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were ready to turn crosswind when we approached the end of the runway.
Our photo airplane (Cessna 172) took off well before us, so we sprinted to our rendezvous point over Lake Sam Rayburn, about 20 miles east of Lufkin. The top speed was 200 KTAS at 7,500 feet with +10 ISA. That’s an impressive number for any fixed- gear airplane but really impressive for an airplane that can land in less than 1,500 feet.
I performed stalls, slow flight and a few steep turns to get to know the airplane, though I felt like I already did. It simply is not a hard plane to fly as its stable, responsive and very predictable. I want to under- line and highlight one aspect of the f light characteristics – responsive. This is a hard aspect of flying to describe, but some airplanes get “sloppy” when f lown slowly. While all airplanes get sloppier when f lown slower, the Kodiak 900 retains its responsiveness at slow speeds much more so than I expected. While the Kodiak 100 was designed for slow speeds, the impressive part of the Kodiak 900 is its fast cruise speed. A cruise speed of 200 KTAS is an
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aerodynamic feat for an airplane that can land in 1,500 feet, is FIKI-capable, handles rugged terrain, and has a useful load of over 3,600 lbs. But the real story of the Kodiak 900 is that it cruises at 200-plus KTAS and still behaves predictably and responsively when flying slow.
Landing the Kodiak 900 is sim- ple, with just a few nuances, mostly related to the engine operation (es- pecially if peak performance is de- sired). But, for the most part, anyone in the general pilot population could jump in a Kodiak 900 and take off and land on a reasonably long and wide runway without much trouble. Of course, if flying into a 2,000-foot grass strip nestled in the mountains at a high-density altitude with a full load of people and stuff onboard, a well-trained pilot will be required. But, the nature of a Kodiak is that it is a rather simple airplane to fly and most pilots will be able to graduate to being a solid Kodiak 900 pilot in short order.
The Right Mission
Daher foresees three primary markets for the Kodiak 900: special
missions, f leet operators and owner/ operators from the backcountry.
Special missions include govern- mental agencies ranging from border patrol, police departments, surveil- lance operators, fire patrols and medi- cal transport. Many of those agencies presently use rotary wing aircraft for these types of missions, but rotary wing is expensive. A Kodiak 900 can loiter longer (over 9 hours!), carry more people and equipment, and it has a much smaller noise signature. The maintenance requirements for a Kodiak 900 are far less than a heli- copter, and the associated dispatch reliability is super high.
“Fleet operators” means smaller airlines. I recently flew from Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands to Seattle, WA, with a fleet operator to connect with my “big” airline flight to Texas. The flight was in a tired and old Cessna Caravan that had none of the advancements and safety features of a Kodiak 900. The Kodiak 900 is going to provide an efficient alter- native for fleet operators who want to lower their operating expenses and increase the safety of their fleet, all while moving up in speed. And