Cessna Aircraft Company, headquartered in Wichita, Kansas, is a manufacturer of general aviation aircraft, specializing in small, piston-powered aircraft and medium-sized business jets.In 1924, Cessna partnered with Lloyd C. Stearman and Walter H. Beech to form the Travel Air, Inc., a biplane manufacturing firm, in Wichita. In 1927 he left Travel Air to form his own company, the Cessna Aircraft Company, to build monoplanes. The first flew on August 13, 1927.Other manufacturers and the aviation press widely ridiculed and spoofed many of these marketing terms but between Cessna’s designers producing a product the flying public wanted and the work of the marketing department, Cessna built and sold more aircraft than any other manufacturer during the boom years of the 1960s and 1970s.