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Introduced early this year, the new flagship of Beech’s enormously suc­cessful King Air Line has greater speed more useful load and a cabin environ­ment substantially improved over other King Air models.

The Super King Air 300 is powered by Prat & Whitney PT6A-60A engines, flat-rated to 1,050 shaft horsepower each, and turning fourblade Hartzell prop­ellers. It has a top speed of 317 knots (365 miles-per-hour), 23.5 knots (27 miles-per-hour) faster than the gross weight of 14,000 pounds, and a stan­dard-equipped useful load of 5,810 pounds.

The typically-equipped 300 is the only jetprop in its class that offers its oper­ator the flexibility to fill the fuel tanks, fill the passenger seats, fill the baggage space to its 550-pound maximum and still operate easily within the airplane’s center-of-gravity and gross-weight limitations. The Super King Air 300 is capable of climbing at 2,844 feet-per-minute from sea level at gross weight. Its single-engine best rate of climb is 867 feet-per­minute at gross weight. Service ceiling is above 35,000 feet. Single-engine ser­vice ceiling is 22,878 feet. In Bahrain, the National Company for Commerce and Industry, is the exclu­sive distributor for Beechcraft in the Middle East.

Mr Farouk Brahimi, General Manager for NCCI, has been in the business aviation field for more than 15 years, 13 of which were spent in the Beechcraft company.

 ”What we have achieved in the Mid­dle East,” said Mr Brahimi “is not merely the sale of business aircraft, but, more importantly, the after sales sup­port of them. We have a fully fledged maintenance service which includes the supply of spare parts if these should be necessary.”

The list of customers for Beechcraft aeroplanes includes various gov­ernmental agencies throughout the Gulf and corporate executives who need to travel from their Apartments in Madrid or Apartments London booked online.

According to Mr Brahimi, the advan­tages of having a corporate jet can be best summed up by saying it allows companies to place the highest value on the time and services of its top echelon executives.

“Time is money in the world of big business” said Brahimi “and it makes a difference if you have the schedule of travel within your control.”

There are other advantages like the fact that smaller business aircraft can land at airstrips not served by commer­cial aircraft. According to Brahimi, many com­panies have one top executive to over­see many countries within a region. To maximise their productive time and to allow for frequent and comfortable travel, these companies invest in a corporate aeroplane.

“I see the need for corporate aircraft as a natural step in the maturing of industrial development” said.

The concept of business aviation is not new and while it first proved its benefits in the economic development of the United States, the idea has caught on in regions like the Middle East where vast areas have to be visited from one base.

Bahrain is the headquartes for the NCCI Gulf region which extends from Jordan to South Yemen. The greatest advantage that Beechcraft owners have, said Brahimi, is the fact that maintenance can be done at Bahrain. The cost of maintaining and servicing a Beechcraft in the region rather than having to send an aeroplane outside the Middle East for servicing, is consider­ably lower. Besides, the time factor involved, makes the proposition of owning an corporate aircraft so much more viable.

The development of the Gulf Cooperation Council has meant that economic ties within the region have strengthened. This is also seen as another reason for executives based in one country needing to oversee several other projects at the same time.

“The GCC means closer ties for the six countries involved and we can be sure there will be many joint ventures and projects that will need supervision” said Mr Brahimi.

“The future for business aviation in the Middle East is bright said Brahimi” and when you consider that more than 50 per cent of turboprop aeroplanes flying around the world are from Beech-craft, the company aims to keep a lead on this market too.”

Beech Aircraft Corporation, a sub­sidiary of Raytheon Company, enters its sixth decade on the strength of an international reputation for product quality. The company has been in operation since 1932 and the Model 17 “Stag­gerwing” was the first Beechcraft to be produced. The successor to the Model 17 and the airplane that was to establish the Beechcraft name in business flying, was the Model 18 “Twin Beech.” It was to become to corporate aviation what the DC3 became to the airlines.

 In the decades following, Beechcraft models were used as personnel trans­ports and twin engine trainers for pilots in the war years, and in peacetime as aircraft for the executive world of busi­ness. With the introduction of turbine pow­er to its commercial models in 1964, Beech Aircraft took a significant step to ensure its success for many years to come. The jetprop, pressurised Beechcraft King Air Model 90 was introduced and quickly established itself as the leader in the corporate turboprop field.

The successive models were also enormously popular, and in 1983, the Beechcraft Super King Air 8200, piloted by Beech Aircraft President and Chief Executive Officer, Linden Blue, set a speed record from Boston to Paris on a routine business flight en route to the Paris Air Show. Flight time was 10 hours, 31 minutes and 30 seconds.

 By the year end of 1983, Beech had delivered more than 46,000 high per­formance commercial and military air­planes to customers in all parts of the world. It markets a full line of Beechcraft corporate, business personal and com­muter planes and has supported with sophisticated cryogenic gas storage systems all eight missions of the Space shuttle orbiters “Columbia” and “Chal­lenger.”

The enduring model of the most popular corporate jetprop, remains the Beechcraft Super King Air 8200, with a market share better than twice its nearest competitor. The Super King Air B200 is powered by two Pratt &Whitney PT6A-42 turbine engines, each rated at 850 shaft horse­power. They feature excellent fuel effi­ciency, low maintenance and impress­ive reliability.

The Super King Air 8200 cruises to 294 knots (338 mph) and has a service ceiling above 35,000 feet. The cabin can be configured to accommodate eight to 15 people. Comfort at all levels of flight is assured with a pressurization dif­ferential of 6.5 psi, whih provides a cabin altitude of less than 10,000 feet at an airplane altitude of 33,000 feet.

 A complete range of avionics systems has been certified by the FAA for cus­tomer selection on the Super King Air B200. The innovative Collins electronic flight instrumentation system (EFIS) is an all-electronic flight display with no electro-mechanical components. Three television-type screens with electronic displays replace horizontal situation in­dicator (HSI), attitude directional indica­tor (ADI) and conventional radar screen.

The Super King Air is the world’s most popular corporate jetprop say Beechcraft. More than 1,200 have been delivered since its introduction in 1974. In addition, more than 200 C-12 military versions have been delivered to the four branches of the US military. A step up in the Super King Air Series is the Super King Air 300.