Beechcraft King Airs are considered among the most reliable and multifaceted airframes ever built. One of the most comprehensive tests of their durability was the Javaman program. This covert 16-year U.S. military initiative deployed modified King Air variants across the Middle East and other global hotspots.
From 2008 to 2025, MC-12s and other versions operated for hundreds of hours a month in an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capacity. It was not uncommon for the heavily modified King Air aircraft to accumulate tens of thousands of hours in the skies during this mission, which required an array of secretive, high-tech equipment.
One airframe in the program was serial number FL-654. Military veteran and entrepreneur Greg Wellman acquired the King Air 350ER, now tail number N90654, from government surplus in July 2025, setting a new course for the ISR platform and one of his business ventures.
Two military transitions
“Our King Air 350ER is a former United States Air Force MC-12W that was part of the Javaman program, where I believe it flew over Northern Africa,” Greg said. “It is a 2009 model and has almost 25,000 hours on it now, which is actually one of the low-time aircraft from the fleet.”
Wellman recently transitioned from the United States Army after 15 years of service, first as an Apache pilot and later flying a wide variety of aircraft, predominantly in an experimental flight-test role.
This role aligned with Greg’s undergraduate degree in aeronautical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his master’s degree in aeronautical engineering from Georgia Tech. After transitioning to the civilian world, he earned his MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
“I then spent a year in investment banking in aerospace and defense. But that role was not close enough to the aircraft to scratch the itch,” Greg said. “I didn’t even make it a year before I called it quits. That job had taken me to Los Angeles, and I had been working on a thesis for a long time about general aviation maintenance and a need for improvement in that space.”
Wanting to create a more transparent and seamless experience for aircraft owners, Greg and his roommate at MIT, Tom Schaefer, started Fourth Front Aviation in 2025. The company started with a shop at Santa Monica Airport (KSMO) and recently added another at Colorado Springs Airport (KCOS).
“We are focused on transparency for the customer, using an in-house app to keep customers up to date with progress on their aircraft. It’s kind of like the Domino’s Pizza tracker,” Greg said. “We also put emphasis on staying under our quotes. If we are going to exceed a quote, we stop for permission from the owner to continue, explaining the change.”
Owning the first maintenance facility led to a new line of business that traces back to Greg’s military roots. In mid-2025, the business partners had an opportunity to acquire a versatile aircraft that would give them the flexibility to support the aerospace and defense industry in a different way.
A workhorse’s new mission
“We initially had some plans to move parts and aircraft owners for flying traffic in support of our aviation maintenance business,” Greg said. “But once we acquired the King Air 350ER, people started asking what we were going to do with it and my flight test connections pulled me back into that world. It spun up from there.”
Wellman Aviation Services, established last year, is an airborne test, data collection and special mission support organization based at KSMO. The King Air 350ER largely supports the company’s efforts, and it also operates two optionally piloted testbeds that resemble delta-wing unmanned aircraft systems.
They provide flight testing as a service for clients including defense and government agencies, as well as companies looking to evaluate next-generation airborne systems, hardware, software and autonomous technologies. Customers dictate the requirements for testing various systems and equipment, and Wellman Aviation Services provides the necessary engineering, maintenance and flight crew to ensure mission success.
“The vision was to have a flying testbed that’s useful for customers who are testing sensors, radars, antennas, weapon systems and more but don’t have an aircraft to accomplish those tests easily,” Greg explained. “We provide the aircraft, modify it as needed, get FAA approvals, get the airspace and do everything to get the customer the data that they need without having to deal with all the other stuff.”
In addition to consulting on program strategy, testing approach and instrumentation decisions, Wellman Aviation Services’ capabilities include testbed flight operations, aircraft modification, test planning and FAA interface, data and connectivity, and special mission support.
The King Air has proven to be valuable regardless of the role it plays, including on a recent long-range mission for a flight test campaign on the other side of the globe.
Crossing the Pacific
The ER in the King Air 350ER model designation stands for extended range. The aircraft’s additional fuel capacity means the PT6A-60A engines have an impressive loiter time of up to 12 hours. It also means this King Air can go as far as 2,650 nautical miles in standard conditions with no wind and one crew member.
Prior to this scheduled mission in the western Pacific Ocean’s Mariana Islands, the Wellman Aviation Services team installed an internal tank that held 2,000 pounds of Jet A. The aircraft’s previously installed optional military equipment reduced its advertised range, so the additional fuel helped with the roughly 2,218-nautical-mile trip to Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (PHNL).
“We technically could have made it to Hawaii with just the ER tanks but added the internal tanks as well, and we wound up landing in Honolulu with 900 pounds because of the headwinds,” Greg said, noting that the next stop was Wake Island Airfield (PWAK) nearly 2,000 nautical miles away.
En route from PWAK westbound to Guam’s Antonio B. Won Pat International Airport (PGUM), the two-pilot crew saw the performance numbers below. The aircraft also has an array of antennas and pods that increase parasitic drag, including the range reduction caused by added equipment weight. The pilots stayed at FL280 on this trip because they didn’t file for an RSVM over-water permit in time for the flight.
|
GW |
FL |
Temp |
Q (%) |
FF (x2) |
IAS |
TAS |
|
13,500 |
280 |
ISA +10 |
62 |
295 |
169 |
267 |
|
14,500 |
280 |
ISA +12 |
62.1 |
295 |
167 |
269 |
|
15,500 |
280 |
ISA +11 |
62.2 |
295 |
166 |
262 |
|
16,200 |
280 |
ISA +13 |
62.2 |
300 |
164 |
260 |
|
16,300* |
280 |
ISA +17 |
57 |
280 |
154 |
247 |
*The top four rows were data en route to PWAK and the last row was data en route to PGUM.
