Textron’s Perennial Rainmaker

Textron has been awarded a contract by Fargo, North Dakota-based AvMet International LLC for the delivery of one Beechcraft King Air 360CHW (cargo door, heavy weight) and four Beechcraft King Air 260 twin-engine turboprop aircraft.

The five King Airs will support a cloud-seeding program currently being undertaken by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s National Center for Meteorology.

The King Air, by virtue of its innate robustness and utility, and the stalwart reliability of the Pratt & Whitney PT-6A turboprop engines by which the venerable aircraft family is powered, remains a hot-seller and continues to be selected by a wide variety of global customers for a multitude of applications spanning the mundane and scarcely believable.

Textron Aviation vice-president of special mission sales Bob Gibbs stated: “We’re honored AvMet has chosen a fleet of Beechcraft King Air aircraft to support the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s National Center for Meteorology cloud seeding program. The King Air continues to be selected for a wide range of special mission roles around the world due to the aircraft’s capabilities and reliability.”

AvMet and partners Weather Modification International (WMI) and Fargo Jet Center (FJC) will work collaboratively to equip the four King Air 260 aircraft with Cloud Water Inertial Probes (CWIP), Data Loggers with aircraft tracking capability, and cloud seeding equipment. Conversely, the King Air 360CHW will be fitted with Cloud Seeding equipment, a research laboratory, and an instrument package conducive to the study of cloud physics and aerosols.

The five aircraft will be modified in cooperation with Fargo Jet Center LLC (FJC) at WMI’s Fargo, North Dakota headquarters. A part 145 Repair Station authorized service facility Textron Aviation’s Beechcraft King Air family aircraft, Fargo Jet Center teamed with WMI for purpose of certifying the Federal Aviation Administration-approved Supplemental Type Certificate modifications for cloud seeding and atmospheric research equipment. Together, Textron Aviation, WMI, and FJC will provide the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s National Center for Meteorology a quintet of aircraft retrofitted with a host of bleeding-edge technologies germane to cloud seeding and atmospheric sciences.

Since the type’s 1964 debut, upwards of 7,700 Beechcraft King Air turboprops have been delivered to a worldwide customer base. Ubiquitous yet special, prosaic yet lovely, and beloved of generations of pilots—including your humble author—Beechcraft’s King Air family is the world’s best-selling line of business turboprop aircraft. Over 58-years and nearly forty models, the global King Air fleet has amassed north of 62-million flight hours, serving in private, commercial, civil, military, and special mission roles across the entirety of the Earth’s habitable continents.

FMI: www.txtav.com