Managing a KA 350

FlyingScot

FlyingScot

Spanish Proficient
I have a potential opportunity to fly and manage a KA 350 in a part 91 environment. I am looking for advice on what to expect or how to go about maintenance of this type of aircraft in this type of environment.
 
The best way is to have a fulltime mechanic. If they don't want to pay for one then find the best shop on the field. If that's not an option, well then i would hate to manage it.
 
I'd actually say you don't need a full time mechanic...under certain circumstances. How often will you be flying? If it's less than twice a week, don't bother with a full time mechanic. Contract out, or find a shop on the field that is well versed in King Airs. Have them do a post-flight inspection when you get back, and do your scheduled maintenance.
 
Agreed with TF, I think you would be spending more money then you need to by hiring a FT mechanic. Your Mx facility doesn't even have to be located on the field, you can always repo, just make sure you have someone on the field for small stuff, and post flights (wish I had this option).

Also keep in mind that you don't necessarily have to base the airplane at the field the owners fly out of. Depending on fee's, it may be better to base at another close airport and repo the airplane on flights.

PM me with any questions, i've been in your shoes, and would kill to manage and fly a part 91 airplane again.
 
Man I must be lucky! I couldn't imagine having to deal with ferrying a plane somewhere for maintenance. The aircraft is 90% of the time fueled before departure as well by the mechanic.
 
I'm flying a King Air B200 PT and we ferry to IND for MX right now. About a one hour flight and 4 hours driving back. Doing it in a week.

We don't have a full time mech, but the airplane only flies about once a week and around 180 hrs/year. A company with a 350 that I'm well versed with does about 400 hrs/year and they probably do one trip to IND a month. Sometimes more than that, but they're very particular about their airplane and they get even the smallest of gripes fixed right away.

Expect to do everything on managing the plane. That is pretty much a full time job in itself. The company I'm flying for hired the FT guy to manage the plane, fly it and be a salesman on the side. He has been with the company a year and has sold $0 of merch. That's only because whenever he's not flying he's doing trip paperwork, running cost analysis stuff for future trips and managing the plane. There's a lot to go into it.

See if you can get the plane on CAMP (I think that's Beech's MX tracker). It will help with a lot of inspections that you might not know anything about (for example, we have the PL21 with the ESIS system and it has to be checked by MX every 6 months or something). The only downside is that Beech puts a lot of stuff that is "recommended" but not mandatory on the reports. Some of that stuff is just BS.

For a one man, one plane operation this is what you can expect:

-FMS Updates
-MX Tracking, proper logging
-Plane cleanliness
-Stocking the plane with food/catering
-Paying FBO bills, CC bills
-Chart updates
-Hourly costs (my company really hawks their costs so the other guy has to run costs pretty much anytime we go somewhere)
-Making sure that you and the plane are ready to go pretty much any time.
-Finding contract guys you can trust that won't try to take your job when you go on vacation or to recurrent.
-If they have their own hangar, hangar upkeep and cleanliness.

There's probably a bunch of other stuff that I'm not thinking of...It's a lot of work, but I would do it in a heart beat. It's actually pretty much my dream job. The King Air 350 is a beast. You can expect full fuel, full pax, full bags about 97% of the time. Easy to fly, easy to land. Can be a bit busy single pilot, but you will get used to it after a while.
 
Thanks guys,
The info is a lot of help. Right now I'm still in the interviewing phase, may happen tomorrow. I just wanted some info to know what I'm getting myself into potentially. Its been insightful to see how much of my time will be taken up by managing the plane.
When things get further along I'll come back with more details and questions.
 
When you find out more info, let us know. Each situation is different, and I can bet at least one of us has experience dealing with it.
 
When I was on the 350 we did not have a full time mech. We did the post flights ourselves. Check oil is about it. We had a guy that would change tires and stuff like that. We would take it up to GSP for phase inspections. Other than that OUR plane was not a maint hog AT ALL! We would also pay a kid to wash it once a week for us depending on flight time. Early posts sound like they had a Maint hog of a plane. Like I said, ours was nice, clean and worked all the time with very few maint issues. I would just feel out the individual plane and have a phase inspection facility in mind and a mech you trust to do stuff like tires, brakes and such. Good luck
 
Pilotdude3407 said:
When I was on the 350 we did not have a full time mech. We did the post flights ourselves. Check oil is about it. We had a guy that would change tires and stuff like that. We would take it up to GSP for phase inspections. Other than that OUR plane was not a maint hog AT ALL! We would also pay a kid to wash it once a week for us depending on flight time. Early posts sound like they had a Maint hog of a plane. Like I said, ours was nice, clean and worked all the time with very few maint issues. I would just feel out the individual plane and have a phase inspection facility in mind and a mech you trust to do stuff like tires, brakes and such. Good luck
Click to expand...
Where did you take it to in GSP? Was it Stevens by any chance?
 
Yeah luckily the King Air doesn't need maintenance often but it is nice to always have a guy to call to come fix a squawk instead of having to fly it somewhere and wait a day or two to get it fixed.
 
I have an interview for the KA350 job this week. I have gotten a good idea what the job involves thanks to the responses so far. I would appreciate suggestions of questions I should ask during the interview, and maybe some other issues I should resolve if offered the job.
 
Roger said:
Where did you take it to in GSP? Was it Stevens by any chance?
Click to expand...

Sure was Stevens. They were good people. Saved us about 15 grand from taking it to Raytheon at Charlie brown. Those guys would rebuild the whole plane and charge you out the wazoo for it. Total ripoff.
 
I had an initial interview, which went well. I have another one with the owner of the plane this next week.
I've got about 1000 hours of B99 time so I know my easy around a King air. Any suggestions on how to educate myself on the 350 before then?
I might be able to get copies of a 1900 manual today. How similar are they?
 
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