Cessna 210 Strut-Braced (1960-1966)

The specifications on this page describe the 1964 Model 210D. FAA TCDS 3A21 gives the 1965 210E identical limits, so they are exact for 495 of the 1,819 normally aspirated strut-braced airframes — 27% of the run. The other five variants differ in engine, gross weight, fuel and redline, and each has its own row with its own figures in the Variants table below. The 1960-1963 airplanes are 260 hp and two-thirds of the fleet; read their row before reading anything else here.

The 1960-1966 strut-braced Cessna 210 covers the original production run before the 1967 cantilever-wing redesign. Counted from the certificate's own eligible serial ranges, that is the 210 (1960, 576 built), 210A (1961, 266), 210B (1962, 245), 210C (1963, 134), 210D (1964, 290), 210E (1965, 205) and 210F (1966, 103) — 1,819 airplanes, plus 197 turbocharged T210Fs which now have their own page.

Two corrections a returning reader should know about. This page previously listed a "T210E" as the 1966 turbocharged model. No such airplane exists; 3A21's model list runs 210 through 210R with a T210F but no T210E, and the first turbocharged Centurion is the 1966 T210F. And it previously ended the run at the 210E, omitting the 1966 210F — the last and heaviest strut-braced 210 at 3,300 lb.

The strut-braced 210s are the most affordable Centurions on the market — typically $55,000-$100,000 — but they carry the most demanding maintenance profile of any 210 generation. The engine-driven hydraulic landing gear system on these airframes is the most failure-prone gear system Cessna ever installed in a piston single. Buyers should approach these aircraft with eyes wide open: cheap to buy, expensive to own.

The Engine-Driven Hydraulic Gear System

The defining feature -- and defining problem -- of the 1960-1966 210 is the engine-driven hydraulic landing gear. A single hydraulic pump driven directly off the engine accessory case provides pressure for gear retraction, extension, and (on most variants) gear door operation. When the pump fails, you have no gear. When the hydraulic lines leak, you have no gear. When the thermal relief valve unseats, you have no gear.

Common failure modes specific to these years:

• Engine-driven pump failure: Pump shaft seal leaks, internal wear. Replacement: $2,500-$5,000.
• Hydraulic line chafing: Lines route through tight spaces and chafe over time.
• Thermal relief valve unseating: Hot day on the ramp, gear can't be retracted on takeoff.
• Gear door valve failure: Pre-1979 aircraft have main gear doors; door valve failures strand gear partially in trail.
• Hydraulic reservoir depletion: Control cable chafing drains reservoir slowly.

Cessna's recommended power pack service (every 8 years, $3,000-$5,000) is essentially mandatory on strut-braced 210s. Pre-buy must include landing gear cycle test on jacks, hydraulic system pressure test, and dye-penetrant inspection of gear saddles per AD 76-09-13.

Every figure in the table below is from FAA TCDS 3A21 Rev. 50, read section by section. Airspeed limits are the certificate's own bracketed knots and its basis is calibrated, not indicated — see Performance Notes.

The bold row is the airplane the frontmatter describes. The 1965 210E is certificated identically to it — Sections V and VI of 3A21 differ only in approved propellers — so the stored figures are exact for both, 495 airframes.

The 1960-1963 airplanes are a different purchase. They are 260 hp, they are 1,221 of the 1,819 built, and two of them carry 10 gallons less usable fuel and a redline 22 knots lower. AOPA's fact sheet publishes a full column for the 1960 Model 210 and it is worth reading beside the frontmatter:

Those AOPA figures are not in this page's frontmatter, deliberately: they describe the 260 hp airplane and the frontmatter describes the 285 hp one, and reading one across to the other is exactly the borrow this catalogue is being re-sourced to remove. The finder scores from frontmatter, so a 1960-1963 210 is still being scored on 210D numbers until an Owner's Manual pass is done. That is the largest outstanding gap on this page.

What changed year by year

Against the cantilever-wing 210G and later

The cruise, range and fuel-burn figures in the frontmatter are not sourced. They come from the April 2026 generation pass. A type certificate carries no performance data of any kind, and no published 210D cruise table has been found. They are kept rather than deleted because they at least describe an airplane of the right power and weight — a 285 hp 3,100 lb 210D — but they should be read as placeholders, not as figures anyone has checked.

The one sourced performance datum on this page is AOPA's 1960 Model 210 column, which gives 14.2 gal/hr at 75% power, a 20,700 ft service ceiling and a 1,300 fpm best rate of climb. Those belong to the 260 hp airplane and are in the Variants table, not the frontmatter.

The airspeed limits are CALIBRATED, and that is not a detail

3A21 heads every strut-braced airspeed block *Airspeed Limits (CAS) and prints miles per hour first with knots in brackets. The catalogue stores the bracketed knots, unconverted.

Two traps live in that one line, and this page had fallen into the first:

• The mph column is not the knots column. The page carried vne_kias: 200. 200 mph is the 1960 Model 210's never-exceed and it is 174 knots. The 210D's is 225 mph, which is 196 knots. A 15% overstatement of a structural limit.
• CAS is not IAS. On the Cessna 172 certificate, NOTE 4 states for named serials that "TIAS is exactly equal to CAS", which is why 3A12's calibrated figures can be stored in indicated-airspeed fields. 3A21's NOTE 4 makes no such finding, and its handbook list does not begin until the 1976 210L. So the figures here are calibrated airspeeds sitting in _kias fields, recorded rather than converted. Settling it needs the airspeed calibration table from the 1964 Cessna 210D Owner's Manual.

AOPA prints "174 KCAS" for the 1960 210 and "196 KCAS" for the 1972 210L — independently confirming both the numbers and the basis.

Gear speeds, which the schema has nowhere to put

Every strut-braced 210 is limited to 160 mph (139 knots) both for operating the gear and with the gear extended. There is no vlo/vle field in this catalogue, so that limit lives here and in the saved passage.

Handling

The strut adds parasitic drag compared with the cantilever-wing 210G and later, but the wing structure is lighter and the airplane is more responsive in roll. Pilots transitioning from cantilever 210s often describe the strut-braced models as lighter in the hands.

Turbocharged 1966 airplanes trade above equivalent normally aspirated ones for rarity and altitude capability; they are on cessna-t210f now, and that page carries no price at all because no source reviewed states one for the T210F specifically. Strut-braced 210s generally trade well below comparable cantilever 210G/H/J aircraft.

The price band on this page is legacy and covers the whole 1960-1966 run rather than the 210D alone.

1. Gear power pack age: When was the last 8-year overhaul? Budget $3,000-$5,000 if overdue.
2. AD 76-09-13 compliance: Dye-penetrant inspection of gear saddles required at 1,300 hours and annually thereafter. Non-compliance = grounded.
3. Hydraulic line condition: Inspect every accessible line for chafing, weeping, deformation.
4. IO-470 vs IO-520 verification: Confirm installed engine matches airworthiness certificate. STC conversions exist and are common.
5. Logbook completeness: 60+ year-old airframes have often lost some history. Gaps in maintenance records significantly reduce value.