Thinking of having your King Air painted? No doubt the first thing that comes to mind is the cost. New paint is pricey and you’ll want to shop around. Ten years ago, I saw quotes ranging from $25,000 to $50,000 or more to paint a 90 series King Air. With today’s prices, I bet those numbers have doubled. And with bigger aircraft and custom paint schemes, the cost goes up from there.
But before you start salivating over paint colors and design, you need to get down to the nitty-gritty. I’ve seen a lot of King Airs in my day – some with great paint, others not so much. Below, I’ve included things to keep in mind when contemplating new paint for your King Air.
Dissecting paint quotes
At minimum, get several quotes. They may vary enormously in price and what they cover. You’re going to have to dig into these quotes to get an apples-to-apples comparison. You’ll need to ask questions; now is not the time to be shy.
First off, determine what exactly is being stripped and painted. Are they painting the gear? What about the wheel wells and flap wells? Do they pressure wash and paint over certain areas or do they strip and paint everything? You need to know.
How much time do they allow for a basic paint job on your type of aircraft? Does the quote detail the preparation steps? Does the quote identify what materials are used? You don’t want a shop that cuts corners, but you don’t want to be taken to the cleaners, either.
Stripping
A King Air will always be stripped before repainting. This can be done with media blast (such as glass beads or walnut shell particles), chemical strippers or, in certain circumstances, sanding. Chemical strippers are the most common choice.
Careful masking of everything not being stripped and painted is vital. Chemical strippers destroy plastic and rubber. Windows and light lenses, beacons and boots, seals and tires – all these items will be ruined if they come in contact with stripper. Meticulous masking is time-consuming but critical.
Special attention should be paid to the antennas as they have a protective coating that is destroyed by strippers. Many are mounted on the belly, and gravity brings the stripper down to that area. Regardless of location, all antennas must be well protected.
Chemical strippers are highly corrosive so after they’ve done their job, they must be cleaned off thoroughly. Close attention must be paid to getting stripper out of every crack and crevice where it may have seeped, such as skin laps and inspection panels.
I once heard of a B200 with a lot of problems following the installation of a G-1000 panel. Everything was double-checked and triple-checked. A great deal of time was spent chasing the issues to no avail. Finally, as a last resort, they inspected and found corroded skin under the antennas. That airplane had been recently painted! Apparently, stripper seeped into the antenna bases and compromised their bond. Precise and thorough masking would have prevented this.
Prep & prime
After stripping and cleaning, bare aluminum needs protection against corrosion. For decades, zinc chromate primer, that ubiquitous yellow-green coating found on the innards of every airplane, was the go-to protection for aluminum. When chromates were deemed a health hazard, zinc phosphate was used instead. Since it looks exactly like zinc chromate, all of us old-timers keep calling it that even though it’s now zinc phosphate. Old habits die hard.
Alodining is another anti-corrosion option. Some shops offer alodining as a “pre-treatment” before primer. Once it gets going, corrosion can be a big problem. By the time you see it, it has done considerable damage. If you operate in a corrosive environment, pay close attention to the anti-corrosion methods offered.
The world of aircraft paint systems has advanced dramatically from the old days of zinc chromate. Now there are pre-treatments, multi-step primer systems, adhesion enhancers, etc. All of this comes before the application of any paint!
When it comes to painting anything – a model car, a real car, a house or an airplane – surface preparation is crucial. Before or during priming, minor dents or distortions in the aluminum skin are smoothed out with filler and sanded. Although power sanders are often employed, I’m a stickler for sanding by hand whenever possible. The use of a power sander on an airplane makes me cringe.
I’ll never forget the King Air that came to my shop for a routine phase inspection. As the owner pointed out his new N-number, I noticed some button-head rivets were missing. I looked a little closer and saw that every rivet in the N-number area was shorn down flush with the skin! Apparently the shop that performed the work used a power sander where they shouldn’t have. I was horrified; sawed-off rivets compromise the structural integrity of a pressurized aircraft such as a King Air. It was an expensive squawk to remedy. Every rivet had to be drilled out and replaced, and the button-head on each new rivet was painstakingly retouched with paint. King Airs are loaded with button-head rivets.
Control surfaces & flaps
When repainting an aircraft, the ailerons, elevators and rudder are removed and painted separately. They are rebalanced in accordance with the maintenance manual, then reinstalled on the aircraft. Failure to balance a control surface per the manual can result in flutter during flight. If the flutter is extreme, the control surface can rip off.
Flaps are another story. Some paint shops remove them, others do not. I feel strongly that flaps should be removed for paint. When they are left on the wing, stripper can seep into areas that are impossible to clean. Wherever stripper is left sitting, corrosion develops. In this case, the flap bearings and washers are at risk and when they go bad, the flap tracks are the next to go. Flap tracks are nothing to mess with. If I had a King Air being painted, I’d insist the flaps be removed.
Post-paint inspection
Don’t be in a hurry to pick up your King Air from the paint shop. Take at least a half day to look closely at everything. Check for drips, fish eye, orange peel texture, gaps and overspray. Minor blemishes and flaws can be remedied. A good shop will address them without complaint. Hopefully, there are no such issues. If possible, bring your mechanic along to verify the control surfaces have been balanced per the manual. It behooves you to have someone double-check their figures.
Years ago, one of my customers picked up his C90 after a new paint job. He got into the cockpit and noticed that both airspeeds were stuck at around 80 knots. He checked the pitots and they looked fine – they weren’t covered or blocked in any way. So, he gave me a call and we hatched a plan.
