Depending on your perspective, the Beech 1900D may be described either as; ‘A flying Toyota High-Ace taxi’ or as a ‘King Air on steroids’.
King Airs have established an unbeatable reputation for providing, on the one hand, both comfort and speed and on the other, being tough enough to handle African conditions.
The B200 can get in and out of almost any strip a Cessna 210 can, but it can carry three times the useful load of a C210 in pressurised comfort, 50% further and nearly twice as fast. That is the sort of capability that makes King Airs a popular choice for many corporate flight operations with remote sites, such as mining operations.
Although the 1900D looks like a King Air on steroids, it is not officially one of the King Air family. It was designed as a 19-seat commuter under a special FAA certification dispensation. However, it shares many of the design philosophies and components that make the King Airs a standout success.
In size and shape the 1900D’s wing is identical to the King Air 350’s and the overall impression, especially for the older and slimmer 1900C series is one of a stretched King Air. When viewed from the front, a description of the 1900D as a King Air with a roof rack certainly seems appropriate. This is especially so given the almost spaceship-like array of wings and things attached to the tail. For those fans of the King Air’s sleek lines and regal tail, the weird collection of flying and control surfaces must be sacrilege.
But it is the capability and the flying qualities of a plane that count, especially in the tough environment of the African bush or for short haul commuter airline work. The net result is a plane that improves on the greatness of the King Air in almost every respect.
The 1900 was designed primarily as a tough commuter, and so the first priority of the designers was to eliminate no-go items that could damage an airline’s on time performance. The two key concerns were to eliminate yaw damper failure as a no go item and to keep the loading envelope as big as possible.
To ensure positive stability over the huge C of G range, the 1900D sprouted even more tail surfaces than the earlier 1900 models,. There are now winglets, larger ‘taillets’, stabilons, twin anhedral fins plus a larger dorsal fin and a wider chord rudder. ‘Aeroplanes-as-art’ aesthetes may bemoan the array of Star Wars tails, but all who fly the 1900 cannot but be impressed by its rock solid handling and hugely wide C of G range.
The original 1900 series was designed in terms of Special FAR 41 certification requirements which allowed aircraft with less than 20 passenger seats to weigh more than 12,500 lbs for takeoff. When the SFAR expired in 1991, Beech faced the choice of recertifying the 1900 to the new Commuter Category or designing a new plane from scratch. The King Air / 1900 airframes provided a well proven base, so it was recertified and the 1900D was born.
With a stand-up cabin, which is 35cm higher than the 1900 and King Airs, the “D” model provides more passenger room, better performance and improved systems than its predecessor. The new standards and systems changes included better trim systems, aircraft stability, stall warning, control system redundancy and ice protection. These new rules also specify fail safe load paths that are essentially the same as those for FAR part 25 Large Aircraft certification rules. Thus, if for example a principal structural component fails in the wing, fuselage pressure vessel or tail, the aircraft must still be able to handle almost all of its full design loads. This has meant that the fuselage frames are spaced only 15 inches apart, which is why the windows have become tall ovals to fit.
A further example of the increased certification requirements of the “D” is evidenced by the large panel attached somewhat crudely to the right of the main cabin door. This is a composite panel whose sole function is to prevent a propellor blade from penetrating the cabin should one break off.
As a further concession to toughness and durability. the fuselage is pressurised to just 5 psi which restricts the 1900D to a 25,000 ft ceiling for a cabin altitude of 10,000ft. The King Air by contrast has a 6 psi differential and thus a 35,000 ft service ceiling. This means that the 1900D’s fuselage remains considerably less stressed.
The 1900D’s wing might be the same size and shape as the King Air 350’s but, while the 350’s wing is built in three pieces, the 1900D’s has a Transport Specification one piece wing spar. The new wing is three feet longer than the 1900C’s and the winglets increase the effective aspect ratio and lower induced drag. The 1900D therefore requires less runway than the 1900C, even though it has a higher maximum takeoff weight.
Africa is generally a hot and high continent, and it is in high density altitude performance that the 1900D really shines. The new wing design and an increase in engine power over the 1900C make the aircraft almost immune to weight/range trade-offs.
At the heart of this high-density altitude capability are the 1900D’s highly flat-rated Pratt and Whitney PT6A-67D engines. Normally capable of producing over 1600 shp on a standard day, the engines have been limited to 1279 shp and so can maintain this up to an ISA standard day’s 8,100 ft. Even at MAUW this gives the 1900D a mountain topping single engine performance. The 1900D’s single engine service ceiling is 17,500 ft and if you lose an engine at gross weight at sea level it will climb at 690 fpm.
The bigger engines and higher cruise speed of the 1900D have had one unsurprising drawback. The cabin is noisier than the 1900C’s and noticeably noisier than I subjectively remember the B200 King Air’s. A King Air trademark is polarizing window blinds and these are absent from the 1900D. However the cabin is still a nice place to be, thanks to its almost six foot headroom.
An option is an executive interior which includes a galley and a toilet in the baggage area behind a sliding door. The layout is adaptable with seats and partitions coming out with a minimum of difficulty. Access to the rear of the cabin is through a massively wide rear cargo door and it is a simple matter to load or unload large objects, including cabin furnishings, directly onto a truck. Even with the full executive interior and toilet, there is still a further six cubic metres of cabin baggage space with a weight capacity of 1,630 lbs.
