Page 19 - Volume 12 Number 8

We taxied back to the Delivery Center and told to get a cup of coffee while the crew there corrected the error. In less than an hour, they asked us to try again. This time all was well and the training proceeded to completion with no further glitches.
For some reason – I am not sure,
but I think the Van Nuys sales office
had made an agreement to use
BB-11 as a demonstrator for some
period of time before it departed for
South America – I was assigned to
do another pilot checkout in this
same 200 about six months later, out of KVNY. I airlined out there and met the student with whom I would be working. As we do our initial run-up, guess what? The Rudder Boost is backward again! Back we go to the shop for another discussion.
Here’s what we discovered. The original design of the 200’s rudder boost system called for plastic tubes being used to connect the regulated bleed air source to the appropriate left or right solenoid valve and then to the actual pneumatic rudder boost servo. It was found that the plastic tubes had enough length
and flexibility that the left and right ones could be reversed. Not a good thing. Why? Because during single-engine operation the pilot would not get any help on the correct rudder pedal but instead the system would be applying force to the opposite pedal! So, Beech changed the design and now it called for metal lines that could only fit one way: left to left and right to right. There were so few King Air 200s at this time that I believe no AD or Service Bulletin was ever issued. Instead, the factory simply sent personnel out to the few airplanes in existence to make the switch from plastic to metal lines.
AUGUST 2018
KING AIR MAGAZINE • 17