The polarized windows in a King Air were designed to block sunlight for passengers sitting on the sunny side of the cabin. They are the King Air’s answer to that little sliding shade found on airliners and elsewhere, and they do the trick nicely, but with one major drawback: They are prone to burning out…
Last summer I supervised a gear overhaul (inspection) on a King Air F90 belonging to a client. We were coming down the home stretch. The motor, gear box and torque tubes were ready for reinstallation. The cabin had been gutted for ease of access and we were about to reinstall all the floorboards that had…
Yesterday I got a call from a mechanic working on a pressurization problem with a King Air C90. The pilot’s squawk was that the altitude warning light came on while at cruise; the pilot descended. The mechanic did not know if the cabin dumped all at once, but the way he told it, it didn’t…
I got a call from a King Air B200 owner/operator. He had been a regular customer of mine when I had my maintenance shop, but we hadn’t spoke for several years. He always made time to chat with me whenever dropping off or picking up his King Air, and I was glad to hear from…
Quality Counts Sticker shock is rampant these days, and aircraft tires are no exception. Ten years ago, the list price on four main tires for a King Air 200 with standard gear ran $2,900 – now it’s $4,000. I am speaking specifically about Goodyear tires, which have always been my preference because they last longer…
Few things are more annoying than finding a puddle of fuel on the hangar floor the morning after a flight. A B200 I was consulting on recently manifested just that. Fuel leaks that crop up suddenly can result from recent maintenance where a seal wasn’t seated properly or where a fitting was left loose. Another…
T he Before Takeoff checklist includes a test of the overspeed governors. You know that switch on the sub-panel? When you hold it up, it sends a current to a test solenoid which opens a valve and dumps some of the oil going to the prop into a channel going to the engine case. The…
Writing about prop balancing in the October 2021 issue of King Air magazine got me thinking about engine vibration analysis. Some King Air owners and pilots have never heard of it, as it’s not required by the factory and not part of any Phase checklist or special inspection. Unless you are a turbine engine fanatic…
When I ran my maintenance shop and got a new company truck, I kept the old one at the airport as a crew car. After several months of driving the new one, I used the old one to run an errand and was shocked at the slop in the steering. I didn’t remember it…
Due diligence, simply stated, is “examining things or people before buying or employing them.” (macmillanthesaurus.com) I’m talking about a prepurchase inspection, aka, the pre-buy. There is a lot of pushback against them, which makes no sense to me. In buying a King Air, you’re going to part with upward of a million dollars (or maybe…