Beechcraft King Air 260 To Train Naval Aviators How to Operate Military Aircraft

The plane is a turboprop by design, one of the most popular such airplanes currently operating in the civilian business sector. Since it was introduced in the 1960s, about 7,700 of them took to the skies, serving the needs of various operators. In its standard form, it is powered by a pair of Pratt & Whitney engines delivering 850 shaft horsepower, more than enough punch to push the machine to a top speed of 574 kph (357 mph). That’s not blistering fast, true, but it gets people where they need to go, and that’s one of the reasons why it caught the Navy’s attention as well.

The Navy’s aviators get to fly a large variety of aircraft while on the job, but America can’t go training them separately for each. That’s why replacement trainer aircraft are used, not only because they mimic the capabilities of the actual planes pilots will fly, but also because they do a great job at replicating some of their most important systems. And that’s why they call these machines multi-engine training systems, or METS.

Presently, the Navy uses something called T-44C Pegasus for this purpose. It too a variation of a Textron aircraft (the Beechcraft King Air 90, to be precise), it has been in service since the late 1970s, and that means it was in need of a replacement. That will come as soon as next year, with the delivery of the first Beechcraft King Air 260 METS, or the T-54A we mentioned earlier.

The Navy plans to use this turboprop to teach its personnel some of the ins and outs of much larger, specialized aircraft, including the P-8 Poseidon, Lockheed EP-3, or the KC-130 Hercules derivative. These are airplanes in the proper sense of the word, but the Beechcraft will be able to teach pilots a thing or two about how to operate tilt-rotor aircraft as well, the likes of the Osprey.

The Beechcraft will be converted to mimic many of the capabilities of the mentioned military machines, including communications, maintenance, and operation. Textron will convert the King Air 260 into the T-54A by fitting it with new avionics, virtual and augmented reality hardware, and even some automation.

The Navy expects to get the first examples of the new trainer family starting next year, with ten of them already ordered. If they prove their worth in the sky, additional Beechcraft will be made for this purpose, to a total of 64. They will cost the Navy a total of $677.2 million.