Flying the King

I'll just say this right now for starters: The King Air phase has absolutely been the best time I've had during my flight school! Now this is the real deal :)

The Beechcraft King Air C90, this one with a lengthened nose

Departing from Helsinki-Vantaa

The first flights we flew from Helsinki-Vantaa and went to a few places inside Finland, but most of the whole course was flown from Eskilstuna, Sweden. It's a nice little place about a hundred kilometers inland from Stockholm and served well as a training airport because of the low volume of traffic and easy procedures. Basically we could just talk to the guy in the tower and tell what we wanted to do that day. No need for slots or PPR's or anything like that.

Eskilstuna Airport

I hope this has been done with some sort of irony at least :)

We flew the whole course along with two other students, so every third flight I was in the cockpit and the rest sitting as a passenger trying to rest a bit before it was my turn again. This was actually quite nice since one got a lot of time inside the airplane and also more than enough time to just sit and chat a little with the other one while one of us was flying. This also led to an amazing course-atmosphere among us.

Approaching Bromma once again

Stockholm-Bromma Airport. A Braathens Saab 2000 parked at the gate.

We slept in a godawful building at the airport during the course. A flight school called Lid-Air had been there previously, but we also found out that the place had clearly been some kind of hospital or dentist's place previously. At least it was very near the apron, so we didn't have to wake up too early to get ready before our instructor arrived each day.

The engine instruments and all kinds of switches might distract from it, but this is basically a Piper on steroids in terms of flying

Purple moment. I had fun in the cabin taking pictures through the double-layered polarized windows, which lead to nice color effects when misused :)

Flying itself was challenging, but fun. The King Air clearly handles very well, like a much smaller plane. It feels almost as light as a Piper. Of course all the additional systems and switches were a handful in the beginning but I soon learned to concentrate on the basic flying and not worry about all the instruments, knobs and switches around me. After all, the King has the same basic six instruments you'll find in every conventional airplane and that's where most of the focus should be on, anyway.

Morning in Eskilstuna

Another take through a polarized window.. :)

Handling the engines of course was something different than what I've been used to. A PT6 turbine works very differently than a piston engine and especially the start up procedures were quite a lot of work for me in the beginning with the almost complete lack of automation. Starters, generators, levers of all kinds and so on :)

Back at Helsinki-Vantaa after the skill test!

As always, everything ended in a skill test where we flew from Helsinki-Vantaa to Tampere and back in a wintery weather. Of course there was some minor things to improve on but all in all everything went well and I (and the other two) passed nicely with above average scores.

King Air Ground Course

After the IR course, it's time for the King Air Type Rating course. A professional pilot training always includes a multi-engine training phase near the end of the program. The point of this training is to teach the student how to handle an operate a multi-engined aircraft under both VFR and IFR rules.

My desk on Day 1 of the type rating course

Especially the aim is to learn how a multi-engined aircraft reacts when flying it with the other engine inoperative, since this naturally causes an unbalanced situation and leads to many challenging aerodynamic effects that a pilot must learn to overcome. This is why we are going to fly a lot with the other engine either shut down (we are going to try an airborne restart once for real) or more often, just purposely put to idle thirst for practice purposes.

Checking the undersides of the main landing gear system

Usually a multi-engine rating is done with a multi-engine piston airplane such as a Seneca, the Baron or a Diamond DA42, but in SL Flight Training, the training is conducted with a Beechcraft King Air C90, which is an 8 to 10 seat multi-engined turboprop aircraft used usually in smaller business, cargo and ambulance operations worldwide. Our airplanes belong to the parent company of our flight school, that operates the previously mentioned type of flights with three of these King Airs. Thus, it is a great privilege to be able to do the training in this kind of aircraft, that is both a turbine and much more powerful and larger than any of the usual multi-engine pistons.

This leads to the fact that we won't, in fact, get a MEP-rating at all but rather a BE90/99/100/200 Type Rating.

Nice!

The ground training for the King Air is now finished. It included classroom studies about the performance, mass & balance and technical specifications of the airplane as well as practical exercises and training in the real aircraft, such as walk around-training. We also got to look at the engines, the cockpit and all other details up close in the hangar. This all was very interesting and I guess many of us, myself included, were very much looking forward to flying this  'Final Boss' aircraft that seems so large compared to anything previous :)

The PT6 engine

Inside the hangar rehearsing some flow patterns and checklist items with a course mate