Cessna Skymaster: Flop or Genius? 

I am Zoltar The Gatekeeper 🐲

@@carlsaganlives6086 I think Zuul is the gatekeeper. Just FYI.

@@barrygoldwater2441 Haha, I knew it was something like that - Zoltar is the magician in the arcade machine that granted the wish in "Big" I think

@@carlsaganlives6086 LOL, right, Zoltar Machine from "Big". Forgot that.

😁

Very nice story! you are very fortunate to have owned and flown so many different Cessna and other airplane models. I do agree with you that the 337 is one of the nicest light twins. fell in love when i saw it in a vietnam movie when i was a child.

​@@bramesque Thank you. It seems many share an intuitive love the 337. Many of my fondest flying memories involve 337s, like flying my father (a WWII Navy pilot) on his last trip to his favorite fishing lodge in Canada, or the day a veteran Vietnam O-2 combat pilot approached me on the ramp and wanted to look at my 337 and he said how much he would love to fly one again, I suggested he show me how he flew them. I put him in the left seat and after a couple of perfect approaches landings at a friend's private grass strip on a hil top, he said "you want me to show you how we used to attack a ground target?" I sad "Sure!", he circled close around the hilltop at wide open throttle speeding up to about 200mph, and as we passed a line of tall fir trees he pulled-up, climbed about 500ft, did a half roll and made a bee-line for the picture windows in my friend's living room perched on the bluff of the hilltop and while still at full-power, and with airspeed building and a big grin, said "BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!" Pulled-up just before passing over the house did another half-roll and a ducked behind the hill. He said, "Here you try it!" We did a couple more variations of Vietnam attack runs and returned home with the artificial horizon tumbled and whining. Being built as a warbird, the engines balanced on both ends, a long wing, oversized ailerons and elevator, over-built and a bit overweight, the 337 actually has a military feel on the controls and is capable of some light aerobatics, the Vietnam O-2 pilot showed me how even in a near vertical dive with power off the 337 builds drag quickly and he said pretty much stops accelerating about 20kts beyond red-line, a feature he claimed saved a few young combat pilots. The 337 has a few unconventional things that can bite an unaware pilot, like no flap takeoffs where it's possible to over-rotate and bang the tail, or fully retracting flaps on a go around, and as power is added can result in a pitch up. The inter-connected nose trim that rolls in nose-up trim as flaps retract, and that can be a help or a surprising pitch change for those not familiar with it, but most of all is the need to pay attention to the rear engine at all times as a power loss or failure is not as apparent as in a conventional twin. I had one Pressurized (Turbocharged) 337 and a non-turbo 337G that both had a tendency to vapor lock on hot taxis, takeoffs and even approaches on both the front and rear engines. And especially on the Turbo-charged P337 if you added power to quickly during a vapor-lock the engine could flood. I had this happen a couple of times on approach, and rather then fiddle with the funky engine I continued the approach on the good engine. If you experience this check and clean all fuel injectors and screens as a partially blocked screen or dirty injectors seem to contribute to vapor locking. After replacing old worn fuel pumps on the P337, the vapor locking seemed to finally go away. Keeping up with Exhaust leaks on the turbo and pressurized 337s will likely be an issue for any owner. I can relate a few more issues and suggested practices unique to the 337 if anyone is interested.

Wouldn't it be much better to own and fly the Airbus 220?

@@Kevin-bl6lg Yes, if you are sharing operational costs with 200 friends and family.

Sorry, but claiming it had the best single engine performance of any twin in it's class is absolute rubbish and kind of makes me doubt if any of the rest of your story is true. The one big downfall of this aircraft was it's single engine performance. It was absolutely woeful - particularly so if you lost the critical engine. Whenever the 337 was anywhere near maximum gross weight, if you lost an engine after take off, the only place you were going was down. So much so that the accepted joke was for a multi engine aircraft, the remaining engine was just taking you to the scene of the accident. When I did my type conversion on it the instructor had me conduct simulated rear engine failures to demonstrate how bad it's single engine performance was - and that was when the aircraft was virtually empty with just me and an instructor on board. Completely clean the aircraft would barely climb, even when you were close to ISA conditions. Start increasing density altitude - forget it. You can add in how marginal it's performance was by the fact you needed to delay retracting the gear after take off purely because of the amount of drag the rear doors gave in transition. It was a low drag gear, so in an potential low level engine failure scenario you are better off leaving it extended than risking the performance hit trying to retract it. Doing a dirty go around single engine in a Skymaster would hardly have been safe or demonstrating anything other than how much performance it lacked.

