It seems the original King Air could hold its own against the competition, and there was a lot more competition back in the 70s. And within the King Air family, the tall tail B200 is generally considered as the best of the best as reflected by the sales volume and universal acceptance. King Airs have come to be regarded as perhaps the ultimate turboprop and are usually considered the standard by which most other turboprops are measured. The inherent reliability of turbine engines allow for more time between overhauls than the typical piston engines, usually an extra 1,000 hours or so. They cover the middle ground in both price and performance between the piston twins and the pure jets. Turboprops in general have always occupied a unique niche in corporate aviation.
You see, the King Air cabin has been ‘the one’ that all the new VLJ’s did not want to be compared to and the Garmin owned STC for the full panel replacement with their totally integrated G1000 King Air specific flight system was fully tested and being installed in high time King Airs all over the country. In other words, the perfect B200 King Air that you can find almost everywhere that is in dire need of a $1.5 - $2 million dollar upgrade. According to the Flight1 Pilot’s Manual, this started as a typical 1984 B200 model with some high time engines and an early ‘80s collection of instruments with the radios and avionics and maybe a couple of newer GPS units that may or may not be coupled to the antiquated autopilot. This is more like someone won the lottery and wisely selected the best of the best airframe and engine modifications, new cabin appointments, full panel updates and more. Let’s back up a bit and talk about the King Air B200 because this is not your Grandmother’s KA B200. This does not look like any King Air that I am familiar with. I noticed the design team built us a nice well used model, but loaded it up with the latest Garmin G1000 avionics flight system with that wonderfully oversized MFD in the middle of the panel with standard PFDs on either side.
I also see myself spending some serious time just sitting in the pilot’s seat with the manual and the many included checklists. I noticed lots of new switches and knobs with logical groupings by system or function with new camera views making them easy to see and operate. My first impression of the King Air cockpit was how large and spacious it was compared to the Duke and Skyhawk that I had been flying almost constantly for the last two months. I immediately forwarded the 124 page Pilot’s Guide to my iPad for some nighttime reading and went looking for the Preflight and Startup checklists. I have half a hangar full of Flight1 products so all my folders, keys, and backups were in order. This has to be the slickest of all the simulation purchasing/download systems. Using the world renowned Flight1 wrapper system, I had it downloaded, installed and running in a matter of minutes. I kept an eye on the Flight1 forums and when the SP1 was announced, I decided I should not wait any longer. Because the two airplanes are so different in real life and both are modelled in FSX just about as close to reality as anyone has seen to date, I was able to add the new Duke to my workload. I was totally engrossed in the A2A C172 preflight and Maintenance Hangar for a month or so when out of nowhere the RealAir Piston Duke v2 shows up on my doorstep. I was as surprised as everyone else when it appeared on the ‘Now Available’ screens in late July. I was thinking maybe a Christmas release. I had committed to write the AVSIM review of the Flight1 B200 King Air although I did not know that it would be completed so soon.
I was busy researching and writing reviews for a couple of those so I missed much of the mad dashes to be in the first 100 or so to jump on the download wagon. And to complicate matters even further, Aerosoft’s Airbus X Extended and the updated v2.0 Twotter were finally completed. To round out the list we were all stunned at just how quickly the smooth running Majestic Dash 8 Q400 hit the top of the charts. Not necessarily in any order but this last batch consisted of the PMDG 777, the A2A Simulations C172 Trainer, the RealAir Duke v2, and the Flight1 B200 King Air. Not from the instant download of one or two, more like 3 or 4 must haves within a span of a few days or weeks. Although fully independent of each other, our top tier developers can work for months and sometimes even years and when it is time to hit the ‘here it is’ or ‘Ready for Market’ button our credit card takes a major hit. All the totally outstanding FSX add-ons are released in bunches or batches. I don’t know why it continues to happen this way but it surely does.