Page 24 - Volumer 13 Number 7

Ask the Expert Ferrying BB-294 to
Malaysia – Part I
by Tom Clements
In 1977 I had left Beech Aircraft Corporation’s Training Center in Wichita and transferred to the factory- owned Beechcraft West retail facility in Hayward and Fresno, California, as an aircraft salesman. Although Hayward would be my home for the next 10 years, my first months were mostly spent in Fresno. Why? Because Larry Hall, the head honcho in Fresno, was temporarily managing both facilities and he wanted to give me “under his wing” guidance as I made the transition from the factory to the field. It wasn’t too long before I found that I was not cut out to be a salesman, and in 1979 I started Flight Review, Inc. – a King Air and Duke on-site training operation that I managed for 21 years.
Larry was a good guy and mentor, at least it seemed that way to me. He is the one who taught me to cruise climb a Baron at full power and 500 fpm and just accept whatever speed that yielded. Scientific? Good for all situations? No. But it certainly worked well for a lot of our Fresno-Hayward flights.
Larry had sold – and maintained in which I had helped – a 1977 King Air 200 (serial number BB-294) to the Government of Sabah, a Malaysian state on the island of Borneo. He believed (correctly!) based on my less-than-stellar sales performance that he could make better use of my talents by getting me involved with the delivery of this airplane to Borneo and the subsequent crew training that would be needed there. Thus, began a most interesting and unusual five months of my life.
Larry contracted with a fellow whose business was ferrying airplanes across the Pacific. This gentleman had lots and lots of ferrying experience but always in single and twin-engine piston, unpressurized airplanes. Since he had never flown a turboprop and I had never executed a Pacific crossing, it was a symbiotic combination! What could go wrong?
To make the flight from Oakland, California, to Honolulu, Hawaii, the King Air 200 needed about 350 more gallons of fuel on top of the 544 normal gallons. Our ferrying friend had worked often with a maintenance facility located on the Oakland airport (KOAK) in the San Francisco Bay area. He arranged for them to do the extra tanking for our flight. The plan was to add
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three aluminum, rectangular tanks – one in front of the main spar and two behind, all securely mounted to the seat tracks – to accommodate the desired extra fuel. The seats that had occupied the space where the tanks would go would be secured in the back of the cabin and in the baggage area.
How would the fuel in these extra tanks get to the engines? The tanking organization asked for my input and I came up with this idea: The crossfeed line was the only fuel-containing line that was available under the floorboards in the cabin. I thought that we could install a T-fitting into this line that would allow our cabin fuel to feed to both engines.
The three cabin tanks were plumbed in parallel so that any or all could feed to the T-fitting on the crossfeed line. We had an electric boost pump installed in the line between the tanks and the T-fitting to ensure that the fuel from the cabin would have priority over any fuel coming from the wings. Remember that the crossfeed line feeds directly to the engines and that a checkvalve prevents this fuel from entering a tank.
The Normally Closed (NC) crossfeed valve is located in the left wing, so when our cabin fuel was introduced into the T-fitting, it would initially feed only to the right engine. Once that flow was verified, we could then open the crossfeed valve and allow cabin fuel to feed to both engines.
But, wait a minute! To open the crossfeed valve in a 200 (and F90 and 300-series King Airs) requires moving the crossfeed switch left or right and this also turns on the feeding side’s electric standby pump. If the pressure output of this pump is greater than the pressure of the cabin fuel connected to the T-Fitting then the cabin fuel would not be utilized. Instead, the fuel from the side of the operating standby boost pump would supply both engines and probably even send fuel into the ferry tanks.”
So, the question I faced was, “How do I open the crossfeed valve without activating the standby pump?”
Simple: Pull the pump’s circuit breaker beneath the fuel panel. Oops that won’t work. You see, in serial
JULY 2019