From The Cockpit — Cessna 177 Cardinal

Cessna’s Cardinal (nee Model 177) was one of these wallflowers. It was not to the fickleness of human likes and dislikes of appearance and style that the Cardinal fell foul. Designed to be the luxury single engined Cessna, the Model 177 came with style and graceful lines. Its September 1967 introduction showed an aeroplane with a completely new wing and tailplane and far more rakish windscreen. Although distinctly a Cessna its wing design philosophy was different — cantilevered, constant taper, longer span flaps and shorter span ailerons of greater chord and Frise design (whereupon the up going aileron nose protrudes from the wing lower surface, thereby balancing adverse yaw and some hinge moment). Wing section was Cessna standard, NACA 2400 series. The new empennage was a greater departure from previous Cessna design — the tailplane was all-moving.

The pilot’s visibility benefitted from the greatly raked windscreen, as did airframe drag. However in 1967 the initial Model 177 was underpowered with only a Lycoming 0-320 of 150bhp under the cowl. The warranted power upgrade was quickly implemented by a re-engining with the 0-360-A1F6 of 180bhp.

Cabin accommodation allowed for a total of four adults, including pilot. In addition an optional seat could be installed aft of the rear seat and used for seating two children. Up front the pilot could be treated to a full IFR panel of Cessna radios if he so

choosed. If he chose Narco or King though, too bad: it was (a sensible) part of the Cessna policy to standardise production line aircraft as completely as possible — this meant no customised mods ex-factory.

Poised to sell, sales of the elegant Model 177 stalled. Apart from the re-engining Cessna countered with diversification, making five versions available to the market by the end of 1970. But the aeroplane already had a reputation.

The negative reputation was ‘poor’ low speed longitudinal control, particularly in the landing flare. While the ‘low standard’ of control was a matter for qualitative conjecture, that the control feel was different is indisputable. All previous Cessnas had conventional elevators, for which the change of lift coefficient with deflection is lower than for an all-moving tailplane. Consequently less coarse control column movement is required in the flare, ie the pitch control is more sensitive. On the other hand a conventional elevator maintains some effectiveness up to full elevator deflection; an all-moving tailplane may stall and run out of effectiveness.

It suffices to say that there were some landing accidents resulting in nosegear damage. A large part of the problem was that Cessna busied itself selling 177’s to 152/172 pilots who were unprepared for the subtle change in low speed pitch feel. No problem for a non Cessna pilot. Piper for example had made wide use of the all-moving stabilator on the additional flight test work. As a result of this work the Company modified the stabilator by the addition of an inverted fixed slot along its leading edge, presumably to delay negative stall of the stabilator at large noseup deflections (the appropriate aerodynamic fix at a time before the fitting of vortex generators on general aviation aircraft became fashionably acceptable). Speculatively the apparent difference between the 177’s effective flaps causing a higher nose-down pitching moment when lowered, requiring more download from the tailplane to balance. Cessna further adjusted the pitch control feel in 1970/71 by fitting a modified linkage from the stabilator to the control wheel. Although these changes enhanced the aerodynamics, compared to other Cessna singles the pitch feel remained different and the prejudice of existing Cessna pilots remained. A total of 1,827 Model 177/Cardinals had been built by the end of 1972 – no small feat but nevertheless a build rate very much lower than that of the 172 and 182 Models.

Meanwhile December 1970 had seen the introduction of a retractable landing gear version of the Cardinal. The leaf spring steel mainlegs of the fixed LG airplane were replaced by tubular steel maingear struts, activated by an electrically-powered hydraulic pump operating to a pressure of 1500 psi. As a first effort at retracting the gear of one of its singles, the design was ingenious, the spidery maingear legs folding like a downhill skier’s poles tucked underarms as he tackles the straight part of his run. The design was rewinged with one of a different section — the laminar flow NACA 64A215 (root)/212 (tip) — of exactly the same overall dimensions. Apart from reducing wind drag, this change may have possibly been made to reduce the sectional nose down pitching moment and thereby enabling the tailplane o work more efficiently.

Also on the RG Cardinals, Cessna re-engined with the fuel injected 10-360-A1B6D, delivering 200bhp. MTOW went up from 1134kg to 1270kg, a 60 US gallon usable fuel system was installed and the performance blossomed. Max level speed went up from 139 to 156 knots, 75% cruise speed from 130 to 148 knots, whilsta10% increase saw the climb rate go to 925ft/min. A comparison of range figures also shows the speed and fuel efficiency advantage of the RG Cardinal: — at economical cruise speed/ 1,000ft with VFR reserve: Cardinal (49 USG usable) 615 nm;(60 USG usable) 780nm; Cardinal RG (60 USG usable) 895 nm.

Production ceased at the end of 1978 with 4,239 Model 177s/ Cardinals and RGs, including Reims built RGs, having been delivered. By any other standards, this was a large run, but by Cessna standards, merely a medium run, discontinued somewha} surprisingly at the height of the GA sales boom. The wing g%slgn survived on the P210, although the all-moving tailplane idn’t.

Whilst the fixed gear Cardinal may not be an airplane of particular special qualities the Cardinal RG is a particularly good combination of speed and economics. It is also a flexible loader —even the fully equipped RG Il is able to fill the baggage bay with four on board and full fuel.

Inside the panel presentation is typical Cessna, and ground operation, including engine start and taxi, holds no surprises. On takeoff the tailplane is swept by the highly energised prop slipstreams and is highly effective down to the lowest rotation speed. Visibility ahead in the climb may be obscured by the cowling but after levelling out an improvement ahead and to the sides due to the lack of struts and to the wing being set further back with reference to the row one seats is noticed by all on board. Flight control feel in the air is certainly different to that of the 172/182 genre, but is nevertheless quite pleasant. Pitch control feel and stability are solid, whilst roll control from the smaller ailerons is just as, if not more, effective than that of both the 172 and 182, although the ailerons are just as, if not more, effective than that of both operations and are straightforward. The only problems that | have come across are failure of the LG to give an up and locked indication (misadjusted micro) and rainwater ingress into the integral wing fuel tanks (most likely attributable to poor filler cap sealing rather than ingress through skin joints). As with the other Cessna singles, the Cardinal is a steady IF platform and can be operated flexibly in the pattern, albeit with halfflap lowered on circling approaches for enhanced visibility.

Pitch control on the final approach and in landing flare manoeuvre comes as no surprise whatsoever on the Cardinal RG — certainly adequate and of no noticeable difference to that on other stabilator fitted aircraft. On touch down the tubular maingear has good load-absorbing qualities without being ‘bouncy’. Because of its fine combination of speed and economics, coupled with good load capability it is likely that should you purchase a Cardinal you’ll be sticking to it, in spite of it being one of the ugly ducklings of general aviation, not in appearance but in fortunes.