Beechcraft King Air 200 (BE20)

The Beechcraft King Air 200 is the aircraft that defined the business turboprop and has outlasted every rival. Beech introduced the King Air in 1964 as a pressurised, turbine-powered development of its Queen Air piston twin, and the family grew through the 90 and 100 series until, in 1970, the company began work on a larger, faster model with a T-tail, a longer wing, more powerful Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-41 engines and a higher cabin pressure differential. The Super King Air 200 first flew on 27 October 1972 and deliveries began in 1974.

It was an immediate success with corporate flight departments, air-taxi operators and the military. The US Army and Air Force bought hundreds as the C-12 Huron utility transport, and later versions served as RC-12 signals-intelligence aircraft. Certified at exactly 12,500 lb maximum take-off weight, the 200 sat just below the FAA threshold that requires a type rating, which made it the natural step up for owner-pilots and kept training costs low for operators, a decisive advantage the aircraft has held for fifty years.

Beech updated it steadily. The B200 of 1981 brought PT6A-42 engines with better hot-and-high performance; the B200GT of 2008 added swept four-blade propellers and more thrust at altitude; the King Air 250 of 2011 added composite winglets and a Pro Line 21 cockpit; and the King Air 260 of 2020 introduced a Pro Line Fusion flight deck with autothrottles. More than 7,500 King Airs of all models have been built, the 200 series accounting for a large share, and the 260 remains in production at Textron Aviation in Wichita.

Its roles have multiplied: air ambulance, where its cabin and reliability made it the default, aerial survey and mapping, flight inspection, maritime patrol, and short-haul airline flying in Australia, Africa and the Canadian north. It is, by any measure, the most successful turboprop business aircraft in history.

The King Air 200 is a low-wing, pressurised twin with two PT6A turboprops of 850 shp and a T-tail that lifts the horizontal stabiliser clear of propeller wash, improving handling and reducing cabin noise. The wing, with its square-tipped planform on early models and winglets on the 250 and 260, is strong enough for operations from rough strips, and the trailing-link main landing gear gives notably soft landings. The cabin seats seven to nine in club configuration with an aft lavatory and a large cargo door option, and is pressurised to a 6.5 psi differential for a 10,000 ft cabin at 35,000 ft.

Cruise speed is about 290 knots true, modest beside a jet but with far better field performance and fuel economy; a B200 burns roughly 100 US gallons an hour. The 260's autothrottle system, the first on a King Air, and its Pro Line Fusion touchscreen avionics brought jet-class automation to the type. A 12,500 lb weight limit keeps it in the single-pilot, no-type-rating category.

King Air 200s fly for corporate flight departments and charter operators on every continent, for air-ambulance providers such as the Royal Flying Doctor Service and Air Methods, and for governments in survey, inspection and transport roles. The US Army's C-12 Hurons and the RC-12 variants remain in service, and the type serves with dozens of other air forces. Regional airlines in Australia, Canada, Africa and the Pacific use it on thin routes, and training organisations fly it as a multi-engine turbine trainer. Typical missions are 200- to 900-mile trips with four to seven passengers into airports a jet cannot or need not use.

A King Air 200 cabin is a compact executive space: seven to nine seats in facing club pairs, about 1.45 m wide and 1.45 m high, so you sit rather than stand, with large oval windows, fold-out tables and an aft lavatory on most aircraft. It is pressurised, so no oxygen masks and a comfortable cabin altitude, and the T-tail keeps the propeller noise lower than on older King Airs, though it is still a turboprop and headsets are common on longer legs. The ride is stable and the trailing-link gear makes landings gentle. Air-ambulance and airline-configured examples replace the club seats with stretchers or 2-1 rows. For the best seat, take a forward-facing club seat aft of the propellers, away from the plane of the blades.

The King Air 200 is the T-tailed King Air: a low-wing twin turboprop with the horizontal stabiliser mounted at the top of the fin, which distinguishes it at once from the King Air 90 and 100 series with their conventional cruciform tails. Against the larger King Air 350, the 200 is 2.3 m shorter with fewer cabin windows (usually six per side against the 350's eight) and, on older examples, no winglets; the 250 and 260 do have winglets, so count windows. The oval cabin windows, the long pointed nose and the distinctive PT6 exhaust stacks on each side of the nacelles are shared across the family.