AOPA- New Single Engine Mustang

I have been grounded with an injury the last few weeks, but a prototype model of this airplane has made an appearance around Wichita in the last month. It is probably housed at Benton for those who are here, at Jack's personal hangar. It was probably built at Cessna's light experimental shop at Pawnee on the east side. I heard about it maybe 6 months ago but I thought it was an empty rumor since the company is still laying off people. None of my Cessna pals knew about it either.

Sounds like a good idea to me. The airplane would have low R&D costs being a derivative model, it would have simple systems that are easy to learn, it would have an adaptable mission profile including possible light military uses, it would have some usefulness as a transition aircraft from pistons to to jets, and as a single engine airplane it would have excellent safety and short field performance. I would opt for a composite fuselage but if the body is derivative which I think it is, then it probably is based on the Mustang which is aluminum. Cessna has been known to make protos that were later scrapped so this airplane is by no means a sure thing, but it sounds like one of the better plans. Some recent protos that were scrapped were the NGP and the 510 light jet.