Page 30 - Volume 15 Number 5

Type Certificate 3A20 for the E90 April 13, 1972, and during that first year of E90 production, the Wichita factory built 22 of the airplanes. That number, however, had swelled to more than 340 by 1981 when production shifted to the Model C90-1. The last Model E90 to roll off the assembly line was serial number LJ-347.
If Beechcraft management had learned one lesson since the company’s inception in 1932, it was the realization that product development was essential to survival in a capricious marketplace that was rife with competition. During the past 50 years, Beechcraft engineers had become highly proficient at blending the advantages of one airplane with those of another to create a “new” product.
For example, the turbine-powered Model 65-90 was an outgrowth of the Queen Air series, just as the Model 50 Twin Bonanza had provided a basic platform for development of the Model 65. Taking that practice one step further, in the late 1960s Beech Aircraft Corporation combined the lengthened fuselage and pressurized cabin of the Model 100 King Air with a new, wider wing center section and unleashed the Model 200 Super King Air into the business aviation marketplace. The airplane’s
spacious cabin and its signature T-tail empennage configuration – the first for a Beechcraft airplane – pushed Beech Aircraft’s pursuit of perfection to new heights.
Continuing the company’s highly successful “cookbook” approach to creating new products, in 1978 engineers combined the T-tail design of the Super King Air with the fuselage and wings of the Model E90. The result was designated the F90 King Air and the preproduction prototype, serial number LA-1, made its first flight Jan. 16, 1978, under the command of company test pilot Marv Pratt. The FAA issued Type Certificate A31CE to the F90 May 18, 1979.
The F90’s market niche would be as a step-up airplane from the E90, and the latest King Air was well equipped to induce corporate aviation to take that step. Although its cabin, which could accommodate up to 10 passengers, was essentially the same as the E90, the F90 possessed major systems and performance improvements compared to its sibling. Chief among these were installation of Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-135 engines, each rated at 750 shp. In an effort to reduce noise levels in the cabin,
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28 • KING AIR MAGAZINE
JUNE 2021