Best King Air

[propsarebest]

B100.


yeah right...


Sounds like a 200 would fit the bill. There are lots of gently used ones on the market right now.

 

[Greensnake]

Personally I liked the 300 after having flown all 3. It is the faster of the 3, will climb straight to 350' at gross (14,000), and will cruise at 300-305 IF you run the engines hard. I flew it at sissy cruise @ 285 true. Has excellent climb performance. Eats a 200 easily in a climb. The 350 provides more stability, but at a cost, climb and cruise. Don't care what everyone else says, the 300 beats em all.

 

[Byei]

Thank you for all of the responses. I am surprised to hear from one of you that you can't get 300kts out of your 350, from what everyone else has said here and elsewhere that shouldn't be a problem.

We are hoping to stay below 3 million and I am thinking that will be fine with the market. There are several 350's and B200s that I've checked into. From my limited pilot math calculations...flying 165000nm a year, the extra speed on a 350 should save in excess of $30,000 in fuel over the B200 which would offest the training costs just fine. Does that sound right? The fuel burns I used off of Hawker/Beech's website seemed to match what one of our other pilots used to plan in the B200, 700lbs the first hour and 600 after that. I bumped the 350 to 700 the first hour and 650 after that is that realistic?

You guys are very helpful, THanks!

byei

 

[satpak77]

cruise ITT

I run it at 750-785 ITT, we never liked running it full bore at cruise

if you are doing mostly X-C trips of 1 hours+, your first hour will be about 700 pph, then 550-600 at cruise

the max ceiling is 350 but the plane performs best (speed, fuel burn, etc trade-off) at 240 to 260 area.

you can get to 35,000 so you can get good fuel burn but you gotta get there first.

climb performance sucks 28K and above, and if you penetrate clouds, you need to open ice doors, plane on REALLY horrible climb performance.

again, we basically always flew FL 240 to 260. One day while bored at cruise, I did some calculations and discovered that if you plan on flying at 18K or 19K, if you instead fly at 21K or 22K (not much higher), your PPH savings was like a 20% improvement over the lower altitide. Or similar silly bored-at-cruise discovery.

FYI the planes with the Cargo Wing lockers are doggier in the climb than the non-wing locker ones, my experience.

I have about 2000 TT in the 350, maybe 1700 of it as PIC, if you have any questions about the day-to-day nuisances/lack of, just ask

right now some people with 6 million in their pocket would rather buy a Bravo than something with propellors mounted to engines. If you are flying 3-4 pax all the time, then maybe a light jet, but no Bravo will carry 8 pax, full fuel from almost any airport in USA in the summer, then fly 5 hours and land with IFR reserves.

the plane is awesome... Top it off, load it up with full PAX, and it will become airborne. Even from 9000 MSL field. A friend of a friend told me it would. (I never did it....)

 

[Fblowjets]

We see between 290-315 true on our 350. Its a great aircraft.

 

[Fblowjets]

Add:
Training cost are very expensive for us (proline 21) but your figures should be close. We flight plan 1000lbs the first hour 900 the second and 800 there after. Its conservative but works well. Then again we are in ATL where the first 20mins of the flight is at 4000ft. At FL 240-FL260 you are looking at burning 370lbs per side. We also operate at max power and she loves it. 805ITT

 

[Byei]

I've learned to lower bragging speeds by at least 5% for actual line flying. So if 290-295kts is reasonable I"ll be happy. It is sounding like that is a pretty good match for us. We've been told our pax count will increase to 6-7 on average this year from our sales/marketing team. We operate out of a 4400' small town strip, so we don't have to worry much about taxi time...except to let the oil warm up We could continue to operate the Beechjet, but because we will do 2-3 short legs in a row we are almost always burning 1600lbs an hour...but we love it, it will be hard to give up.

byei

 

[NewmanF16]

...no Bravo will carry 8 pax, full fuel from almost any airport in USA in the summer, then fly 5 hours and land with IFR reserves.

True...But the Bravo would only need to fly a little over three hours to go as far as the King Air...

Unless your trip lengths are under probably 400nm, newer Citations will very likely be cheaper to operate and out perform King Airs. Also nice to cruise over the weather in a quite cabin than slog through it.

 

[BoilerUP]

We operate out of a 4400' small town strip, so we don't have to worry much about taxi time...except to let the oil warm up We could continue to operate the Beechjet, but because we will do 2-3 short legs in a row we are almost always burning 1600lbs an hour...but we love it, it will be hard to give up.

Been a while since I've flown the Beechjet, but isn't 4400' a bit short if the runway is wet or contaminated? Perhaps that isn't a problem where you are based...

Anyway, back on topic...I was told by a CJ2+ operator their operating costs on that airframe is equal to their previous aircraft which was a B200.

That said, no Bravo or CJ series (short of maybe the upcoming CJ4) will be able to go full fuel and full seats like the B350 can. Sure it'll be slower and maybe cost a little more to operate, but in regard to sheer payload and runway requirements I don't think you can match its capability.

 

[400A]

As an example of how awesome the 350 is, during training they make you do a single engine go-around with the gear down and the flaps full.... And it will do it! :beer: