Cessna drew a lot of puzzled looks from visitors to their indoor display at AOPA Expo in Palm Springs last month because of the mock-up of the Next Generation Piston aircraft. The door to the cockpit was open and astute pilots noted that there was neither a yoke nor a stick inside.
“How will it be controlled?” they asked.
“We have not made up our minds,” a salesman explained.
One particularly imaginative visitor suggested that Cessna was developing technology that would allow the aircraft to be controlled by the pilot’s thoughts.
In the meantime, Cessna CEO Jack Pelton described the NGP as “very solid, very stable. Basically, it is a Cessna.”
Pelton noted that the word “Vision” was printed on the side of the mockup. “It stands for ‘Jack’s Vision’,” he explained.
