Corporate Angel Network Expands to Include King Airs
The nonprofit started in 1981 with a King Air flight
In 1981, Leonard Greene donated use of his company’s Beechcraft King Air to transport an 18-year-old patient back home to Detroit for Christmas after receiving treatment at New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Greene was the founder and owner of Safe Flight Instrument Corporation, based at Westchester County Airport in White Plains, New York, where his friends Priscilla “Pat” Blum, a commercial pilot, and Jay Weinberg, owner of the local Avis franchise, were trying to achieve their vision of easing the transportation burden for cancer patients by pairing them with empty seats corporations could offer on their normal business flights. Five decades later that King Air flight is considered the inaugural flight for the Corporate Angel Network.
CAN has coordinated more than 70,000 flights since then, relying on the generosity of corporate flight departments and individual aircraft operators who offer unused seats on their aircraft at no cost to help cancer patients access the best treatment centers in the country.
While most of those flights have been on turbofan-powered aircraft, the nonprofit organization recently expanded its usable fleet by inviting King Air models and other turboprop-powered aircraft to join the effort.
“With more than 600,000 cancer deaths and 2 million new cancer cases each year, our challenge is to provide many more patients with this service,” CAN President and CEO Robert Stangarone said in a news release. “We have an opportunity to save many more lives by opening up the fleet to the thousands of single- and twin-engine turboprop aircraft currently in operation.”
The number of corporations participating has decreased since the pandemic and the need is greater than ever. In 2019, CAN flew just over 3,000 patient flights while in 2024 they flew 1,700. CAN hopes expanding to include turboprop aircraft in addition to turbofan-powered airplanes will attract more company owners and executives, aviation managers, chief pilots and personal owners to get involved.
“While we are incredibly proud of the number of lives we have helped, our efforts are limited by the availability of flight resources,” Stangarone said. “For years, patient requests for flights have outnumbered aircraft available by a factor of two.”
While medical advancements have made remarkable progress, many patients still face formidable challenges, especially when it comes to accessing life-saving specialized care in distant locations. Transportation becomes a critical issue, particularly for those living in remote areas or facing financial hardships.
Participation is open to all cancer patients traveling for surgery, clinical trial or a second opinion as well as bone marrow and stem cell donors and recipients who are ambulatory and do not require medical assistance while traveling. CAN works closely with hundreds of companies and individual pilots to match empty seats on already planned flights with patient flight requests.
A primary part of CAN’s mission is to ensure safe travel for the patients it serves. This was a major consideration in expanding lift capacity to turboprop aircraft and will remain a priority, officials said. All Corporate Angel Network flights are flown in pressurized aircraft with a two-pilot crew.
For more information, call (914) 328-1313 or visit corpangelnetwork.org to see frequently asked questions about flying for CAN. Source: corpangelnetwork.org
How to help: In addition to partnering with owners and operators to match patients with flights, Corporate Angel Network also relies on volunteers at its Danbury, Connecticut, offices and monetary donations to cover costs including ground transportation, hotel accommodations and other patient services requests. Get more information at corpangelnetwork.org.
Garmin Autoland and Autothrottle Certified for Retrofit Installations in King Air 300/350 Aircraft
Garmin has earned FAA certification for retrofit installations of its Autothrottle and Autoland systems in select G1000 NXi-equipped Beechcraft King Air 350 aircraft as well as certification of Autothrottle in King Air 300 models equipped with 4-blade props and PT6-60A engines, with plans for Autoland certification to follow.
The full Autothrottle integration with the G1000 NXi integrated flight deck reduces crew workload in the cockpit by managing aircraft speed and power and provides engine protection against potential exceedances. In the event of an emergency where the crew can no longer perform their duties, Garmin Autoland can control and land the aircraft without human intervention. This is particularly important for single-pilot operations or to add an additional layer of safety for two-pilot operations.
“Nearly 1,000 King Air operators now enjoy the capabilities that the G1000 upgrade has provided them. This announcement adds a direct pathway to Autothrottle and Autoland equipage for many of those aircraft,” Carl Wolf, Garmin’s vice president of Aviation Sales, Marketing, Programs & Support, said in a news release. “This certification also marks the largest airplane to date equipped with Autoland and is the 11th aircraft model certified with this potentially life-saving technology.”
Autothrottle offers safety-enhancing features and greatly reduces workload in the busy King Air cockpit. The system provides automatic control of the engine power levers from takeoff to landing. It keeps power levers in the proper power setting, negating the threat of a possible throttle rollback. Power settings are based on manufacturer or user-configurable climb, cruise and descent schedules, including ITT limits. Additionally, Autothrottle provides ITT and torque protection by reducing power when the system senses potential overtemperature or overtorque conditions and considers flap and gear position when managing airspeed limitations.
In the event of an emergency where the crew can no longer perform their duties, Autoland can control and land the aircraft without human intervention. Once activated, the system calculates a flight path to the most suitable available airport, initiates an approach to the runway and automatically lands the aircraft. It takes into consideration a breadth of information and criteria and will automatically communicate with air traffic control throughout the entire event, advising controllers and pilots operating near the aircraft of its location and intentions.
With the latest upgrade, King Air 300 and 350 aircraft equipped with G1000 NXi can take advantage of additional Garmin updates. These include situational awareness enhancements such as Synthetic Vision Technology’s 3D views of the SafeTaxi airport environment and Garmin’s Runway Occupancy Awareness, which uses ADS-B traffic to alert the crew of potential runway incursions. There are also new electronic stability and protection technology features for single-engine procedures, enhanced text-based communications with air traffic control and integrated GWX 8000 StormOptix weather radar.
Retrofit installations can be completed through approved Garmin-authorized dealers. To learn more about the G1000 NXi upgrade for King Air aircraft, visit garmin.com/kingair. Source: garmin.com