An important mission
FL-654 was in Guam to participate in Valiant Shield, which is a multinational joint exercise led by the United States Air Force and Navy. The aircraft stayed for two weeks to provide chase for a drone that was participating in the exercise.
“Photo chase is a mission that has been around forever, but drone escort is an evolving mission,” Greg explained. “Now that they’ve got drones that are in the jet space for altitudes and airspeeds, that’s what we were chasing. It outpaced and outclimbed us all day; they just needed us there to make sure the airspace was clear.”
Greg said his key takeaway was: “To think that we had a customer willing to have us fly 25 hours each way to come do this is a testament to how much more effective the King Air was than the other assets that they had available to them.”
Serving as a support vehicle for aerial missions is just one possible use profile for their 350ER. The Wellman Aviation Services team has been fielding an array of novel inquiries since its founding.
“We have received a lot of interesting requests and are just getting into execution with some of them,” Greg said. “The most interesting ask so far was to install an 18-foot-long, 2,000-pound rocket-assisted drone that the customer wanted us to launch off the center line of the aircraft. We made it pretty far in the planning process, but it ended up being cost prohibitive and we would only have 3 inches of ground clearance with the struts filled to the max even with high float gear.”
The most common use cases involve chase support, including cameras for aerial photography.
Another recent mission highlighted the aircraft’s ability to support unique requests. In October, Wellman Aviation Services provided airborne photo support for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 return to NASA’s Los Angeles recovery site, not far from Wellman’s headquarters.
The King Air was the top aircraft in a stack of three and the first to see the SpaceX Crew Dragon Freedom as it broke over the horizon. The Wellman crew arrived at its assigned photo point within two seconds of time on target and provided a live video feed for NASA TV’s coverage of the spacecraft’s landing.
This was the company’s first execution on a contract to record space objects returning to Earth. Greg said N90654 is an excellent fit for this task because its nose-mounted MX-20 sensor can detect objects 40 degrees above the horizon without any structural limitations. Additionally, its operating costs are 30 times less than those of the NASA platform it replaced.
Modifying a heavily modified plane
“Coming out of the Air Force, the aircraft had all kinds of modifications. It has a ton of antennas, an extended nose STC, a belly pod, high-flotation gear, and a dorsal pod that we added a satcom terminal to,” Greg said.
“I was able to work with our DAR (designated airworthiness representative) and get the aircraft up on a standard airworthiness certificate even with leaving all that stuff on, which is awesome. As test programs come up, if required, we put it on an experimental or restricted ‘shirt pocket’ certificate. This means that while the test efforts are ongoing, it’s in that category and as soon as we’re complete, we de-mod and it goes back to the standard airworthiness cert.”
Greg is an A&P mechanic with inspection authorization and owning a maintenance facility gives a competitive advantage in completing routine maintenance, modifications and de-modifications in a timely manner. Recent work on FL-654 has included replacing the pilot-side windshield and adding two cameras.
“These cameras zoom in really far and are useful for a variety of cases, including a customer that was launching equipment into the ocean and wanted real-time performance data on their system,” he said.
Greg added: “The 20-inch diameter camera, a WESCAM MX-20, is in the extended nose and the 15-inch diameter one, an MX-15, is on the belly. This is how the aircraft was equipped in the Air Force, so we are restoring it to the equipment it had previously. Having this equipment draws in a lot of interest from customers.”
While the King Air 350ER requires only one pilot, the company usually includes two crew in proposals. They are also adding two crew stations in the spartan interior cabin area, where they’ll be able to operate cameras and onboard sensors. The team will keep evaluating new equipment based on customer requests.
Thousands of additional hours
The Wellman Aviation Services story has plenty of runway ahead of it, but ironically, it’s headquartered at an airport set to close permanently at the end of 2028.
Fourth Front Aviation is one of two on-airport maintenance facilities, although the other provider is only focused on Cirrus airframes – leaving more than 100 aircraft based there with no service provider until Fourth Front started up. With the number of aircraft and other businesses at KSMO, Greg is skeptical it will be turned into a park as the plan currently proposes.
Regardless, the airport serves the two companies well for however long they will be able to call it home. While the weather in Santa Monica is never too hot, the runway is only 3,500 feet long and they typically do not take off with more than 2,000 pounds of fuel in FL-654.
Wellman Aviation Services is expanding its fleet to cover additional altitude and airspeed blocks. Along with an aircraft that can go higher than a King Air, they are considering something that can go much slower. One platform they are exploring is the Winch Aerostat Small Platform, or WASP, a lighter-than-air solution that can carry an array of payloads at altitudes up to 1,500 AGL.
The 350ER will remain Wellman’s flagship aircraft even as the company’s mission continues to evolve and it likely has many thousands of hours left to fill in its logbook.
“Depending on the workload, we may add another King Air to the fleet,” Greg said. “The King Air is a great platform for our mission because it is extremely reliable and robust.”