Cessna 402C Businessliner

This page describes the Cessna 402C, and only the 402C: the 1979-1985 airplane with the bonded wet wing, no tip tanks, 325 hp a side and a 6,850 lb gross weight. The earlier 402, 402A and 402B are a genuinely different airplane and live at Cessna 402B Businessliner / Utililiner; the six-to-eight-seat corporate version of the same era is the Cessna 401B.

The 402C is the last and by a wide margin the most capable of Cessna's unpressurized light cabin twins — the airplane that became the backbone of American regional commuter flying. Cape Air still operates a large 402C fleet, and that fleet is the reason a forty-year-old piston twin still has a parts supply, a mechanic pool and a residual value.

What the 402C added over the 402B was not incremental. Cessna replaced the tip-tank wing entirely with a bonded wet wing spanning roughly four feet more, moved from electric to hydraulic landing gear borrowed from the pressurized Cessna 421C Golden Eagle, widened the main gear track, raised gross weight from 6,300 to 6,850 lb, went from 300 to 325 hp a side, and more than doubled usable fuel from 100 gallons to 206. That last figure is the clearest statement of what changed: the 402C is a different airplane on the same fuselage.

Unpressurized. That is the dividing line between this airplane and the 414 and 421, and it is a Step 1 hard split in this catalogue: different mission, different maintenance burden, different pre-buy. A 402C flies at 8,000 to 12,000 feet with the outside air in the cabin. If the mission needs the flight levels with passengers in shirtsleeves, the airplane is a Cessna 414A Chancellor or a 421C, not this.

The frontmatter describes the 402C. The earlier airplanes are separate pages.

Within the 402C itself the certificate records one split that matters:

The page stores 206, the majority figure. The difference is two gallons and it is recorded for completeness rather than because it changes a decision.

Read this section knowing the numbers behind it are unsourced. The certificate settles what the airplane is allowed to do; it says nothing about what it does.

Cruise. The conflated page claimed 196 KTAS at 75% power at 12,000-14,000 ft and that figure is carried forward unchanged. Operators plan lower. Where the 402B's own handbook publishes 205 KTAS at 75% power at 20,000 ft on 300 hp a side, a 402C on 325 hp a side and a cleaner wing should be at least that quick, which suggests the stored 196 is conservative rather than optimistic — but that is an inference, not a source, and it is not written into a field.

Fuel. 206 usable gallons is the single biggest practical change from the 402B's 100. At the stored 40 gph the 402C carries a little over five hours of fuel; the 402B carries under three.

Single-engine performance. This is the number that matters on a light twin and this page does not have it. The 402B's handbook gives 225 fpm and an 11,320 ft single-engine ceiling; the 402C is heavier, more powerful and has a different wing, and none of the three effects can be signed. Ask the seller for the Section 5 chart and read it yourself.

Vmc is 80 KIAS — that one IS from the certificate. Never let the airspeed decay toward it with an engine out and the gear or flaps down.

Cargo Hauling (9/10): The reason the 402C exists in the used market. Bolt-out seats, an optional cargo door, 1,500 lb of certificated baggage capacity across five stations, and 2,612 lb of useful load. Nothing else in the certified piston twin class carries this much volume this cheaply. See Cargo Hauling.

Surveying (7/10): The certificate itself acknowledges the mission — Section IX certifies a nine-seat layout "with photographic provisions option". Low wing, long legs on 206 gallons, and cabin volume for racks. See missions/surveying.

Cross Country (6/10): Capable but unpressurized, so the practical cruising altitude with passengers is 10,000-12,000 ft, which is noisy and slow relative to what the airplane could do higher. For legs under 500 nm it is fine. See Cross-Country Flying.

Business Travel (5/10): The Businessliner interior seats six in real comfort and the cabin is genuinely large, but the lack of pressurization caps the useful altitude. Compare the Cessna 414A Chancellor before deciding. See Business Travel.

