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“In one sentence, the T-tail design was chosen because it maximized rudder effectiveness and kept Vmca at a reasonable value.”
That pitch up at the stall break is something I have never experienced since all flight training is usually with a fairly forward CG since we’re not carrying a lot of passengers during the training. It is exceedingly easy for that tail to create so much downforce even near stall that getting a secondary stall during recovery is quite common.
That explains the wording about “...when 20 knots above...” in that Stall Chart paragraph I quoted earlier. When I received my first instruction in BB-1 from Bud, he had me trim for 1.3 times clean stall speed, then ease into a non-accelerated stall and note at what speed the break occurred (about 100 KIAS). Then, we dropped the nose to pick up speed until we hit 120, then 130, then 140, all the way up to 160. At each of those speeds, with only my little fingers wrapped around the control wheel as Bud instructed, we were able to easily induce stall rumble in all cases by pulling back aggressively! That airplane has some powerful elevators!
Beech was so enamored with the success of the 200’s T-tail that the initial thinking was, “Well, heck, let’s do this across the board!” They put a T-tail on an experimental flight test version of the A36 Bonanza and didn’t like it at all! It must have been a little like the short-lived T-tailed Piper Lance that not many pilots enjoyed. So with the exception of the long out-of-production F90, the only Beechcraft airplanes with T-tails are the direct descendants of the Super King Air 200. KA
Editor’s note: King Air first published this column in 2011.
King Air expert Tom Clements has been flying and instructing in King Airs for more than 50 years and is the author of “The King Air Book” and “The King Air Book II.” He is a Gold Seal CFI and has over 23,000 total hours with more than 15,000 in King Airs. To order his books, contact Tom at twcaz@msn.com. Tom is actively mentoring the instructors at King Air Academy in Phoenix.
22 • KING AIR MAGAZINE
NOVEMBER 2024