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Aviation History
1984
1984 - 0010.PDF
BUSINESS A VIA TION Beech develops King Air 300 WICHITA Higher weight, increased speed, and greater range are expected to be the major improvements in Beech's development of the Super King Air 300. The latest in the ubiquitous King Air family is scheduled to be certificated at the end of the month. The manufacturer is keeping a low profile until SFAR 41C certification is official, and neither confirms nor denies details of the new variant. Principal change is the installation of Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-60A engines rated at 1,050 s.h.p. (in place of 850 s.h.p. -42s in the Super King Air B200). These drive larger-diameter four-bladed propellers which operate at lower speeds. Take-off prop speed is around 1,700 r.p.m. with cruise at some 1,500 r.p.m. With cleaned-up intakes and new New York's World Trade Centre heliport has been operating as a public facility since the Downtown/Wall Street heliport closed last September. The operating area has been tripled and can now accommodate four S-76s and seven BO105/ JetRanger machines or a mix of up to 11 units. Seven corporate, charter, and courier operators have offices at the facility and jointly account for about 20 flights a day. Total movements are said to be about 130 a day during the week exhaust stacks this gives an increase of almost 10 per cent in maximum cruise, which rises to about 315kt. Long- range cruise is likely to remain near to the 200's 230kt speed. Take-off distance to 50ft altitude is expected to be about 3,100ft (up from 2,580ft). Range has grown from 1,975 n.m. to 2,020 n.m., more than enough for, say, Los Angeles-Chicago, Miami- Denver, or Seattle-St Louis. Empty weight has increased by some 7501b to 8,2901b and there is a 1,5001b growth in max take-off and landing weights, which are now set at 14,0001b. Max fuel weight is expected to be slightly below that of the 200, at 3,6181b. Beech King Air 300 pilots will enjoy new crew seats, and "standard" equipment in initial examples centres around the Collins APS-65 digital autopilot and Collins Efis; Sperry and King equip ment are expected to be certi ficated later, although Beech will not comment on this. Changes have been made to the primary structure, but this does not extend to the introduction of a continuous spar, the manufacturer tells Flight. Larger landing-gear tyres are fitted to the 300. These are about midway in size between the standard and optional oversize tyres avail able for the 200. The larger tyres will be fully enclosed when the gear is retracted; this was not the case with the earlier model's optional units. Price for the new King Air 300 is likely to be around $2,350,000. $ Two other models are expected from Beech: a devel oped version of the King Air C90 and an executive 1900. The new C90, possibly desig nated C90-A, has undergone a drag-reducing excercise which has resulted in cleaner nacelles, giving slightly higher cruise speeds and range. Price has grown a little to $1,140,000. Although it has been possible to order 12-passenger examples of the 1900 commuter, all the sales announced have been for the 19-seater. Beech is now intro ducing a 10/14-seat King Air 1900E executive model in its 1984 business fleet. Basic price would be around $2,665,000. Delivery of the first 1900 commuter is set for late January /early February. Falcon 900 is "on schedule" BQRDEAUX-MERIGNAC~ Dassault-Breguet is "exactly on schedule" with its con struction of the first Falcon 900, which it hopes to fly in October. Fuselage-section join-up took place last month (Flight, December 31) and the next milestone is initial cabin pressurisation at the begin ning of March. Assembly is taking place at Bordeaux-Merignac, where flightdeck, forward-cabin, and tail-section production is based. The centre-wing and forward-fuselage fuel tanks are constructed at Dassault- Breguet's Lille-Seclin plant, before being joined to the centre fuselage at the Paris-St Cloud facility, where the aft fuselage containing wheel wells and rear fuel tank is produced. Falcon wings are constructed at Toulouse- Colomiers. Final assembly, including wing-fuselage mating and empennage and landing gear attachment, is scheduled to get underway at the end of February. Three fuselages are under construction. Installa tion and testing of systems are set to begin in March, when the first Garrett AiResearch TFE731-5A turbofans will be delivered from the USA. Initial "run-up" of engines and systems should take place about six months from now. Deposits placed Dassault-Breguet claims that "46 operators have placed deposits"; 20 paid options were said to have been booked at the Paris Show when the Falcon 900 was announced. This had grown to 40 orders by the time of October's NBAA Convention. The 12/15-seat so-called "wide- body" is expected to be certifi cated in France and the USA in 1985, with first deliveries following in "the second half of 1986"—a little later, perhaps, than the "only - three - years - from - now" timing claimed by Dassault- Breguet chairman Benno- Claud Vallieres at Paris last May. Price for the new Falcon 900 has been given as $13-5 million (mid-1983) for a standard aircraft, with digital flight-instrumentation and executive interior. FLIGHT International, 7 January 1984
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