reason it never sold well. I always thought a later model airframe with the earlier Thinner Wing would be a really cool set up. Great airplanes and the guys that love and appreciate them are the guys that have owned one. Was ahead of its time, I think.

No, what killed the Cardinal was the Skyhawk. What brain dead executive decided it would be a good idea to have the new model compete with the one it was meant to replace? If they had simply shut down 172 production we’d still see new Cardinals to this day.

As to cost to manufacture, shame on them. Deficient engineering on the Wings? Inadequate studies on cost to manufacture? Sorry, that’s just poor execution. The airplane was and is awesome. Cessna killed it through their own mismanagement.

The Musketeer I fly is forward CG biased so I fly with 120 lbs in the baggage compartment. Definitely makes a big difference in cruse, climb and flare.

According to Bill Thompson, if they had killed the 172 when they brought out the Cardinal, after a few years when they realized the cost of manufacture of the Cardinal they would have brought back the 172.

Vince