What's wrong with the Cessna Skymaster?

Question

I've heard a few people make jokes about the Skymaster and talk about how bad a plane it is. It seems great to me, but I've never flown or been around one. What's the problem? Is it hard to maintain? Difficult to fly? What do you think?

Answer 1

The Skymaster is a really great airplane.  It has been the butt of many jokes because it is different, and it looks odd to some people.

But it's a fine airplane.

Answer 2

I've never flown one, but I did hear someone making fun of it once.  The reason they gave was that one reason for having a multi-engine aircraft was to move the noisy engines out to the wings.  Keeping both on the fuselage makes the aircraft louder than a single engine aircraft, at least inside the cabin.  That's the only complaint I've ever heard about one.

Answer 3

Its a really good airplane for spotting, pipe flying, training or observing. Other than that for cross country its pretty slow compared to other 180hp twins.

If you're in the market for one make sure that the AD was complied with for the landing gear.  A majority of the rear engine failures were due to overheating. Many of the 335,336,337 have very hot rear engines in regard to the CHT and Oil Temp due to bad airflow.

Answer 4

I only got a checkout in one.  --Not difficult to fly.  --Never flew it after that.  --Seemed fine to me.

Answer 5

Love the "push me pull you".

Answer 6

There is nothing whatsoever wrong with the Cessna 337 Sky-master. It is although a difficult plane to fly, for the regular pilots who just fly the regular "single engine/dual engine" aircraft's. A Cessna 337 Sky-master comes with 2 engines, but not on each wing. One engine is located in the rear of the aircraft, the other is in the front nose. Hence the props spin opposite to the other. It also has dual pylons kinda like the Lockheed P38 Lightning for stability.

The Cessna 337 Sky-master was used by the US Army during Vietnam as a reconn aircraft. But there is nothing physically wrong with the aircraft. The people making fun of it, has never been in it or flown it. It is one of the stablest propeller driven small aircraft out there, not to mention one of the rarest, since the last one produced was in 1967. I've never flown it or been around it either, but it happens to be my favorite aircraft of al the Cessna's out there. Stephen King once wrote a book on it. Which became a movie, forgot the name.

Answer 7

The rear engine is prone to over heating and is a bit trickier to maintain. Beyond that I haven't heard anything bad about it.

Answer 8

Nothing!

The only problem I am aware of is that the military lost some because the rear engine died during taxi and the pilots performed takeoffs on only the front engine unaware of the dead rear engine. Since the tach needle went to  zero on the dead engine it was easy to assume the tach needles came up together.  Under IFR this caused problems.

Answer 9

Something often overlooked in the Skymaster is that the front and rear engine do not sit on the same line horizontally.  The front engine is low and the rear engine is high.  I bring this up because handling a single engine skymaster can be a bit tricky because you loose the centerline thrust horizontally speaking. SO, If you loose the rear engine the plane wants to nose up more and more as you apply power.  If you loose the front engine the more power you add the more that aircraft had a tendency to nose down.  With both running the nose up of the front and nose down of the rear engine canceled each other out. Depending on what engine you lost varied your reaction to the engine failure making it a little more difficult to handle then most people expected and giving it a bad rap because people were unprepared for there engine failures when they did happen.

Answer 10

It looks funny to some folks,  and it's not particularly fuel efficient for its size, but other than that it's a pretty decent airplane.  I've got only a few hours of C337, but it was easy to fly, and with the limited time, I was enjoying the novelty of it such as leading with the rear engine for take off.

Answer 11

In a nutshell the Skymaster was easy to fly because it was/is a twin-engine aircraft with center-line thrust, i.e., one engine behind the other so adverse torque is not a problem if an engine goes out.  The bad rap on the Skymaster is because the rear engine has a tendency to overheat, and is isn't as efficient as the forward engine due to aerodynamic issues of design and airflow.

Answer 12

The Cessna SkyMaster was built in two versions... The fixed gear 336, and the retractible gear 337.  They were also flown by the US Air Force during the VietNam conflict as the O-2 forward air controller aircraft.  The Air Force replaced them with the OV-10 Bronco, which was a much faster turbine-engined aircraft.

As a civilian aircraft, the 336/337 was a good flying, solid four-seat twin engine aircraft, but they were limited for luggage space and the rear-mounted pusher engine had some problems with overheating due to restricted airflow.   The 336/337 was built from the early 1960's through 1982.

Answer 13

I OWNED A SKYMASTER FOR 15 YEARS AND SOLD MY BARON AFTER USING IT FOR A YEAR.  IT IS THE BEST, SAFEST, STRONGEST AND ECONOMICAL AIRCRAFT I HAVE EVER OWNED I AM SORRY I SOLD IT . IF YOU FIND A GOOD ONE AFTER 1973 BUY IT