Flight Training (2/10): Too large and too expensive for multi-engine training. See Flight Training.

Backcountry (1/10): Low wing, retractable gear, 6,850 lb. See Backcountry / Bush Flying.

Local Fun Flying (2/10): Two turbocharged geared-adjacent Continentals and a 40 gph fuel line make a breakfast run an expensive habit. See Local Fun Flying.

Aerobatics (1/10): Normal category only. See missions/aerobatics.

See Maintenance Ecosystem.

Parts: good by piston-twin standards, and that is a direct consequence of the commuter fleet. TSIO-520 parts are well supported and the airframe has an active used-parts market.

Mechanics: specialist. Turbocharged Continentals, hydraulic gear and the spar AD procedures are not general A&P work. The regions Cape Air operates in have deep 402 experience; elsewhere it is worth flying the airplane to a shop that knows the type.

Engine reserve: $58,000 per engine at TBO, and the cost model multiplies by two. At a 1,600-hour TBO that is roughly $36 per engine per hour, $72 per hour for the airplane, before the removal and installation that a shop quote adds on top.

Other scheduled costs: four magnetos, two turbochargers, propeller overhauls, gear overhauls and — on any pre-buy — a spar inspection.

See Aircraft Valuation Methodology.

The 402C commands a substantial premium over a 402B — the hydraulic gear, the wet wing, the higher gross weight and double the fuel are all real, and the market prices them. Engines dominate everything else: at $58,000 a side to overhaul, a pair of run-out TSIO-520-VBs is $116,000 of deferred cost before removal and installation, and the difference between fresh and run-out engines is most of the spread between a cheap 402C and an expensive one.

RAM intercooled conversions carry a premium and extend TBO. Commercial-grade avionics with WAAS and ADS-B Out are effectively required. Wing spar AD compliance status is a disclosure item and an uncompliant airframe is discounted hard.

Prices in the frontmatter are asking-price observations carried from the previous page and are not sourced to a guide. Treat them as a band, not a valuation.

Wing spar (402C-specific). The 402C's redesigned wing is structurally different from the pre-C airplanes and has its own AD campaign, aimed at cracking near the main landing gear trunnion mounting on the auxiliary spar. Do not accept a pre-C spar-strap record as evidence for a 402C, and do not accept a 402C record for a pre-C airframe — they are different modifications to different structures. Verify the specific AD numbers against the airframe logs at pre-buy.

Landing gear. The 402C uses hydraulic gear borrowed from the 421, which is more reliable than the pre-C electric system but not maintenance-free. SAIB CE-10-44 (2010) describes a 402C that veered off a runway after a torque link centre pivot was reassembled with the washer in the wrong place and the lower strut rotated 90° on landing. Annual gear swings are not optional on this type.

Exhaust systems. Turbocharged Cessna twin exhaust has a bad history — leaking joints put exhaust gas into the engine compartment or the cabin. Pressure checks and V-band coupling inspections are recurring items and the parts are consumables, not lifetime components.

Turbochargers. Temperature-sensitive. Reduce power gradually in descent rather than pulling it back in one movement, and let the engines idle before shutdown.

Crankcase cracking. The earlier TSIO-520-E/EB has a poor crankcase record; the 402C's TSIO-520-VB is better regarded but still worth an inspection at annual on a high-cycle airframe.

Structural retirement lives. TCDS A7CE NOTE 3 lists parts with mandatory retirement lives "which may not be changed without FAA Engineering approval". The 402C is not named in the windshield entries (those cover the 414, 414A and 421 series), but the note is worth reading in full against any high-time airframe.

See GA Insurance Underwriting.

Underwriters treat the 402 as a light commercial twin. Expect a commercial multi-engine or ATP certificate, 1,000 total hours, 250 multi and 25 in type as the baseline for standard private coverage; low multi-engine time draws a significant surcharge. Part 135 operations are a different and much more expensive conversation, usually inside a fleet policy.