A Glass Panel Fit for a King
1979 Beech King Air B100
Aircraft & Owner:
The King Air is a twin turboprop aircraft popular for business and pleasure travel. With production starting in 1964, the King Air quickly rose to popularity outselling all their competition. Today, the King Air remains a top choice for businesses needing to transport employees and executives between locations on a tight schedule. West Craft Manufacturing is a leader in the production of custom hydraulic and pneumatic cylinders. Based in Alto, Texas, West Craft Manufacturing made the decision to ferry their King Air over 1600 miles northwest to our hangar in Pitt Meadows to receive this avionics upgrade.
Need:
In recent years, this King Air had received a moderate upgrade to the avionics stack in the form of a GTN 750 Xi GPS/Nav/Comm, along with a remote audio panel, transponder, and a secondary nav/comm. While these upgrades will eliminate many pain points while navigating, the analog flight instruments don’t allow the pilots to use this new equipment to its fullest extent. With fewer and fewer aircraft being equipped with older analog instruments, repair capability is becoming harder and harder to find. This, along with many pilots being more familiar with modern primary flight displays, a glass panel makes more and more financial sense for a corporate aircraft like this King Air.
The tired and old factory SPZ-200 autopilot system was in much need of an upgrade. With aging servos which could fail at anytime, and control computers that are near impossible to find replacement parts for, today’s modern all digital autopilots are the perfect way to bring reliability, capability, and safety to a solid airframe such as the King Air.
NEW EQUIPMENT LIST
| G600 TXi 1060 | Integrated Flight Display with SVT (Garmin) |
| GAD 43 | Autopilot Interface (Garmin) |
| GSU 75 | Remote ADAHRS (Garmin) |
| GI 275 | Standby Electronic Flight Instrument (Garmin) |
| S-TEC 3100 | Digital Flight Control System (Genesys Aerosystems) |
| MaxPanel | Custom Powder Coated Instrument Panel (Maxcraft) |
Maxcraft Solution:
The most noticeable upgrade to this panel is the 10.6” G600 TXi touchscreen primary flight display (PFD). The G600 is designed specifically for larger, heavier aircraft which fall under the United States Part 23 Class 3, which have a maximum takeoff weight between 6000 lbs and 12,500 lbs.
The preexisting GTN750 Xi is the perfect companion for the G600 PFDs. We made sure to perfectly integrate the GTN750 Xi with the newly installed systems allowing the crew to get the most out of all the equipment available to them. The GTN 750Xi is a touchscreen flight navigation system. Taking on the job of a traditional Nav/Comm system providing VHF navigation and communications, as well as highly accurate WAAS GPS, the GTN 750Xi has a wide variety of features to reduce pilot workload during IFR flight. The FlightStream 510 installed in the SD card slot of the GTN 750Xi allows for seamless, wireless flight plan transfers, and database updates, reducing downtime when charts, or approach plates expire.
Right beside the G600TXi is Garmin’s GI 275 electronic flight instrument. This small 3.25” instrument has a high-resolution touchscreen which displays everything the pilot needs to maintain safe flight, such as altitude, attitude, airspeed, and heading. With a built-in battery backup, the GI 275 will continue providing vital information, even during a complete electrical failure, ensuring the aircraft can make it home.
The Genesys S-TEC 3100 is one of the top solutions for autopilots in aircraft today. This fully featured autopilot can hold altitudes, airspeeds, and headings, and thanks to the Garmin GAD43, it integrates with the GTN 750Xi allowing it to fly precision approaches, including automatic missed approaches with the touch of the “go around button”. But the Genesys S-TEC 3100 digital flight control system is much more than just an autopilot. On top being a powerful all digital 3-axis autopilot, it also has a wide variety of safety features such as straight and level recovery allows the pilot to bring the aircraft to level the wings and nose with the press of a single button.
While the shiny avionics are often what people think they’ll notice the most after these installations, we’ve found people notice the panel a lot more. We replaced the original panel, which had been modified many times during past avionics upgrades, with a custom cut and formed one piece panel. Powder coated with a durable finish and engraved with all matching placards, this King Air’s panel looks better than the day it rolled out of the factory in 1979.
While the aircraft was in our hangar, we also took the time to install any software updates that were available for the preexisting avionics.
The Story:
We were introduced to this customer by Joe Casey of Casey Aviation. Casey Aviation assists the owner of this aircraft with managing and staffing crew. Joe Casey is one of the most trusted instructors in the PA46, TBM, and King Air space and we are proud to have him recommending us. After we agreed on a start date, the King Air made the trip over 1600 mile trip from Cherokee County Airport in Texas to our hangar at Pitt Meadows Airport in British Columbia. This is a true testament to the capability of the King Air as it made a true cross the country trip in just a little over 24 hours on the clock.
“One the cool aspects of the times we live today is the ability to renovate the panels of older airplanes, making them safer and more productive. As one of the most efficient turbo props on the planet, with a high payload and long range, the King Air B100 fits our mission perfectly. We’ve flown the B100 for more than 15 years, but the aging panel was beginning to cause us some trouble to maintain. Given our love of the airframe, it was an easy decision to pour money into the panel, making this B100 ready for the decades to come.It was also easy to choose Maxcraft for the job. We tell our clients in the PA46, TBM, and King Air world that a major avionics overhaul is one of the most difficult upgrades possible. A paint job and an interior replacement are cake-walk jobs compared to a panel replacement. The wise aircraft owner will select a shop that knows what they are doing, has done it before, and has a culture of excellence. We’ve known Steve Nunn for years through the PA46 world, and we simply trust him. That trust was well-placed as Maxcraft completed the job on-time, on-budget, and it was squawk-free when I flew our B100 back to Texas.
We’ve seen horror stories from others who selected avionics shops that butchered panels, caused a mountain of post-installation headaches, and who pinned invoices on clients that were 150% over the original quote. Don’t pay for the on-the-job training for a shop that cannot provide you with pictures of completed jobs and unbiased owner references. Was it worth it to fly this airplane more than 1,600NM to get the panel replaced? Absolutely! We slept easy knowing the airplane was in good hands and the job was going to be done right.
In fact, we flew our other airplane (a Cessna 182) up to Vancouver to have that panel updated as well. Maxcraft did not disappoint in either airframe and was highly communicative through the entire process!”