He flew to my shop in another aircraft. I grabbed a spare airspeed indicator, and we flew to the paint facility together. I installed my spare airspeed on one side and did a quick pitot static test to verify everything was good. The plan was to get his King Air to my shop with the loaner airspeed and address the airspeed issues. As I chatted with the paint shop staff, I discovered they used a blow gun to remove the dust. It seems their guy blew directly into the pitot tubes – that explained the airspeed problem.
Then I began to wonder about other things. I asked to see what maintenance manual they used for control surface balancing. They showed me an F90 manual. Needless to say, this C90 did not leave the paint shop that day. They had to pull all the control surfaces back off, balance them per the C90 manual and reinstall them yet again. Eventually we got this King Air over to my shop, had the airspeeds repaired and all was well.
Fortunately, the owner of the paint shop took this one on the chin. He used this incident as a learning lesson for all his guys and ultimately took his business to the next level. In the years following, he called me many times with King Air questions that I was happy to help answer.
Level the playing field
Most paint shops will give you a generic quote. But, as you can see, it is vital that you ask questions and delve into these quotes to flush out any differences. You’re trying to get them all on the same page for a true apples-to-apples comparison of the basic repaint cost. Once you start adding design features (colors, stripes, ribbons, fades, custom logos and more), sticker shock will set in.
Screws – pay now or pay later
With new paint, there’s one more thing to consider: screws. What will happen to your gorgeous, fresh and pristine paint job at the next phase inspection? Mechanics with pointed tools must open access panels for inspection and repair. There are many panels, each with six to 20 screws. That’s a lot of screws, and every one of those screws has been painted over.
Your new paint job has essentially sealed every screw in place. When these screws are removed for the first time, the new paint around the screw heads will twist and tear or chip away. The thicker the paint, the bigger the problem. I’ve seen paint so thick I could barely make out the screwdriver slots.
It’s heartbreaking for all. No decent mechanic likes to tear up brand-new paint, but there is only so much one can do to minimize the damage. Paint cutters are a good start. Tool sets are available to cut through the paint around various sized screws. This is extremely time–consuming, and the added labor won’t be included in the flat rate for the phase inspection, but it’s much better than taking no action at all. Cutting the paint around every screw is the “pay later” option.
You can avoid this situation altogether by planning before you have the airplane painted. These are the “pay now” options. One is to have the paint shop back out every screw a couple of turns before painting the aircraft. After the paint has cured, the screws are screwed all the way in. The paint around the screw heads won’t chip when the screw is removed for maintenance, and it’s a much cleaner look than a paint cutter could provide.
The other “pay now” option is to have the paint shop install stainless steel screws after paint. The advantages of stainless hardware are many: Nothing is painted over; paint around the screws does not chip; there’s no paint to chip off the screw head itself; and the screw head will never rust. This is my preference. Plus, I like the finished look of stainless hardware.
Many designers prefer painted screw heads for the smooth and seamless look. They feel this showcases their design to its maximum potential. But you need to look beyond the designer’s mindset as they won’t be around after five or 10 years to see what the painted hardware looks like after the wear and tear of required maintenance. It’s impossible to remove and reinstall painted screws repeatedly without chipping the paint. It’s something to consider carefully.
Stainless steel screws have one minor downside. They must be treated properly. You cannot use a power screwdriver and run these screws in with one shot. A stainless screw gets hot very rapidly, so if screwed in too quickly, it will gall in its receptacle. Once galled, that screw will never come back out. This is easily avoided by running the screw in with several short bursts. Otherwise, you have the laborious task of drilling out the screw and tapping or replacing the receptacle. Good mechanics deal with stainless steel screws all the time and know how to avoid galling.
It’s a big job
Painting an airplane is labor–intensive. It’s hard to imagine the scope of work involved until you see it firsthand. The accompanying photos, taken from a variety of King Air paint jobs, help illustrate the complexity of painting a cabin-class aircraft.
Stripping, surface preparation and priming must take place before any paint is applied. In addition to control surfaces being removed and painted separately, items such as wing lockers, engine cowlings, panels and grates are also removed, painted separately, then reinstalled. One photo shows the design layout underway on the rudder, which has been reattached to achieve continuity in the arcing stripe on the tail. The rudder will be removed again for painting of the design scheme, then balanced per the maintenance manual and reinstalled a second time once the aircraft is ready to be delivered to the customer.
I mentioned the importance of masking during the stripping phase. There is a lot more masking involved during the paint phase. Once the base coat is finished and has cured, it’s time to add the colors in the paint scheme design. Each time a different color is applied, everything not being painted that color must be masked off. After a color is applied, it must fully cure before masking can begin for the application of another color. It’s a big job, and it takes time to do it right.
All this discussion of paint schemes, colors and design may seem purely cosmetic but there is a functional aspect to aircraft paint. Remember that every step of a paint job, up through the base coat, is really required protection for the aluminum skin of your aircraft. When it’s time to repaint your King Air, choose wisely and allow time.
Unless otherwise noted, photos courtesy of Master Aircraft Services in Wickenburg, Arizona, masteraircraftservicesinc.com.
Dean Benedict is a certified A&P, AI with over 50 years of experience in King Air maintenance. He received the Charles Taylor Master Mechanic Award from the FAA in 2025. He was an inaugural inductee to the King Air Hall of Fame in 2022. Dean owned and ran Honest Air Inc., a Beechcraft maintenance boutique with a strong following of King Airs, for 15 years. Currently, with BeechMedic LLC, Dean and his wife, Lisa, consult with King Air owners, pilots and mechanics on maintenance issues, troubleshooting and pre-buys. Dean performs expert witness work on request. He can be reached at dr.dean@beechmedic.com or 702-524-4378.