COMMON
C185
Cessna 185 Skywagon
The Six-Seat Mule
“If it fits through the doors, it flies.”
Cessna (Textron) · private
NO PHOTO
Length
25 ft 9 in
Wingspan
35 ft 10 in
Max speed
145 kts
Range
720 nmi
Ceiling
17,000 ft
Engines
1x Continental IO-520 (300 hp)
Crew
1
Max passengers
5
Typical config
1 pilot + 5 passengers
Built
4,400+
The 185 took the 180's airframe and added muscle: a 300-horse Continental and structure for six seats or serious freight. It became the standard bush and floatplane workhorse from Alaska to Africa, and working operators still refuse to give them up.
Fun fact
Many 185s carry a belly cargo pod — an extra 300 pounds of gear riding under the fuselage.
How to spot one
Tailwheel Cessna like the 180 but with a taller dorsal fin and often a belly cargo pod. On floats at any seaplane base, this is the default answer.
Crews call it
The One-Eighty-Five
Sounds like
A hard-working IO-520 — loud, proud, and usually climbing out of somewhere improbable
Related
One might be overhead right now.
Bogey turns the The Six-Seat Mule from a dot in the sky into a card in your logbook. Coming to iOS and Android.
Get Bogey