Last month I was invited to meet up with the Silver Foxes, a group of people that worked for Beech Aircraft “back in the day.” Most are long retired, but have stayed in touch with colleagues from what they fondly call “the Golden Days of Beechcraft.” Their reunion this year happened to be in my stomping grounds of Las Vegas, Nevada, and my wife and I were delighted to be included. It was a great trip down memory lane for everyone.
A lot of the guys were in sales and sold the whole gamut of what Beech had to offer. But every conversation at our get-together always seemed to come back around to the King Air – such a versatile and reliable aircraft. It’s no wonder that so many are still flying today after 20, 30, even 40 or more years of operation. There’s a 1964 A90 that was originally sold by BeechWest Van Nuys to a colorful car dealer in the Los Angeles area, and fifty-two years later is still flying! The ownership of the King Air has changed but the N-number has stayed the same.
People take great pride in having been involved with Beechcraft way back when, and I’m no exception. It was an honor to be associated with such a great company and products. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing everyone from the old days and rekindling so many forgotten memories.
The 200 and the Mid-Air
I was reminded about the time the factory asked me to look into a King Air that had been in a mid-air collision but landed safely. This was about 30 years ago, when I was the service manager at BeechWest Van Nuys. I had just gotten home from work that evening, when the telephone rang. Someone at Beech in Wichita wanted me to get down to Orange County (KSNA) right away to assess the situation.
I knew the freeway traffic to get there would be a nightmare, so I drove back to work, hopped in a flight club Bonanza, and flew down. When I got there, the 200 was still on the runway. I was familiar with this King Air because we maintained it at Van Nuys. What I saw was chilling.
The R/H lower engine cowling was torn off. The oil cooler was hanging by its hoses. Fuel and oil lines were torn and dangling. The right engine had sustained heavy damage. Underneath the R/H wing, just outboard of the nacelle where the inboard fuel bladder should have been, was a big hole roughly two-feet in diameter. The R/H gear door was ripped off and I could see the outboard trunion on the R/H gear was broken.
Moving aft, there was another hole that went completely through the R/H wing. It was about one foot in diameter, exactly where the rear spar is located. On a 200, if you look for the outboard, aft wing bolt cover on the right wing – that’s where this hole went right through.
I stood out by the R/H wing tip and grasped it with just my thumb and index finger; I could rock the right wing back and forth with no effort at all. That’s a moment I’ll never forget. The rear spar was broken. The forward wing bolts were all that kept that wing from falling off.
I found some more damage on the belly of the aircraft, just aft of the hell hole door. That gash was about 18 inches in diameter. Whatever impacted there took out the rudder boost system.
Luck Was a Lady that Day
The pilot was IFR and had just taken off from KSNA, when he said, “I think I’ve just been involved in a mid-air.” As I listened to the tower tapes, I was amazed at how calm and measured his voice was at that moment.
He then asked to come back to the airport and land. Upon putting the gear down, he noted that he had an unsafe gear indication on the R/H side.
He landed successfully on all three gear. I surmised that the weight of the aircraft upon landing happened to push that broken outboard trunion back into place – a case of dumb luck.
The other aircraft (with a pilot and an instructor onboard) was not so lucky. It was a Cessna 210 on a training flight and apparently not in communication with anyone. The deduction on everyone’s part was that the Cessna was doing a power-on stall and impacted the King Air from underneath.
This whole thing was a case of dumb luck. Had the impact area to the 200 been different, it might have gone down with the Cessna; but it wasn’t, and it didn’t. Maybe it was luck, maybe it was divine intervention.
On the other hand, there are plenty of aircraft out there that could not sustain half the damage taken by this 200 and still make it safely to the ground. I will always stand by the reliability, the flyability and the sturdiness of the Beechcraft King Air. In my opinion, its reputation, coupled with its longevity, is unmatched in general aviation. And I believe the Silver Foxes feel the same way.
Dean Benedict is a certified A&P, AI, with over 40 years of maintaining King Airs. He owned and managed Honest Air Inc., a maintenance shop specializing in Beech aircraft with an emphasis on King Airs, for 15 years. In his new venture, BeechMedic LLC, Dean consults with King Air owners and operators on maintenance management, troubleshooting, pre-buys, etc. The Honest Air operation merged with Apex Aviation (KHND) where Dean oversees all King Air and Beechcraft activity. He can be reached at drdean@BeechMedic.com.
Leave a Reply