About a mile from Wichita Mid-Continent Airport, inside a nondescript building that looks just like any other in this part of town, a small group of workers toils in secrecy against the whir of band saws, banging of hammers and buzz of automated cutting machines. This is Cessna’s interior design research-and-development center, its cabin “Skunkworks,” if you will. This is where various cabin concepts are tested and where rough and finished mockups are created. The importance of this modest-looking facility, said the manufacturer, cannot be overstated.
“We pride ourselves on trying not to show mockups that aren’t representative of the end product,” said Cindy Halsey, Cessna’s vice president for interior design, engineering and development. “We don’t use mockups as a bait-and-switch kind of thing. In my 15 years at Cessna, it just amazes me how many aircraft we sell off the mockups. It is really a responsibility to our customers.”
