When a Cessna Goes to War

If the Cessna Caravan looks familiar to you, it should. Cessna has built more than 2,500 of these turboprops since the prototype flew in 1982. They're popular as short-haul airliners in places like the Caribbean. More than 250 Caravans haul cargo while painted in the unmistakeable colors of FedEx. But there are a small number of Caravans that haul Hellfire missiles, electro-optical targeting, and reconnaissance systems.

During the recent Farnborough Airshow in the U.K., Cessna announced it has received FAA certification and is now offering wing hard-points for the Grand Caravan EX. Hard-points are structurally reinforced sections of a wing where you mount pylons or the other structures that carry external stores like fuel tanks or weapons. The upshot: This is a Cessna that could go into battle.

The AC-208B "Combat Caravan" has been doing this for more than seven years, actually, and has flown combat sorties in Iraq (which has a fleet of eight Combat Caravans). Cessna refused to discuss it. That's partly because Combat Caravans have a sensitive connection with U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) and partly because the Combat Caravan wasn't developed and modified by Cessna.

The war-worthy Cessna came courtesy of Alliant Techsystems (now Orbital ATK), which has offered counter insurgency and intelligence/surveillance/reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities by outfitting various aircraft—Lockheed Martin C-130s, Bombardier Dash-8s, Hawker Beechcraft King Airs—with networked sensors and weapons.

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