Good statement agreed 🤝

Couple of good short turbines and a little Roy Lopresti o.m.g.

A lukewarm observation and one that doesn't work unless you like scores that end up even.

@@billveek9518 I just see with the right people it could be made into a better machine no doubt just my call 🤙

@@billveek9518 LOL. Maybe in the art world you can judge a piece of art is either genius or terrible, and maybe you even think you have a paintbrush that is perfect for any type of situation with any type of material. But in the real-world tools and equipment are never either perfect or useless, they are just better or worse suited for any specific function to which they may be applied.

Cessna landing gears were/are a problem. My dad was a passenger in a 182 RG (or maybe it was a 177 RG) when a part in the landing gear broke. The main gear came out but just dangled uselessly like a dead duck. He could see the gear and then got a bright idea. He grabbed the tow bar, pushed the door open and pulled the gear on his side into position. The pilots side gear was tied in so this pulled them both in position. However the gear would not lock into place so he had to hold it in place until touchdown. Then they just taxied as normal as the weight of the plane held the gear down.

Nice story!

And another nice story about the weak gear.

@@erictaylor5462Your dad was quick thinker and also cool under pressure. That’s what makes for a good pilot.

Thank you for your service, and holy shoot-what a story!

Exactly... I've bought and sold 16 337s and the airplane I mostly soloed and learned to fly in. There's other cheap twins I would rather fly like a Seneca II because it's basically a Turbo-charged Cherokee 6 with two engines, and does better getting out of high, hot and short strips, and you often get boots so it's a better rocky-mountain airplane, but the 337 is more fun and comfy.

Also in apocalypse now in the siege of the VC river entrance as a spotter .

Actually, that would be the Cessna O-2 Skymaster (nicknamed "Oscar Deuce"), a military version of the Cessna 337 Super Skymaster, used for forward air control (FAC) and psychological operations (PSYOPS) by the US military between 1967 and 2010. Ask me how I know. Hint: I knew Gene for more than a decade before he passed away in 2004.

Some 0-1 birddogs and then O-2 Skymasters flew out of Udon , Thailand. Spooks were trying to put the Ho Chi min Trail outta business. I was one of the Army guys that spent whole tour in NE Thailand. They called the war in Cambodia and Laos the second front of the Vietnam war. The Thais and Hmong people loved us because we kept the communists out of Thailand.

@@justincase5272 If you are talking about Gene Hackman I believe that he is 93 and is still alive

It is a great movie but sometimes I just scan through it to watch the cool flying scenes 😁

Thank you for sharing! I had an identical experience in a 337 people thought I was making up. My father was a Cessna dealer and over several decades we owned over a dozen 337's and it's the aircraft I have the most time in, and my near death experience in an inverted spin, in Cessna's 3rd production ser# 337 that was in their sales brochure in 1965-66'. I had two airline pilots interested in it, one was Southwest 737 FO and the other a CRJ driver and CFI whom I let fly from the left seat, who wanted to try to clean stall stall and at about 4000ft AGL over the Oregon coastline, he obliviously left about 20" of power on the rear engine (common in 337's due to friction in the long throttle cable going to the rear engine), and started hauling back fast on the yoke. The 337 with gear and flaps retracted and a bit of power on takes a pretty high angle of attack to stall, and as we slowed I noticed the the T&B was nearly a ball out to the left, and I said: "You better step on that ball", at which point he added more back pressure and a good foot full of right-rudder sending the ball nearly full left as the right wing stalled and he added full left aileron, which abruptly sent us into a nose-down inverted spin as his buddy, the 300lb 737 driver who unbuckled his belt after takeoff screaming on the cabin roof and kicking me in the in the back of the head. At this point the CFI froze with full left aileron and right rudder as a the coastline filled the windscreens. I grabbed the yoke and had to yell "I GOT IT! LET GO LET GO!" cut power on the rear engine and recovered into vertical dive with the old 337 over red-line and did a high-G pull-out about 1000ft above the trees, but after catching a couple of accelerated stalls just managed to pull out less than 500ft above the treeline. After that both wanna be Skymaster owners said that was the most dangerous airplane ever made and to get back on the ground ASAP. I took them back up to about 4,000ft and demonstrated clean, power-on stalls with front and rear engine and how being a pusher with the rear engine only required left rudder, and even with no rudder correction, as long as no adverse aileron was added, clean, power-on stalls were aggressive but manageable to anyone who did not inappropriately apply the flight controls, and suggested for the safety of the flying public he go get some real stall-spin / aerobatic recovery training, but to no avail, he insisted he did nothing wrong saying "you have to keep wings level in a stall" I said "yea, but with the rudder not with the ailerons, and especially not after you induce a stall!" Alas they left and no doubt went on to tell people the 337 was the most dangerous, spin-prone airplane ever produced. Something 337 pilots should consider and understand about stalls and low speed operations with flaps up are: #1, the that the early model 337's might require left rudder in a climb in with rear engine power only, however this seemed not apparent in later models I owned so some rigging or engine mount angle might have addressed this. #2, the horizontal Stabilizer and elevator on the 337 is huge and have a lot of authority so you can more easly induce a deep or accelerated stall. Adding power to the rear engine and with flaps-up can induce an unexpected pitch-up. 3, The Skymaster has a very even weight balance or at times aft weight balance, and the added weight of the rear engine can, and with flaps-up as slow speed is very pitch-neutral, and exceptionally light on the elevator, and like a fighter plane, and can over-pitch easily causing a deeper than expected stall, something to be aware of to avoid departure stalls or on go-arounds. Cessna implemented an automatic flap-trim system on the 337 that rolls nose-down when flaps are retracted, due to light and powerful elevator forces to compensate for the light pitch forces during take-off and go-arounds. First-time 337 pilots might be surprised the first time they retract the flaps after landing and see the trim wheel rapidly rolling forward. 4, Is NO-Flap Takeoffs If you read the manual it says No-flap take-offs are NOT recommended. My first high-crosswind takeoff in a 337 I decided to use no flaps and with two people and bags in the rear was surprised that at bout 90mph with normal rotation back pressure, and I was still stuck to the runway. My flight instructor in the right seat said "You going to take-off?" At which point I added some back pressure only to have the nose-pop up and lightly scrape one tail boom and we leap into the air at about a 30 degree nose-up attitude. My CFI and passengers were not impressed and and said I needed to get my head out of ass, but mentioned that might have been the reason for the restriction on 'No Flap' takeoffs. later we tried a few no-flap take-offs and found you had to be a bit more attentive to pitch control with flaps up and low speed as you lose the nose-down moment with flaps-up and the added weight can cause an over-rotation and tail damage commonly seen on 337's. I'd suggest 337 pilots become antiquated with flaps-up characteristics, and avoid flaps-up takeoffs and not be too quick to retract the last notch of flaps until above 90mph and well established in a climb. One interesting and unique ground handling 337 trick is that with no-one in the cabin, and with one arm firmly wrapped under one tail-boom to prevent a tail strike, you can yank the nose off the ground and swing and push it around from the tail like an ultralight.

You sound like you would also like the Rutan Grizzly design, for similar reasons.

@@bricefleckenstein9666 Yea that as a cool airplane, that's all but forgotten. The 337 will land pretty short and you can get into a lot of places you can't get out of. The 337 doesn't generate the engine-born lift like conventional twins, and being a bit over-built and overweight and with a semi-laminar wing, it doesn't jump into the air like a 310, Baron or Seneca, and in density altitude situations it rolls a bit. I worked with Burt about 25 years on a up-scaled Boomerang design for Sky-Taxi start-up Ray Morrow started after he sold his II Morrow Avionics company to UPS/Garmin. I got a demo flight in the Boomerang Prototype and liked it and the design a lot. The Sky-taxi version was similar in size to a Cessna 414. After Ray shut the program I ended up with the fuselage mock-up in my hanger for a while and fished the seats, interior parts out of the dumpster, and briefly tried to find an investor, but after 911 and the 06' financial crash, air-taxi investors were few if any. A friend who loved Skymasters and was involved in the Prescott Pusher project, secured an option on the old Mitsubishi MU-2/Diamond Jet facilities and we floated the idea of producing a larger 337 style aircraft and had some investor interest, but when we contacted Cessna about doing a joint venture, they were not interested and went as far as hostility pointing out: "If you produce anything that even remotely looks like a Skymaster we will sue your arse off" literally...

I heard a lot of noise while flying, what is your favorite plane?

@@Neeko-fz1uk I had a bunch of Skymasters, and the early models with the big windows and light sound proofing are are comparable to a Beech Baron, a 182 or 206. The P337s are pretty civilized and I would say quieter than a Cessna 340 or P-Baron when pressurized. I had a old French Reims version that was pretty much a military version with a civilian interior and little or no Soundproofing and single pane windows and it was LOUD. That was the only 337 didn't like

I had three P337s and thought they were the best of the 337's. I liked the P-Baron and Aerostar and 421 for serious going places better, but the 337 was much less hassle and cost and so much more forgiving.

