Dwane Wallace

Wallace, however, was slow to embrace the industry's shift towards nosewheel-equipped aircraft, replacing tailwheel-equipped planes, allowing rival Piper to recapture much of the light plane market with its Tri-Pacer for several years. Eventually, Wallace responded with a nosewheel-equipped variant of the 170, the Cessna 172, which would eventually become the world's most popular light airplane (still in production as of 2016). By 1958, Cessna was producing more light aircraft than all four of its main competitors combined, eventually controlling over half the market.

Dwane Wallace died at age 78, after a lengthy illness, on December 21, 1989.

Wallace quickly disappeared from the public eye, except for philanthropic activity (particularly in Wichita and for his alma mater, Wichita State University) with his wife Velma. However, he remained a consultant and director of the company well into the early 1980s, when he helped shape one of the company's most important aircraft, the Cessna 208 Caravan. His obituary in the New York Times reports that Wallace "severed his ties" with Cessna in 1983, following a dispute with his hand-picked successor, Meyer.

Additionally, in 1979, the new main building of the College of Engineering at Wichita State University—his alma mater, which he had richly endowed—was named Wallace Hall for him.

In 1974, Wallace recruited aviation industry executive Russell W. Meyer Jr. from his role as president and CEO of rival Grumman American Aircraft Corp., and groomed Meyer to replace himself. Wallace then retired, in 1975, from the role of Cessna's chairman of the board—handing over the company to Meyer, and stepping down to become a regular member of the board of directors.

In 1972, Wallace led the industry movement to establish a trade organization for general aviation aircraft manufacturers, separate from the industry trade organizations for manufacturers of commercial and military aircraft. The new organization, the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, selected founder Wallace as its first chairperson.

In 1964, to honor Cessna's international trade development, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson, at a White House ceremony, presented Wallace with the Presidential "E" for Export Award.

Although Wallace was the principal force in the transformation of Cessna from a tiny, struggling company into the world's largest-volume producer of aircraft, he kept his uncle's last name on the company, rather than naming it after himself. However, in the 1960s, the Wallace name was attached to the company's new factory building, at the municipal airport on Wichita's southwest side.

Starting in the late 1950s, Wallace added light twins to the Cessna line, and began the diversification of the Cessna line into almost every conceivable type and market.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Wallace decided to diversify Cessna, acquiring avionics-producer Aircraft Radio Corporation and propeller-maker McCauley Industrial Corporation. He expanded Cessna's Fluid Power Division (producing hydraulic cylinders for a wide range of industrial uses) in Hutchinson, Kansas, and opened Cessna parts or aircraft factories in Glenrothes, Scotland, Reims, France, and later in Mendoza, Argentina—along with marketing and servicing centers at other places around the world.

The 120/140's distinguishing feature, compared to other two-seaters of the time, was that it was one of the first all-metal light planes. Sleek, sturdy and modern, and cheaply mass-produced, the 120/140 largely devoured the market for two-seat light airplanes. In December 1946, Cessna produced almost as many planes as all its competitors combined. Most other U.S. light plane makers, by the early 1950s, were driven out of business by the 120/140 design, and by a long, postwar market recession. Cessna survived and prospered—stretching the 120/140 into the 4-seat Cessna 170 (which conquered its market segment, as well).

When the postwar recession of the late 1940s and early 1950s wiped out most general aviation planemakers, Wallace diversified and survived adding an industrial division producing furniture and hydraulic equipment at a factory in Hutchinson, Kansas, He expanded the company's dealer network globally, and added a customer-finance division to the company, boosting sales substantially.

In 1938, Wallace's review of twin-engined airplane market indicated opportunity for a new, inexpensive, light twin, and he began development of the Cessna T-50 Bobcat, which introduced twin engines and retractable landing gear to Cessna production aircraft. Though not formally trained in twin-engine aircraft, and not licensed for their operation, he taught himself to fly the Bobcat in 1939, as its test pilot. Gambling on a good market for the civilian plane, and potential military market for it upon the eruption of World War II in Europe, Wallace invested heavily in a new factory in May 1940. The gamble paid off.

