U.S. Navy Enlists Textron’s King Air 260 Aircraft to Train Pilots For Military Roles - AIN

[@olmstedfirsttwo-toneavanti4183]

The twin-engine Beech 18 was an important WW II trainer.

[@USNveteran]

The military has been flying King Air's for years now. One of the prime examples is what the Navy calls the T-44 which is a King Air 90. FLY NAVY!!!

[@kohersh]

The AOA would be nice to see trickle down to the rest of the B200 fleet

[@jdkgcp]

Pretty sure there's only one reason to video record the pilots and it ain't for "maintenance". Training sure.... maintenance though? C'mon. There's a reason that video recording is going to the black box. Y'all need a new salesman. Nobody wants to "upgrade" their "operating costs" 1. that doesn't actually make any sense and 2. at best just means more expensive.

[@AINvideo]

The cameras are certainly there to record the students, and the footage will be used in training debriefs as Bob Gibbs mentioned. Thanks for watching!

[@DanFrederiksen]

Hideously expensive. 7million a piece. You could buy a Phenom twin jet for less and if Eclipse restarts production they would be half price. King airs are so colonial icky. So offensively crude

[@kohersh]

It seems clear that the turbo prop is a better training platform than a light jet or a very light jet, don’t see many of those in service whereas we do see many large turbo props. Call them crude if you will, but there’s a reason so many have been built and they fly the world over.

[@DanFrederiksen]

@@kohersh if you are training for a jet plane then what merit is a turboprop? it has huge balance problems in an engine out situation, never mind the noise and the ugliness. And if the turboprop is 2-3x the price of a jet then it's very very hard to spot the merit.

[@09shadowjet]

@@DanFrederiksen It's been said in the video that this King Air is to train pilots that will move along to C-130s.

[@DanFrederiksen]

@@09shadowjet sure that makes some sense but the kingair is still wrong. that they have other wrong airplanes doesn't make it less so. If it cost a million, whatever. but it costs 7 plus military fee no doubt. Come to think of it, it would be ironic if the king air is so overpriced because they have been selling to the military. that seems to be why some diamond planes are so overpriced.

[@nunyabidness3075]

Textron is a charity contractor which gets business on occasion so that they will continue to exist and compete for government contracts. DoD has, by virtue of their foolish appropriations processes, created an environment where they have too few functional vendors for things like aircraft (it’s not all their fault, see US Congress, dysfunction of for more information). Combine that with the FAA and other government institutions (see US Congress and US Municipalities, corruption of for more information) taking every chance on purpose and by accident to destroy general aviation, and you will figure out why these planes are being bought instead of something more ideal and less expensive. The silver lining is that the new King Air is still a King Air with all sorts of age old characteristics shared with the existing fleet which will save time and money during the upgrade. They are basically replacing antique airframes with slightly evolved, larger airframes, upgraded with newer avionics and engines.