Page 21 - April 2022

“... perhaps the best fea- ture was a cockpit redesign to make it much more ergo- nomically satisfying.”
For the first time, an annunciator panel perched on top of the glare shield consolidated all of the warning, caution and advisory lights into an easily scanned location. (The panel is in, not on, the glareshield in later models.) Before, the lights had been haphazardly placed all over the instrument panel. Also, there was now a “master warning” light that would flash red whenever a warning annunciator appeared, to grab the crew’s attention. With usually minor changes – including switching from a
horizontal placement of engine instruments to a vertical stack – this panel continues to be on all King Airs to the present day.
In addition, and perhaps the most popular improvement of all, was propeller reverse! The 90s had non-reversing props, so no Beta nor Reverse ranges on the power levers and no condition levers! (The power levers included the fuel cutoff feature when a mechanical gate was opened to allow them to be pulled aft of idle.) The A90 introduced reversing props as an option, but I believe only one A90 was ever built without that wonderful improvement.
The following year, 1966, saw the 65-90 production end and the 65-A90 take its place. This popular model continued through 1967, through LJ-317.
The B90 began customer deliveries in 1968 and continued through 1970, LJ-318 through LJ-501; no longer was the “65” prefix used. Although the systems on the A90 and B90 are virtually identical, the B90 offered huge improvements in two areas. First, the gross weight went up by 350 pounds, to 9,650 MTOW. The engines, although still PT6A-20s, were now allowed to utilize their full 550 SHP. To allow the higher gross weight, the wingspan was increased by about 5 feet by longer wing
Model 65-90, serial number LJ-36’s cockpit: No annunciator panel and no condition levers ... but nicely updated avionics! (compliments of
Blake Tumbleson of Murfreesboro Aviation at www.RogerBlake.com)
APRIL 2022
KING AIR MAGAZINE • 19