Page 16 - June21T

King Air 300
Stock Versus Blackhawk
by Joe Casey
I’ll confess – my favorite airplane is the King Air 300.
The KA300 is the predecessor to the King Air 350, the supposed
improved version. The differences be- tween the two boil down to a stretched fuselage and an additional cabin-class seating area. Otherwise, the differ- ences are slight. But, that slightly lon- ger fuselage does incur a penalty in parasite drag and subsequent speed, so the true speedster of the King Air world is the 300. That is one of the core reasons it is loved by the market – it’s the fastest.
More Horses
We manage and fly N30FE, a 1988 stock King Air 300, and we love it. The
14 • TWIN & TURBINE / June 2021
airplane has cabin noise canceling (one of the sweetest upgrades ever) and a partial panel upgrade with Gar- min 750s and all the associated digital Garmin goodies. It doesn’t have wing lockers, but that’ll be the next upgrade considered. It is a great airplane with impressive performance.
So, how do you further improve upon the near-perfect King Air 300? The answer is more horses. There’s no substitute for horsepower, right?
Fortunately, that’s the cornerstone of thinking at Blackhawk Aerospace based in Texas. Blackhawk figured out how to bolt bigger engines on the King Air 300 with its XP67A conver- sion, and guess who happened to buy the very first one – another client
PHOTOS BY CLINT GOFF
of mine. So, we now have an inside look of both a stock King Air 300 and a Blackhawk-upgraded King Air 300.
There are plenty of King Air 350s with the Blackhawk XP67A conver- sion, but N777XP was the first KA300 to receive the upgrade to the PT6-67. And I’d say N777XP has to be the fastest, best climbing King Air on the planet.
Comparing the Two
I fly both N30FE and N777XP fre- quently, and as such, can probably give the most accurate testimony about the differences between the two. I’ll give you the bottom line for- ward: Both are super airplanes that fit a particular mission profile.