The cockpit of the 1900D will be instantly familiar to King Air pilots, but with one nice advantage. The engines and wings are now further back, providing great downwards visibility. Surprising to me was that no attempt was made to integrate the engine instruments into the glass cockpit and instead there are the familiar two columns of six primary power indicators for each engine.
The avionics are the usual collection of Collins Pro Line II equipment including dual nav/ comns, a Mode S transponder, and weather radar.
A neat touch is the passenger cabin briefer. One of the most irritating aspects of the 1900D’s cockpit is that it requires the agility of a monkey on a jungle gym to get seated. You have to stand behind the centre consoles overly large oddment tray and then hold onto a roof strap and half swing into the seat.
The 1900D is normally a two pilot aircraft but Flight Safety offers a course and FAA check ride to approve single pilot operation for Part 91 flights.
The start is standard PT-6. For the first start of the day ITT temperatures barely broke through the first red line at 700 degrees, far short of the 1000 degree limit. As the starter turned the fat four bladed props the most annoying of all the 1900D’s attributes manifested. A bell sounded off at what seemed to be the speed of the turning prop. It was to be the first of what I found to be a bewildering symphony of bells and whistles. As an uninitiated 1900D pilot, most of them took me by surprise and constituted more of a distraction than help. But in the States the FAA will have your license if you bust an altitude by more than 350 ft, so the altitude alert, which is the most annoying, is also probably the most valuable.
One of the 1900D’s neat tricks is its turning circle, which is great for getting out of crowded aprons. It has a dual power setting for nosewheel steering and with the selector in the Power Park position, the aircraft can be turned inside its own length, with the inner wheel turning backwards. There is the usual Beech rudder/ aileron interconnect which means that the control wheel is locked hard over to the side for ground turns.
Once the aircraft is moving, the propellor controls are left in the ground fine position. The power levers then control the props’ pitch while the engine speed remains constant. Small power changes are therefore used to control taxi speed and if taxiing downhill, the props can be moved into Beta to save the brakes.
The 1900D has almost 2600 shp available for takeoff which gives it one of the best power-to-weight ratios of any passenger turboprop. The abundance of power makes it unnecessary to turn off the engine bleed air so the heating and ventilation is available for passengers for as long as the engines are running.
For our flight we had 700 lbs of fuel per side and seven people aboard so we weighed about 12,300 lbs, out of a total permissible takeoff weight of 16,950 lbs. At Lanseria we had a typical African density altitude of 7500 feet.
For a hot and high departure at high weights, the flaps are left up, which increases the takeoff roll slightly, but improves the single engine climb gradient. This improved climb therefore allows a higher density altitude takeoff than with flap. But, given the 1900D’s short runway requirements, it is unlikely that it will need flap to compensate for a tight runway.
Power was applied in two stages but nonetheless the acceleration was impressive. At 90 knots we rotated and jumped into the sky after a ground run of about 400m.
I watched incredulously as the VSI headed towards the stop at 4000 fpm. The altitude alert sounded for 6500 ft as we passed the airport boundary. Levelling out, power was reduced to 35% but with our light weight and momentum we kept going up at 800 fpm. If we had climbed to a normal cruising altitude of Flight Level 250 we could have expected cruise to settle down at 287 knots true for a fuel flow of 746 pounds per hour.
The control forces are heavier than the King Air’s but, thanks to all the aerodynamic devices, the pitch and roll forces are well harmonised. One can readily see why an autopilot is an optional extra.
The 1900D is optimised for short sectors, hence it needs to be able to climb and descend quickly. With its high power-to-weight ratio, the climb to cruise in the mid-twenty flight levels typically averages out at 2000 fpm, or less than fifteen minutes from sea level to its certified ceiling.
Getting back down again is no problem using the 248 knot Vmo limitation, and when you need to slow for the circuit, pulling back the power turns the two large paddle bladed props into speed-brakes, but without the buffet.
The clean stall comes at 101 knots and the flaps-down stall at 84 knots. Pilots report docile stall characteristics
There was almost no trim change with gear extension, but the flaps caused a slight pitch up which was easily balanced with the trim switches on the wheel. The 1900D tracked steadily down a somewhat steep approach at 110 knots, reducing to 100 over the fence. With the power pulled back to flight idle for the flare, there is enough residual thrust to stop the aircraft from dropping through the ground effect cushion onto the runway, and the 1900D is well mannered and heavy enough not to float.
Sink is arrested with a gentle flare and the main wheels plonked firmly onto the short double wheeled gear legs in a surprisingly level attitude.
The 1900D has as standard the 22-inch high flotation wheels optional on the bigger King Airs. Like the King Airs they are not covered by gear doors and protrude noticeably during flight, probably costing about seven knots in cruise. This is a further indication of Beech’s design goals of ruggedness and rough field capability for the 1900D. In typical turboprop style, the 1900D stops even better than it accelerates when the props are pulled back through the indent into reverse.
In essence the 1900D is ideally suited to the demands of African operations. With its high power to weight ratio, unstressed systems and minimum no go items it provides versatile and capable transportation for almost all mission profiles.
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