WW II USAAF Army Aircraft – MAIN ACCEPTANCE DATA PLATE – C-78 TRANSPORT – NICE!

In 1939, three years after Clyde Cessna retired, the Cessna T-50 made its first flight, becoming the company’s first twin-engine airplane, and its first retractable undercarriage airplane. The prototype T-50 first flew on 26 March 1939, and was issued Approved Type Certificate 722 on 24 March 1940. 

The AT-8, AT-17, C-78, UC-78 and Crane were military versions of the commercial Cessna T-50 light transport. The Cessna Airplane Company first produced the wood and tubular steel, fabric-covered T-50 in 1939 for the civilian market, as a lightweight and lower cost twin for personal use where larger aircraft such as the Beechcraft Model 18 would be too expensive. A low-wing cantilever monoplane, it featured retractable main landing gear and trailing edge wing flaps, both electrically actuated via chain-driven screws. The retracted main landing gear left some of the wheels extended below the engine nacelle for emergency wheel-up landings. The wing structure was built around laminated spruce spar beams, truss-style spruce and plywood ribs, and plywood wing leading edges and wing tips. The fixed tailwheel is not steerable, but can be locked straight. The Curtiss Reed metal fixed-pitch propellers were soon replaced with Hamilton Standard 2B-20-213 hydraulically-actuated, constant-speed, non-featherable propellers. Power was provided by two 225 hp (168 kW) Jacobs L-4MB engines rated at 245 hp (183 kW) for takeoff. Production began in December 1939.

In 1942, the U.S. Army Air Force ordered the C-78 Bobcat as a light transport (which were redesignated as UC-78s on 1 January 1943). By the end of World War II, Cessna had produced more than 4,600 Bobcats for the U.S. Army, 67 of which were transferred to the United States Navy as JRC-1s. It was given the nickname the “Bamboo Bomber” in US service. Few Bobcats were still in service with the United States Air Force when it was formed in September 1947, and the type was declared obsolete in 1949.

Made of aluminum, this is an EXTREMELY RARE piece. It features 95% original paint, and all markings are very legible.  It indicates:

U.S. ARMY
AIR CORPS.

SERIAL NO.
AF42 – 58xxx