Page 24 - Volume 11 Number 1

Game Changer – Pratt &
Whitney Canada’s PT6A
Part One
The company’s small gas turbine proved to be the right engine at the right time for Beech Aircraft Corporation’s next generation of business aircraft
by Edward H. Phillips
By the late 1950s, the military forces of the United States, Great Britain, Russia and other nations had been developing and flying jet­powered fighters and bombers for nearly 10 years. Lessons learned from the German Luftwaffe in World War II made it clear to the allies that the day of the piston­powered airplane was drawing to a close. The superior performance of the twin­engine Messerschmitt Me­262, in particular, caught the U.S. Army Air Forces by surprise with its 100­mph speed advantage over America’s premier fighter, the North American P­51 Mustang.
After the war, the commercial airlines were not only cautious about adopting jet engine technology, but deeply concerned about the costs associated with buying and operating such sophisticated powerplants. Instead, airlines clung to the proven, reliable, static, air­cooled radial engine that had reigned supreme since the 1920s. The advent of early jet­powered transports such as the revolutionary de Havilland Comet, the Avro Canada C102 (the first jet airline transport built by a company
in North America) and later the benchmark Boeing 707 transformed airline flying and sealed the fate of the radial engine as a prime mover for long­distance airline service.
During the 1950s, Beech Aircraft Corporation had prospered under the able leadership of Olive Ann Beech, who assumed the reigns of power following Walter Beech’s death in 1950. Its chief products – the Model 35 Bonanza and the cabin­class Model 65 Queen Air – were selling well and framed an ever­expanding lineup of Beechcrafts to serve every mission. Always conservative but never afraid to look to the future, in 1955 Olive Ann Beech gave the green light for Beech Aircraft to act as the sole distributor in North America for the Morane­Saulnier MS 760 Paris Jet – a four­place, 410­mph, twin­engine, low­wing monoplane that seated four in pressurized comfort. The company’s brief foray into the “Jet Age” lasted less than one year, but gained the company a degree of prestige among business aircraft operators that would prove useful 10 years later.
Sales of the Beechcraft Model 65 Queen Air remained strong well into the mid-1960s. The airplane was built from 1958-1977, with the final version being the Model 65-B80. The airframe had reached its limit of development with piston engines, but the Queen Air served operators who preferred reciprocating engines to the new, more sophisticated gas turbine PT6A of the Model 90
King Air.
(EDWARD H. PHILLIPS COLLECTION)
22 • KING AIR MAGAZINE
JANUARY 2017