It is also nowhere near as good in icing as a King Air.

Chip,
I found out some more detail about that KA 350 you were involved in with UW’s acquisition. It is not in Laramie and I guess it won’t be for about a year yet. I assumed the plane would replace the transport KA, but it is actually slated to replace the research aircraft. The existing research plane is nicknamed “The Flying Hole” because there are so many ports and hard mounts for LIDAR etc and external sampling systems. It even has a 3/4” plate steel spar support running from just outside one engine under the fuselage and to the other wing so the wings are more likely to remain attached while they fly into thunderstorms to evaluate the core (ya gotta love that flying job!). The 350 is undergoing extensive modifications to allow it to serve in a similar manner, they will then sell or part out the existing research KA.

Very interesting!

Had another planning meeting this evening about lots of things but the plane question came up again. One partner and one pilot suggested we look at the Beechcraft Premier 1 jet. Acquisition costs are in the 1.4-1.6M range, two engines, quite fast, single pilot. One operator suggested it is on par with the King Air for maintenance costs or even lower (not sure if accurate)...claims Beechcraft is more "into" supporting the jet than their prop aircraft. Negatives I see are our short legs (100-200nm) with consequent high fuel burns, contaminated runways with no reverse thrust, and likely a bit larger airframe than we need. Anyone have experience operating both the Premier jet and a King Air?

The legs you fly, the speed won't matter.


My impression is the Premier is high maintenance and that you need a shop who knows them well to get good results.


All true.

A legacy Citation with TRs would make the trip more often for less money and cost a lot less to acquire.


Greg Mink has (or had) a Premier. Might be worth reaching out to him.

Mike C.

A light jet, that’s out of production with minimal support, no TR’s, into shorter, contaminated runways - yeah, that’s what I’d be looking at for this mission.

If you think that Mx is costly on the KA, wait til the first event on this, I would bet your eyes will water.

It is a great cabin for sure.

One of the writers for Flying magazine had one, hit a goose, and due to lack of support, the insurance totaled the airplane.

This wouldn’t be something that I would consider, the purchase price is only the entry fee for a Premier.

Brad

First thing y’all need is a fuel farm.

I’m a huge fan of the Premier, one of my favorite airplanes, but it is wrong for your mission.

If you want to go jet, a CJ/CJ1 would be the only one that might make sense. It actually does have mx cost as low as a King Air.

The difference is that any jet has the occasional gotcha that cost $50k… the last on the 525 series was the precoolers. Also, remember that certain things are just a lot more expensive, take windshields for instance. A King Air windshield is around $10k… a Mustang windshield is around $60k (we just caught one in prebuy)

My two bits, not being in your shoes but having to had to get important decisions made in the past with a similar group of type A individuals,


The question I have is what are the primary decision factors you are measuring? you have pretty well defined the mission from what I hear.

is low operating cost the main decision factor?

is reliable operation really important? being there every day with few cancellations or can you afford to cancel trips more?



I would assume safe operation in difficult conditions would be the minimum requirement to be in the running. thus that eliminates many contenders

I think your group needs to determine the bullet points that determine the decision in order of importance. Like any partnership the group needs to get on the same page for the decision points for the decision. probably not easy in your situation with a group of type A individuals.

My two bits with no real personal experience in this game after reading the opinions on this thread

It appears that with some of the conditions you operate in, that the KA 90 is a good choice as well as the CJ with an appropriate on site maintenance group.
in order to achieve your goals high cost is the result in order to get good dispatch reliability. thus eventually your patients will face high costs but probably less than having the appropriately qualified doc located at the remote hospitals.

No TRs, bad for all weather flying with water, snow, ice on runways.

Low utilization will cost them in engine payment to Williams. Need at least 150 hours/year and it wasn't clear they were going to get that. Also, Williams has surcharges for high cycle to hour ratios which may come into play for short legs.

No LUMP program for them unlike the legacy airplanes. Pushing phase 1-4 to 3 years and phase 5 to 6 years is a great reducer of maintenance.

Higher acquisition cost than legacy.

CJ/CJ1 are relatively low power airplanes so runway usage on takeoff is not great, and single engine performance in high, hot, heavy not great either.

Mike C.

Thanks. I’m but one of many in my group and there are a lot of opinions. After considering all the options, my recommendation to the group was to keep the 4 KA’s but seek a different maintenance option. I have found for the Mitsubishi that travel to a more distant location for maintenance (but to a facility that does a whole bunch of such maintenance) is money well spent. We are looking into combining with another local entity that runs two King Airs to see if we can join forces on in-house maintenance. We did look into the fuel farm option. FBO charges about $1.15/gallon for into plane fee above wholesale fuel price with AvFuel. If we had our own truck they would charge us $0.54/gallon. They are looking at dropping the into plane fee for us using a volume based discount but no answers yet on the actual amount. I have advised against a twin jet for many of the reasons noted by forum members. If we had longer legs it would make more sense. Our total hourly utilization has ranged from a low of 450 (not counting my MU-2’s flights) to a high of about 750/year for all four planes together. In the meantime, I’ll keep flying my MU-2 which seems to serve well with an emphasis on the “U” for “utility.” One of our King Airs has been out for 3.5 months while they try to figure out “some electrical issues.” That reminded me of the answers I sometimes got when I wondered what was taking so long with my annuals in the Aerostar or for an engine swap…not really acceptable for a business aircraft (IMO).

Seems like the Premier has now been discarded, but BT member Bob DeLong has a beautiful Premier 1A that he could give you info on.

Just for the record. I owned a King Air F90 for 17 years and this fall I will have owned the Premier for 6 years. If you back out the Williams engine program cost, the maintenance cost for the Premier is definitely less than the King Air. My maintenance this year has been pitot static check, service the AC system, compressor washes, replaced 1 strobe light and topped off the oxygen system as needed. My mechanic is not making much money this year!
For the purposes of this thread, I would not recommend the Premier for any icy runways, that’s what King Airs are for.

This thread reads to me as someone who doesn't pay the bills is bored and is pushing to fly something different. Not directed at the OP, however the suggestions of replacing with an EPIC, and then a Premier Jet on this mission where the KA seems perfect.

Dick Karl, contributing author to Flying magazine, bought a Premiere. He loved it.

Until he took a bird strike to the leading edge of the wing - just a little thump. That wrote the airplane off because there are zero spare parts available (or so he wrote) for this type of repair to primary structure.

Doesn't sound like a good option.

For King Air parts, you need a true "parts man" like Ken Blow of Kadex, on speed dial. If Ken can't find it, it doesn't exist.