Hawker Beechcraft (HBC) hopes to boost new C90-series King Air sales with another revision of its smallest twin turboprop. Deliveries of the $3.65 million King Air C90GTx will begin early next year. The GTx will offer significant increases in payload and range along with improved turbulence-detecting Doppler weather radar and Waas GPS capability as standard equipment.
The GTx replaces the current $3.3 million C90GTi, launched in 2007. The aircraft are remarkably similar save for the avionics up- grades and BLR composite wing-lets on the GTx. The new winglets render some significant performance improvements: maximum ramp weight and mtow both increase by 385 pounds, from 10,160 to 10,545 pounds and from 10,100 to 10,485, respectively, and maximum payload with full fuel almost doubles from 387 to 737 pounds. Range also increases: with four passengers the GTx will fly 200 miles farther than a GTi at both long-range and high-speed cruise power settings. High-speed cruise range increases from 865 to 1,060 nm while long-range cruise increases from 980 to 1,195 nm. Like the GTi’s, the GTx’s ceiling will effectively be limited to 28,000 feet due to the lack of an RVSM solution for the aircraft. The winglets also are expected to improve climb performance. The GTi currently can climb to FL240 in 17 minutes at 140 knots.
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