Meet The Often-Forgotten Cessna XMC

Only one was ever built, and it was never intended for series production.

Jason McDowell

Tuesday, June 07, 2022 at 07:37 AM ET

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The Cessna XMC was one of the least-known and most unique Cessnas ever to take flight. [Photo: Textron Aviation, Inc.]

Key Takeaways:

The Cessna XMC, flown in 1971, was the company's first swept-wing aircraft, designed as an "eXperimental Magic Carpet" solely for research rather than mass production.
It featured an unconventional design including an aft-mounted engine, twin-boom tail, and swept wing, despite sharing basic performance specifications with the Cessna 150.
Cessna utilized the XMC to explore advanced manufacturing methods like metal bonding, evaluate improvements in cabin entry and visibility, and test propeller efficiency/noise reduction.
After serving its purpose as a research vehicle, the sole XMC unit was presumably scrapped, leaving behind only a few historical photos and its original tail number.

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If the average aviation enthusiast was asked to name the very first swept-wing Cessna ever built, they would likely name one of the many Citation business jets. The Citation X, for example, had one of the most highly-swept wings of any civil aircraft, enabling later models to achieve 0.935 Mach. But in fact, the first Cessna to utilize a swept wing was this unique little airplane, the Cessna XMC.

First flown in January 1971, only one XMC was built, and it was never intended for series production. Instead, it was intended to serve as a research aircraft, enabling the company to more thoroughly explore various concepts, technologies, and manufacturing technologies. Perhaps to remove any doubt regarding the purpose of the XMC, Cessna explained that the name was an acronym that stood for “eXperimental Magic Carpet.”