WestWind Airlines

You ever heard that old country music song about a guy who works in a Cadillic factory and decides to build a Caddy "One piece at a time?"

Well flying this beast reminds me of that song. Why, well lets just say she is a King Air 200, 300, 1900 all smashed together. Recently Pa Pa Beech in conjunction with the FAA determined that it is , in fact, a King Air Model 300. But here is the reality of this King Air 300.

She has the nacelles off of a King Air 300 series, however the engines are the PT6A67 1200 shp engines right out of the 1900. How about them wings, well they are more 300ish, but the spar is the same wingspar as a 1900, the tail, that is all 1900. The fuselage, ok it could be 300 or it could be 200, actually the fuselage is custom built for this application. Finally the cockpit, well that is another thing all together. The cockpit shares components with 200, 300,  and 1900 series airplanes. It is also the smallest airplane to carry a Carousel IV INS. That is right I said Inertial Navigation System, just like the 747-200 and Concorde carried for years. What about GPS? Yep she carries a pair of them, one to update the INS and one to keep the pilot pointed straight.

This airplane had power to spare and is the only King Air that I have flown that could blow right through the barber pole in level flight. Not sneak up say boo and barely squeak past, no this thing could blow right through. Yep even with all that drag on the airplane. Stalls were a pain as this airplane could almost hang on its props!