Shooting Cessna in the Foot

It’s been quite a busy few weeks for the webmaster at the Cessna Skycatcher blog since the Textron subsidiary announced its plan to assemble the C-162 in China. The blog has been the landing site for a number of heated comments poking hard at Cessna for doing business with the Chinese. One fellow called the company a bunch of Communists while another simply said they’d never buy another Cessna product (Cessna is a sponsor of Jetwhine BTW).

Cessna’s VP of Marketing Tom Aniello went online to explain the company perspective and a few more positive comments have appeared – I wrote one myself – but what I find truly unbelievable is that no one seems to be talking about the impact of the Cessna decision on the sagging flight training industry. But then I have often found that when it comes time to marketing their services, the flight training industry is often its own worst enemy.

No doubt a bunch of the 900 or so Skycatchers on order will be headed for flight training slots. Having spent have my life – or at least it seems like it – in the right seat of a Cessna 152 instructing, I’d be pleased as punch if I owned a flight school and had an opportunity to put my students in a brand-new machine. Many schools are still trying to convince people driving BMWs that paying extraordinary hourly rates for a 30-year old airplane is actually cool.

My guess is that the Skycatcher blog has evolved for the moment into one of those places where a majority of the minority (those folks who can’t stomach that concept of working with China) are getting all the ink. No doubt too, the press the Chinese have received during the rush of recalls in the past few months is part of that PR problem.

But despite the fact that I know some of the Cessna folks in Wichita, I think it’s time some of that vast majority of happy Skycatcher buyers got up off their duff and speak up. Think the Skycatcher is a good idea? Own a flight school that is set to take delivery of a 162? Head over to the Skycatcher blog and tell them. Don’t make the rest of us do all the heavy lifting.