History of the Bamboo Bomber

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The T-50 was Cessna's first twin-engine aircraft. The design of the airplane commenced in 1938 and made its first flight on March 26, 1939, with company president, Dwane Wallace at the controls. Designed as a five seat light transport, construction followed Cessna's standard steel tube frame with fabric, plywood, and aluminum skins. The one-piece cantilever wing was built up of laminated spruce spar beams of continuous length with spruce and plywood truss type wing ribs. Wing tips and leading edges were formed of plywood sheet and the complete framework was covered in fabric. Wallace's concept was to sell the T-50 for less than $30,000, and pre-war examples were sold for $325 under that figure.

Consider how small the aircraft industry was at this time. From 1934 to the date of the T-50's first flight, Cessna had only built 126 aircraft. All had been single engine, high wing aircraft with fixed undercarriage. Now they were building the T-50, a twin-engine low wing aircraft, with retractable gear.

The type certificate was issued March 24, 1940, a year after the first flight, and the first batch of Cessna T-50s was comprised of 18 aircraft, eight of which were used by the Civil Aeronautics Authority principally in airways management work. The T-50 was the first twin-engine fleet used by the U.S. Government outside the military. Other T-50s were used by individuals and companies, including Bill Lear, who carried out a number of experiments on aviation instruments in his aircraft.

Production of the T-50 had just started when two significant orders were received. First was an order placed on June 22, 1940 by the U.S. Army Air Corps for 33 AT-8 advanced multi-engine transition trainers. The AT-8 and the follow on AT-17 trained many fledgling bomber and transport pilots.

The second order was one of the most significant in company history. It was from the Royal Canadian Air Force and was awarded on February 21, 1941. It was for the first 290 of a total order or 640 T-50s, known in Canada as the Crane. While there, the Crane was used as a conversion trainer for the Commonwealth Joint Air Training Plan. These aircraft were fitted with Jacobs 245 horsepower engines with wooden fixed pitch propellers. The Wright Stuff Squadron's T-50 is actually from the RCAF's Crane order.

In 1942, the U.S. Army Air Force adopted the T-50 as its light personnel transport, and designated it as the C-78 (later UC-78). It also officially became the "Bobcat", whilst known to Army Air Force personnel by the popular nicknames "Bamboo Bomber", "Useless 78", "Rhapsody in Glue" or "Double Breasted Cub". At the beginning of 1943, with the demand for training starting to slacken, all outstanding orders for the AT-17 version of the T-50 were re-designated as UC-78s. The last UC-78 left the production line on February 21, 1944.

In the five years since its first flight, Cessna had built 5,399 model T-50s. Most had served with the military within the USA and Canada, and small numbers were to be found in most of the wartime theaters.

Post-war, Cessna T-50s were rapidly being removed from service, and passed to the War Assets Administration for disposal. By 1949, no variant of the T-50 remained in U. S. Air Force inventory.

More information can be found in Wikipedia and Jon Larson's website. Additional information about Bobcats can be found on our links page.