BE-1900 Websites?

[Secret Agent Man 2]

Does anyone know of any BE-1900 websites other that the Raytheon's? The GF is starting class next week on it and wants more info than my usual "it's just a big King Air, relax".

Operating experience and tips are welcome too.
Thanks in advance!

['%MAC']

Sorry not to answer your question. I do not know of any dedicated websites. However I see you're from up North, don'tcha know? If you're starting an airline groundschool, I may have flown with the same for many years. If you have specific questions about the 1900 I'll try to help out. My email works via this site's profile.

[Elliot Moose]

It is just a big king air. Sorry for the useless advice but it's true. The results of the bigifying are:
1) lousy pressurization control due to only using two BE-20 outflow valves to handle about 5 times the volume of air
2)not enough pressurization due to chopping the top and putting on flat sides. Flat sides don't pressurize well (like building a square balloon) so you only get 4.5lbs max dif. Therefore altitude limited by cabin and you fly around all the time with the cabin at 10000'. It's like flying a BE-99 for a living and you have to plan descents around the pressurization if you're high.
3)EFIS---not. What good is EFIS if all you use it for is displaying conventional instruments? Since it is a big king air, the system is an afterthought, so you have to flick all the normal switches plus a whole bunch more to turn on the TV's and fire up the standby instruments. Oh and by the way they are all over the place since the king air cockpit only had so much space to start with.
4)Plastic props--they work okay as long as they are rigged right and don't do dirt strips (like I did). Misrigged they have been known to feather (happened to a friend just after liftoff) and that is a really wild ride!:eek:
5)king air landing gear only bigger--and just as stiff. As well there is a little thing that makes the props go to a finer pitch when you get weight on wheels. So even if you get one on smoothly, the braking action of the props will put the other two on with a big clunk.
6)steering--the old king air stuff wouldn't work on such a big unit (although they did try a form on the early models). So they just added power steering--as an afterthought. Yup, more switches. They conveniently located one right on the power levers, but that is just an ON (not off-thats way across the cockpit) switch. To switch from taxi mode (less sensitive) to park mode (causes whiplash if a new person is driving) you have to dig down on the centre pedestal to the third switch over in a line of four amongst about a thousand others. This changeover usually happens when you are really busy and trying to avoid hitting people and other planes. Suggest the PNF find that one for the first while.
7)Flaps--why change a good thing right? They just put slightly modded king air flaps on because hey, they worked okay on everything since the model 18, right? The result: get ready for approach speeds the same as small jets, even though you only weigh 17000lbs and have props.
8)Tailfeathers--why change a good thing right? Says the redesigner: " Ooops the plane is too big--needs more tail, more rudder, more stabilizer. Oh well lets just start hanging stuff on back there until she flies. Strakes, no bigger, no biggest strakes ever seen get added. Tail-lets and stabilons (don't quote me on the names here) and then oops half of it should get deicing boots. There now it flies right, except oops there isn't enough trim. So, lets add about two inches to the TRIM TABS ONLY so we don't have to mess with anything else. Well no they look like they came off a dash-8, but they work. "
9)Pax door. Well take a king air door and make it BIG. I hope your GF works out because that gas strut is only there for one reason--to scare the cr@p out of pilots when the bolt lets go.
10)Cargo door. Possibly the only truly new equipment on the machine. Since they never thought of that one before, it is a first attempt design. They cut a giant gaping hole in the fuselage, and then hinged it at the top (there were tailplane thingies everywhere else). They then took a gas strut from the tailgate of somebody's Dodge Caravan and charged it enough to hold the door up--at least until it clears KICT. To get it down, they use a hunk of cable with a parking brake handle at the end. Pilatus of course blew about $20 and added a .5lb motor to close a similar door on the PC12, and gas struts on both doors that were up to the job--but what do those Swiss know about building things?
11)Cockpit design. Take a C-90 (which is a pressurized BE-18) add a couple of inches of panel and about five switches for every mod that has been made to the thing since 1935 since nothing is truly new, and you're there. At least the seats got an upgrade.

Speed wise it is great--typical American design--MORE POWER is all you need to make a crappy machine great. She has the stuff to fly at FL310 easily (umm did I say that?) and smoothly, but you aren't supposed to go there........:cool:

['%MAC']

I can't add anything to Moose's post, I was laughing so hard, he got nail on head. Point 6 no longer applies, but I do remember that stupid steering assist. D model and most Cs don't have it - thankfully. The motors are good though (wonder where they are made?) but they were originally designed as high volume liquid pumps, latter adopted for airplane use. I previously held that the 1900 had more crap hanging off it then any other airplane, but then in JAX I saw this (also Beech) – icing has got to be a real problem.

http://www.fas.org/irp/program/collect/rc-12n.jpg

[mstram]

LOL !

So Elliot, tell us what you really think :)


Btw, I think it looks like a porpoise / dolphin ;)

.. At least it's not as ugly as a dash-8 :)

[Checkboard]

:D ahhhh - this is what TechLog is all about! If we still had an archive, I would archive that!

[Grayson]

The 1900 is a great machine! Its all I fly online via FS2002.
Air New Zealand Link/Eagle Air (www.airnz.co.nz) operate 16 of them around regional NZ. Here's a link to a pic on the fabulous www.airliners.net..

:ok:

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/202699/L/

[nike]

well put moose-man