All Mention Of The Airplane Has Been Removed From The Company Website

Textron Aviation has apparently ended production of the Cessna TTx airplane, though the company has not confirmed or denied that it has made the move.

Aero-News.net first became aware of the situation following an email from a reader saying that all information about the airplane had been removed from the company's website, which a quick check on the Internet confirmed. The scrubbing has been thorough, with a search of "TTx" on the company website returning no results. We sent an email to Textron Corporate Communications, which has not responded to our inquiry.

The TTx began life as the Columbia 300, which had been derived from the Lancair ES kit aircraft, according to Wikipedia. Cessna first marketed the TTx as the Corvalis TT in 2009.

The airplane had some early manufacturing problems, including the delamination of a portion of the composite skin from the wing of a test airplane during a test flight conducted by an FAA test pilot. The FAA issued an emergency AD for the airplane, which only affected eight airplanes in production, but no aircraft in service.

In a news release at the time, the FAA said that "on Dec. 6, 2010, an FAA test pilot performing a production audit test flight in a Cessna Corvalis experienced a failure of the skin on the left wing.  About seven feet of the left wing skin separated from the forward spar and damaged a fuel tank. A spar is a beam-like structure inside the wing and is a principal load-bearing component.  The pilot made an emergency landing at the Independence, KS airport." The agency proposed a $2.4 million fine against Cessna following the incident.

"Subsequently, the FAA issued emergency airworthiness directives grounding 13 specific Corvalis aircraft that used wings and parts produced in Cessna’s Chihuahua, Mexico, plant between Dec. 17, 2009, and Dec. 16, 2010.  FAA investigators determined that the wing skin separated from the spar due to excessive humidity in the factory that prevented the bonded materials from curing properly," the release continued.

"The FAA alleges that Cessna failed to follow its FAA-approved quality control system when it manufactured the wings on the damaged airplane, as well as 82 additional parts, in the Chihuahua factory. The manufacturer has since made improvements to the plant."

Cessna made several improvements to the airplane, which was rebranded the TTx and introduced at Sun 'n  Fun in 2011. A FIKI package was added in 2012. The airplane carried a base price of $715,000. But as of now, the fate of the airplane is in limbo at best.

(Image from file)

FMI: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessna_400