Page 15 - Volume 15 Number 2

“Corrosion is like cancer. Once it starts, if not attended to, it will spread and become more destructive.”
widespread inside both engines. Many components required expensive repair and others had to be replaced (with no core credit).
A Tale of Two King Airs
Years ago, I had a couple of King Air 90s coming into my shop, each of them for the first time. One, a C90, was being ferried in from Hawaii. The other, an older E90, had been in the California desert for a while.
Months of preparation went into getting the C90 over to the mainland, and during that time I worried myself sick over the prospect of finding corrosion everywhere. I dreaded having to deliver the bad news. The E90, on the other hand, was of less concern. I’m very familiar with how King Airs fare in a desert climate; extensive corrosion was the last thing I expected to find.
To my surprise, the Hawaiian C90 was essentially corrosion-free! The engines looked like new inside, and we were hard-pressed to find one speck of corrosion on the airframe. How could this be? The maintenance manual has several sections directed toward King Airs operating in highly corrosive environments. The operator of this C90 had followed those instructions to a “T” and with great results. I might add, this C90 was built in 1980, so given its age, this corrosion-free condition was even more impressive.
FEBRUARY 2021
KING AIR MAGAZINE • 13