Page 6 - Volume 17 Number 1

TheQuestAircraftKodiaEasy-Handling Utility Load-HaulerThe Kodiak single-engine turboprop bushplane was co-conceived by David Voetmann and Tom Hamilton, one of the originators of Glasair fast-glass homebuilt airplanes, as the practical answer to the needs of back-country operators in the missionary and bush-flying field. It’s a big, rugged aircraft, a step-up from the utilitarian Cessna 206, yet simple to operate and maintain; call it a modern-day de Havilland Beaver.Quest Aircraft Company, builder of the Kodiak, is headquartered in Sandpoint, Idaho, up where the state reaches for the Canadian border. While it was in our area, however, we met the company demonstrator airplane at Mid-Continent AviationBy LeRoy Cook Paul Bowen PhotographyServices in Wichita, Kansas, one of the Quest Kodiak authorized service centers, where we were given a through briefing and familiarization flight by Lynn Thomas, director of technical marketing for Quest. What we found was a well-thought-out design, targeted at the utility flying needs of its customers.Walking around the Kodiak, it gives an impression of being human- sized; big, but not too big, reachable and usable in most cases without special stands or equipment. Thomas referred to it as a “Dodge Caravan with wings, or a flying Land Rover”. Invariably, the Kodiak gets compared to the larger Cessna Caravan; with a 750-shp Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-34, it can carry the sameload as a C-208, but in a smaller container. “If you need to carry lots of cubic feet of boxes, you need the Caravan,” said Thomas. “Otherwise, we can haul 10 people in and out of short runways, with extra room for their gear in the optional external baggage compartment.”Field maintainability is paramount; the mostly-aluminum airframe only uses composites for doors, cowling, fairings and tips. The fixed tubular-spring maingear flexes through twin tubes in the fuselage; Thomas says it can take a nine-inch stump. Big 8.50 x 10 tires are standard, with huge 29 x 11.00- 10 off-runway tires optional. The 6.50 x 8 nosewheel is heavily braced and sprung by oleo action. Things4 • TWIN & TURBINEJANUARY 2013k