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34 • TWIN & TURBINE November 2018
Put Up Your Dukes
as PIC. The refresher course was followed by an evening tour of the OZ Tyler Dis- tillery (Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey) and dinner featuring a live bluegrass band. Ye-ha! Bourbon, barbeque, and banjos – a delicious diversion after the day-long instrument review.
Brace for Impact
The next day kicked off with an in- depth, six-hour review of the Duke POH as well as operational procedures, poli- cies, and techniques. This Duke specific training was followed by Q&A including the sharing of relevant events, accidents, incidents and mistakes in both GA and the Duke fleet. The final evening’s for- mal dinner at the Bluegrass Hall of Fame featured speaker Doreen Welsh who was a flight attendant on US Airways flight 1549 (Miracle on the Hudson). Doreen told the story (“90 Seconds to Impact”) from her perspective stationed at the aft jumpseat – the most heavily damaged section of the Airbus. After discovering that they had ditched in the Hudson and not crashed on land, and after making her way to the forward section of the aircraft, she recounts, “Everything was calm up front. The other two f light attendants were dry and perfectly groomed. It was as if there had been two entirely differ- ent accidents.” Doreen provided lessons in survival and emergency procedures applicable to any audience regardless of occupation or background. Her perspec- tive on the cockpit crew’s interaction with the FAs was invaluable to me as an airline captain, and I believe that hearing her lifesaving and life-changing recount of the event should be a mandatory training event for all flight crew members whether Part 91, 135, or 121.
Why a Duke?
Long recognized for exceptional work- manship and solid flying characteristics, Beechcraft built a line of twins employ- ing royal titles: the King Air, Queen Air, Baron, Duchess, and Duke. The develop- ment of the Beechcraft 60 Duke began in early 1965 and was designed to fill the gap between the Baron and the Queen Air. On December 29, 1966, the prototype Model 60 made its first flight. Available to the public in 1968, the six-place pres- surized, radar-equipped Model 60 Duke was instantly popular as an improvement over the Baron and is widely regarded as one of the most strikingly attractive airplanes ever built. The Beechcraft A60 came onto the market in 1970 with an improved pressurized cabin utilizing ad- vanced bonded honeycomb construction, lighter and more efficient turbochargers, and improved elevators. The last vari- ant, the B60, was introduced in 1974. The interior arrangement was renewed, and the engine efficiency increased with im- proved turbochargers.
There are those who claim that the Duke was designed to be 30 knots slower than it could have been because other- wise, it would have been faster than the King Air. The Duke’s cruise speed is only marginally less than that of a King Air 90 and about the same as a Cessna 421. Beech- craft may not have wanted to take sales away from their highly successful (and profitable) King Air lineups, but I think that the Duke’s engine-propeller combina- tion that caused the 30-knot degradation was an unfortunate engineering neces- sity. Moreover, it’s this that relegated the Duke to a small, niche-aircraft in Beech- craft’s history and exposed it to issues long ago resolved but still the subject of inaccurate folklore.
According to the FAA’s aircraft registra- tion website as of last February, there were 295 Beechcraft model 60 aircraft in the U.S. registry. By model, the count was 39 dash 60’s, 52 model A60’s, and 205 B60’s. A recent Duke Flyers survey indicated that there are about 45 more in the U.S. than the FAA database indicates and also about 60 Dukes that exist outside of the U.S. This means around 400 of the 594 manufactured remain airworthy and pro- ductive. Considering that the first Duke was manufactured 48 years ago and the last was 36 years ago, the fleet remains viable and active.
Initially certified up to 30,000 feet, piston Dukes typically operate in the low 20’s burning about 45 to 50 gph at 220+ TAS. Some Dukes have converted to turbines with PT6-35’s flat rated to 550 SHP. You provide Rocket Engineering of Spokane, Washington, with a B60 piston Duke and a check for about $900,000, and a few months later (sporting a 4,000 fpm climb, 285 KTAS cruise and 66 gph fuel burn) you have a Royal Turbine Duke that will water the eyes of men, women, children and supermodels. Twenty-one Dukes have been converted so far.
The piston Duke’s once troublesome maintenance and operational issues are now relegated to very persistent folklore. Over the years, some early model Dukes have been converted to Lycoming TIO541- E1C4’s with alternators and lead-acid bat- teries. Many have intercoolers, carbide tipped lifters, vortex generators, winglets, and aft body strakes. The entire fleet, save two Dukes, are certified known ice. A thicker engine case, carbide tipped lift- ers, engine pre-oilers, vortex generators, lightweight starters, alternators and the DFA’s brain trust of professional pilots, chemists, metallurgists, engineers, attor- neys, doctors, and airline pilots have dog- gedly smoothed the Dukes rough edges, honing it into a voluptuous machine with razor-sharp value.
The Duke - Model 60, A60 and B60 -
Very Shapely
The Grand Duke - Dukes with VG’s, wing- lets and strakes - Even More Shapely
The Royal Turbine Duke - Grand Duke with PT6 turbines - Shapely and FAST