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, first flown in 1971, was the company's first swept-wing aircraft, built solely as a research vehicle (eXperimental Magic Carpet) to explore new concepts, technologies, and manufacturing methods.
Despite having similar specifications to a Cessna 150, its design was radical, featuring an aft-mounted pusher propeller, a twin-boom tail, and a swept wing, aiming to evaluate aspects like cabin entry, visibility, and manufacturing techniques.
The XMC served its intended research purpose but was never mass-produced and subsequently disappeared, with only a few newly-unearthed historical photos and scarce information remaining today.

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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.”