In 1937, Wallace hired an executive secretary, Velma Lunt, in 1937, and married her in 1941. She became a licensed pilot, certified to fly multi-engine aircraft, and worked closely with Wallace for many years. The two remained married until Wallace's death. (Eventually the couple had four daughters: Linda, Karen, Diana and Sarah; the New York Times obituary calls the latter "Farah".)

Clyde's son, Eldon (also an aeronautical engineer), remained at the company until a disagreement with Wallace over salary led to his departure in summer 1935. In December 1935, tired of aviation and longing for his old farm, Clyde sold his stock in the company to the Wallace brothers, though remained the figurehead president. Within about a year, in October 1936, shortly before Wallace's 25th birthday, Clyde resigned, leaving Wallace fully in charge.

Wallace added aircraft maintenance services to the company's business activity by February 1935.

Wallace was president of Cessna Aircraft from 1935 to 1964, then advanced to chairman of the board. The company that he had revived from the brink of bankruptcy, in 1935, had become, by 1972, the first company in world history to manufacture over 100,000 airplanes.

In 1934, following Beech's relocation out of the Cessna factory, Dwane, with lawyer-brother Dwight, approached their uncle Clyde with the idea of a proxy fight to try to regain control of Cessna Aircraft, reopen the factory, and resume aircraft development and production.

Traveling the country to meet and persuade investors, and committing to them that the three family leaders would work with little or no pay, the Wallace brothers won the proxy fight. At a stockholders' meeting on January 10, 1934, they seized control of the company, with Clyde serving as figurehead president, while the Wallace brothers (Dwane as plant manager and engineer, Dwight as secretary-treasurer) ran the company.

In 1934, Wallace, with help from Eldon and others, designed the Cessna C-34 (for "Cessna – 1934"), an exceptionally low-drag airplane, offering 162-mph speed with a 145-horsepower engine, and delivered the first one to a customer in 1935. The plane (and its variants) introduced wing flaps to Cessna, allowing a lower-drag wing, and easier landing in small areas. The plane won numerous races and competitions. When Wallace won a major national efficiency-and-performance competition—the Detroit News Trophy at the All American Air Races—for the third year, in a C-34 variant, the Cessna Aircraft design was awarded the trophy permanently, and given the title "World's Most Efficient Airplane." The notoriety boosted sales, and in 1936, the company sold 33 of the planes.

In his early adulthood, Wallace entered the aeronautical engineering program at the Municipal University of Wichita, in Wichita, Kansas (one of the nation's first three such programs), and graduated in May/June 1933 (historian Ed Phillips says June 1932), the first (of many) to graduate that university with a bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering.

Upon his graduation, in May 1933, Wallace entered the workforce during the depths of the Great Depression. His uncle Clyde Cessna's enterprise had been taken over by its investors, and had closed its doors—ejecting Clyde and his son, Eldon Cessna.

Starting in 1933, Wallace aided Clyde and Eldon Cessna in developing their CR-3 aircraft, a much-improved variant on the Cessna Model A series, and also produced older Cessna DC-6A cabin monoplanes.

While at Wichita U., Wallace learned to fly from his uncle's test pilot, George Harte. He soloed in the Cessna CG-2 after only an hour and 45 minutes training, and advised changes to the glider that resulted in the Cessna CG-3. He first soloed in Travel Air biplane in March 1932, earning his private pilot's license in 1933. (Later he would advance to a commercial pilot license, with multi-engine and instrument-flight ratings.)

Dwane Wallace was raised in Belmont, Kansas. He and his brothers Deane and Dwight, and sister Doreen, were children of physician Dr. Eugene Wallace and Grace Opal (Cessna) Wallace. Grace's brother was aviation pioneer Clyde Vernon Cessna, founder of Cessna Aircraft Company. Cessna became the first planemaker-aviator of the Great Plains in the year Dwane was born, and gave the brothers their first airplane ride in an OX-5 Swallow in 1924.

Dwane Leon Wallace (October 29, 1911 – December 21, 1989) was an American aviation businessman and aircraft designer. He served as the president and/or chairman of the board of the Cessna Aircraft Company from 1935 until the 1970s, having then continued on the board as a director and consultant into the 1980s. Wallace later became known as the "Quiet Giant of Aviation", and was posthumously inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 2012. He was included in the Flying Magazine list of the "51 Heroes of Aviation", placing at number 11.