Yep, though the narrator described it as "inelegant." Unfortunately I've not seen one in the air where I live since 1976.

Yup, very much my Skymaster experence

@franksgattolin8904 "It was a very good airplane that was quite safe." Was?

Give us a few stories of in flight happenings, there are many of us who cant fly and would love to read them.

​@@Tom-zs6bbhow many are flying today? $$$$ I haven't annualed one since 2008. In fact I've only seen once since. I got to annual it because nobody else wanted to, and I really liked them.👍👍😎

@@hotrodray6802 "how many are flying today?" If that's the metric then an awful lot of older airplanes need to be scrapped. What's the magic number that saves an airframe from that fate? "In fact I've only seen once since." You're kidding, right?

The Cessna product range meant it started with "3". The rest is either based on your view or a coincidence.

Correct. Dornier still held the patent on inline twin engine arrangement and Cessna paid Dornier royalties to use the design, hence the 336/337 designation

The Cessna naming of the 336/337 was Not a coincidence.

​@@user-ey5qo2bn9c the first "3" wasn't. The rest is whatever anybody thinks. Lots of claims but no evidence other than 336 & 337 come after 335. Even Smithsonian make no reference to patent liability for 1937 for a WW2 aircraft - its absurd. I'll leave you with your single vague post and run.

There is a reason I generally do not post. Do you happen to know what Coprolallia is ? It is not opinion it is fact that the 336/337 was inspired by the DO-335

Indeed, I bought and sold a bunch of 337's and had an old Reims 337 that had been imported to the U.S. and it was different then the Wichita Skymasters. The rear seat was like a Military O2 and it had the holes and spar mounts for hard points on the wings. It was also slower and felt different on the controls, and the panel was a bit different but I bought it for about 1/2 the cost of a Kansas 337, a great value

The Reims built examples also had anti-corrosion to European standards , much better than US built aircraft.@@jackoneil3933

The cost of certification is hampering the industry... Imagine if the auto industry was still producing VW Beetles, Dodge Darts and Ford Falcons. These were all great designs for their time, but auto efficiency has greatly improved since the 1930's, 1950's & 1960's...

It sounds like you have a lot of aviation expertise, are you an airman?

The fuel tanks are in the wings, there are none in the tail (or in the rear of the fuselage).

Agreed. My first 400 hours flying, after my private pilot license, was in an RG. 10 gallons an hour at 170 mph wasn’t bad. Fun to fly too. I only got one hour in the Skymaster. Excellent aircraft very similar to the 210.

I worked for a Cessna Dealer in Illinois. We were never able to sell a single new Cessna 337, but we did service 4 or 5 of them per year. My boss called them "Suck and Blow" Cessnas. 🤠

You mean like the Spectrum SA550?

They did have problems keeping their wings in bad weather, adding those engines would mean even more robust wings would be needed!

This is awesome, it looks like you have a great idea for the design of the aircraft, can I have a more conversation with you?

Yup, my brother-in-law and I had a piston seize on the left engine of a 310D and the prop and crankshaft depart and land in the Colombia river after take-off out of Hood River Oregon. as a result of someone putting the wrong pistons in.

I think you meant 18gph. At 18gpm, 7 hours (1,000 miles) would consume 45,360 pounds of fuel... :D

@@rogerramjet6134 sorry, I did mean 18gph

@@jimdigriz3436 Those who have, those who will, and those who will again... :)

Wow, it sounds like there are a lot of stories here, are you a veteran?

@@Neeko-fz1uk No stories, I was a fortunate son.

I heard this news soon. I hope no one was injured. How are you now?

a realistic fair statment Well Done

That's why you lead with the aft engine on takeoff and then throttle the front engine when everything is green and it sounds right, takes about 3 seconds. It's a neat 'kick in the pants'

That's why 2 turbines high horsepower great performance but we have to stuff fuel in the back places get it?

I find it somewhat ironic that the FAA form for a major repair or alteration to an aircraft is FAA Form 337. Huh.

Indeed!

@@ErikssonTord_2 US special forces however had a customised STOL version with a pusher turbine and cargo compartment in the nose.

One reason it was superseded is lack of ejection seats. The USAF was desperate when it was procured. They were reliable and cheap to maintain but best for civilian use.

Aircrew operated flaps to vent rear heat.