Hi fellow BT'ers and BeechCrafters,

My name's David and I've recently joined. Well, in fact, I joined back in November but it's taken until now to take the plunge!

My wife and I live in South Wales and it's great to find a community online with such a passion about Beech airplanes. We can't wait until the Spring when we start on journey towards getting out PPLs. Although, our local flying school, based at Cardiff airport, uses Piper Warrior IIIs for PPL work, sorry, promise not to swear and use such strong language on the forum ever again!!!

We've been looking at an airplane that we can use here in Europe and also be able to cross the Pond to the US via the Iceland, Greenland, Goose Bay route and then on to the US. A Baron has great legs for this type of journey and comfort of twin engines, however, we don't think it's really comfortable for long trips, no lavatory on board! So we're looking to a King Air C90GTx.

I'd like to ask if anyone knows how much flying time is required before we could attend FlightSafety training? I understand that it's something like 1500 hours after getting a twin rating, but would like to ask the opinion of someone who's done this training.

Also, we've looked at the layout of the C90GTx on the Hawker Beechcraft website, and it's got the space we'll need, but we're perplexed about the 6 levers on the flight deck. What are those 6 levers for?

From the HBC website they say that the King Air is very quiet. We'd be looking to take our pets with us from time to time, so noise levels would be very important. Is it true that you can hold a normal conversation at cruise levels in a King Air and not have to raise your voice?

Sorry about so many questions, but just so happy and excited to be looking forward to learning to fly and buy our King Air.

Strong tail winds and happy flying, guys,

Dave

David and Mrs. Jones,

Welcome to BeechTalk.

It's great to hear about such wonderful aspirations....from PPL to King Air!

I'm not a King Air guy, so I won't try to answer those questions.

One suggestion though: go to your member profile, and add your location in there. Your future posts will be even more enlightening...

The noise does allow a semi-loud sustainable conversation. Not whisper quiet that's for sure.

Prolonged trips in a KA give me a little bit of a headache so I think a little ear protection goes a long way still. (anything over 3-4 hours).

You're buying my dream aircraft - congrats and welcome!

David - Welcome to BeechTalk. Funny - you said "South Wales," and I was all ready to ask how close to Sydney you were!

In my experience, the noise level in the passenger cabin of a King Air is plenty quiet to endure without headsets; even up front it's not terrible, and most folks I know who fly in the KA, do so with lightweight (ie, not clamping) headsets.

As for flying across the pond, that is a dream for many of us, will be a reality for almost none, so if you really are going to do it, it will be great reading when (not if) you chronicle it for us.

David

Welcome aboard!

As far as the six levers are concerned, the two on the left are the thrust levers, the middle two control the pitch of the props and the right two control the fuel fed to the engines. The levers are in pairs since the King Air is a twin engine airplane.

John

Hi Arlen,

Thank you very much for the warm welcome, appreciated.

We know that from PPL, we'll have to get our night, IMC, multi-engine ratings first, but for our needs the C90GTx fits the bill for us. So as we progress through our training we plan on keeping you guys in the loop. There's just something addictive about a turboprop, the sound, the startup process and the joy of flying and looking out the flight deck at those gorgeous props spinning... heaven!!!

Thanks for the heads-up about my profile, I'll take a look. Just finding my way around this fantastic site at the moment.

All the best,

Dave

Hi Alejandro,

Thanks for the warm welcome. And the tip about KA noise. The HBC site says that the cabin is very quiet due to various noise cancelling systems they install. So thanks for the advice, we'll see what the C90GTx is like when we go to our local, well the main dealer for the UK, Aeronautics who're based at Kemble field just south of Cirencester.

The KA series is my dream aircraft, too. Turboprops are the best!

Best Wishes,

Dave

Hi Spike,

Thanks for the welcome. Yep, get that a lot. New South Wales was named by Captain Cook because it reminded him of South Wales. As to Sydney, I guess about 12,000 miles away

Thanks for the info on the King Air noise levels. Good to know that headsets aren't really required in the cabin and the flight deck isn't too bad either. I would prefer lightweight headsets as I can't stand those heavy types that you can get for home hi-fi.

Yes, being able to fly around Europe and also cross the Pond to the US has been a dream of ours for a number of years. Now we're getting ready to learn to fly, the dream is getting much more closer.

I've seen that it appears to be the tradition on the forum to post airplane pictures and the like. So as soon as we take delivery I'll post some pictures and we'll chronicle the first flight we take in her, which could well be the flight back to the UK from taking delivery at Beech field.

Keep them props turning,

Dave

Hi John,

Thanks for the warm welcome.

So that's what those six levers do, thanks for the info. Although I thought that once a PT6A got going, it turned at a constant speed and at a constant fuel burn. And the speed of the airplane is controlled by adjusting the angle of attack on the props? But if there are both thrust and fuel levers then I guess the speed of the engines and their fuel burn can be controlled so long as the props stay about 1,800 rpm the King Air stays flying. Thus by adjusting these levers it's possible to increase the range of the KA by slowing the speed and fuel burn. Have I got this correct?

Wishing you strong tail winds,

Dave

Hi John,

Thanks for the warm welcome.

So that's what those six levers do, thanks for the info. Although I thought that once a PT6A got going, it turned at a constant speed and at a constant fuel burn. And the speed of the airplane is controlled by adjusting the angle of attack on the props? But if there are both thrust and fuel levers then I guess the speed of the engines and their fuel burn can be controlled so long as the props stay about 1,800 rpm the King Air stays flying. Thus by adjusting these levers it's possible to increase the range of the KA by slowing the speed and fuel burn. Have I got this correct?

Wishing you strong tail winds,

Dave

Davey Jones! Good to have you with us! By the way, no one here will accuse you of anything "strong" when you say Piper!

Hi John,

Thanks for the information about the pitch of the props. This makes sense, the car and gears view is very clear. Also, thanks for the info on "feathering", I wondered what that was all about.

If you're flying this weekend hope you have clear sky and good tail winds,

Best wishes,

Dave

Hi Ron,

Dave or David, not Davey please, makes me think of that character out of the Monkeys the closest smilie I can find of a 60s Monkey!

That's good that people don't mind when other airplane companies are mentioned. I guess most of the guys here turned their first prop on a Piper or a Cessna, with these two companies having the market in the training arena.

Have a great weekend of flying if your going up,

Dave "the Monkey"

I was thinking the locker! Davey Jones... Oh well. Thanks for the well wishes Dave. That's my youngest son's name. Always good to have another David.

Hello David and welcome.

I'll try to answer some of your initial questions.

Training: I don't believe that flightsafety intl requires any minimum hours to enroll in their training courses, you will of course need a ppl with a multi engine rating as a minimum.
To be realistic however, the insurance companies make the rules in aviation and they won't take kindly to the plan of attending flightsafety and then grabbing your new plane and going. They would most likely want a certain number of hours with an instructor or other qualified pilot before covering you as PIC. I would suggest researching how you want to go about insuring the new King Air to see what they want from you and then tailoring your training to meet their requirements.

From a safety standpoint you will need a good few hundred hours of multi-engine instrument experience before you will feel proficient in a plane like that. The instrument rating is essential for operating the King Air in the IFR environment it was designed for, most of your flying will be IFR anyway.

Other than that, good luck, have fun and keep us posted along the way. I'd love to help you fly the new bird back to Wales some day.

Cheers.
Paul