Beechcraft King Air 350 Specials

[merlin101]

And he does it again! They look great John! Hopefully they'll be available soon?
Dave

[Victory103]

Outstanding work again JY! For your US Army variants, all the MC will eventually become EMARSS-A/M airframes like your 283/737 model. The basic design is a 350ER and the Army uses a MC-12S or MC-12W designation. Not all the Liberties went to the Army, AFSOC has some and the OK ANG have started to use them. I'm assuming those will stay in the USAF paint. No MCs at Beale, all transferred to Ft. Huachuca, AZ. The civie registrations are working for other "special" organizations to include the one that just crashed last week in Iraq. The listed N#s are actually 300s called MARSS birds, 914JA and 20KW (I've got a few hundred hours in this one, +1 bird kill), but all got Army serials as I left AFG last spring.

The USMC version would be the basis for non-mil variants, as most I've seen and 2 I've flown had the extended baggage lockers. Agree, many countries are ordering them for various roles, the Mex Navy camo is kinda cool. The HTAI model really has served the AI community well for years now and I see this one doing the same.

[Christopher Low]

Very nice work, John. Those RAF Shadow R1s are very welcome indeed!

[jetmax]

Outstanding!!!

[John Young]

Thanks everyone for your kind comments and technical information. I've finished the 16 aircraft of the Royal Australian Air Force and the first example of the Japan Coast Guard:



This particular example has two interesting features - the obvious one is the large door shaped observation windows in the rear fuselage - I chopped those out, made an interior and added glass. The second one is not quite so obvious. It's the Japanese text on the nose. It's the name of a bird and each aircraft in the fleet has one. This one is a Tufted Puffin. Thanks again to Click Click for helping me translate the Japanese. He really is an invaluable font of knowledge on these things.

Pressing on now with the other 8 aircraft in the JCG fleet and then the Japan Ground Self Defence Force aircraft.........

John

[MIKE JG]

I've always been curious as to why so many countries whose native language is not English, use English writing on the side of their aircraft??

[RKE]

So that explains why one of the birds was getting hosed down with what looked like a door open: http://www.airliners.net/photo/Japan--- ... 2790074/L/

[Firebird]

I've always been curious as to why so many countries whose native language is not English, use English writing on the side of their aircraft??

I am guessing that it might have to do with all pilots having to speak English. It is the one language that will guarantee you get whatever you want known across.

[clickclickdoh]

Okay, I was seriously not expecting an actual modeled in observation window. Seriously cool.

I've always been curious as to why so many countries whose native language is not English, use English writing on the side of their aircraft??

Before the name change in 2000ish, the aircraft sported Kanji titles for Maritime Safety Agency where the current English title are. At some point the aircraft gained a second set of titles in black English letters inside the light blue bar. When the name changed to Japan Coast Guard, the Kanji titles moved to the tail and the English titles to the top of the fuselage.

There are condensed versions of English called Maritime English and Aviation English that serve as pseudo default international languages in those trades. Especially among Coast Guard outfits that deal with multinational individuals on a daily basis, you will frequently see their boats and aircraft marked in their native language and English. Some examples:

China and Japan


India:


Taiwan:


Turkey:



And now I'll stop hijacking Johns thread and get back to patiently refreshing the screen over and over again for updates.

[John Young]

A font of all knowledge as I said!

Just a quick update then. The Coast Guard model in the screen shot above has the wrong engines. I've nearly finished changing them out.

I've encountered 3 shapes so far:

1) Large hump on the top of the engine with the rear of the fairing extending behind the wing (flap) trailing edge, eg on the RAF Shadow R1.

2) The same as 1) but without the hump on the top of the engine, eg on the RAAF examples.

3) The rear of the fairing finishing before the wing (flap) trailing edge - this is what the Japan CG aircraft should have instead of shape 2).

Does anyone know what these engine variants are called please so I have something to refer to when I generate the generic models?

John Y.

[clickclickdoh]

Type 1 are King Air 350ER. The hump on the engine is a fuel tank

Type 2 and Type 3 are both listed as straight up B300s despite having engine nacelles cargo lockers and different tail strakes. I don't know if these are production line changes from older (japan) to newer production (australia) or customer options.

**EDIT**

Google is my friend:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8SNorsE9Yw

Looks like the Japanese type engines are factory standard and the Australian an customer option factory extras.

[Victory103]

The engines are the PT6A-60A on the B350, your RC-12X has a higher shp but externally the cowlings are the same. The RC-12 and the 300 for that matter are a 200s with the bigger engines, look for the reshaped intake "fish lips". Looking at google pics it seems the JMSDF models do not have the lockers. Other countries like RAAF and FAC seem to purchased the lockers. FAM have the ER tanks.

At least for the US Army, the strake kits are aftermarket mods and change a few performance/limitation numbers.

[John Young]

Thanks for the explanations. That's helped a lot.

Right now, I'm back on track with the Japanese Coast Guard having the right engines (no lockers):



Now I can move on to the Japan Ground Self Defence Force, which is the final example from me I think.

John

[Bora]

These all look very nice again !

Thanks John !

[John Young]

All the modelling and painting is now done for FS9 and FSX. The latest additions are the JGSDF aircraft and as special request from Miljan, 2 aircraft from SMATSA (Serbia and Montegro Air Traffic Services), used for calibration:







The total number of aircraft in the packages are now:

RAF: 5
Royal Navy: 4
Royal Australian Air Force:16
Japan Coast Guard: 9
Japan GSDF: 7
USMC: 6
US Army (RC-12X): 12
USAF/US Army (MC-12W): 2

I have a few people making flight plans to add to the packages.

The difficult area is the USA. The 6 USMC aircraft I think are based at Belle Chasse, Louisianna, so I could make an AFCAD and a flight plan for those, unless something already exists.

The 12 RC-12X examples, I'm told are based at Fort Hood, Texas, but most are more likely than not to be away in theatre at any one time.

The MC-12Ws are in the process of transfer and re-paint from the USAF to the US Army so that situation is a bit fluid.

I'm not sure what to do with the second two USA types, but if anyone with more knowledge than me would like to take on the flight planning for these aircraft, that would be great. If more MC-12Ws need painting up, I can do those. Failing that, I'll just include the aircraft and let users do their own thing.

While the flight planning is going on, I'll press on with assembling the generic models and paint kits.

John

[Reggie]

John,

Didn't know if you has seen this or not. The 137th Refueling Wing is transitioning out of their KC-135's to the MC-12W. I'm not sure what their Squadron designation will be. I can't find anything on the web. Thanks for the work on the KingAir. Much needed in the AI world.

Reggie

Oklahoma Air National Guard Unit Transitions to MC-12W
Posted by KingAirNation — Wednesday, August 12, 2015
The first of 13 MC-12W aircraft arrive at Will Rogers Air National Guard Base, Oklahoma City (photo by Air National Guard Master Sgt. Andrew LaMoreaux)

[Jon]

137th Air Special Operations Wing

http://newsok.com/article/5439362

[John Young]

Do we have any current packages that feature Will Rogers ANG base? If that's the case, I guess I could build on that, but I don't know what the serial numbers of the aircraft are. Alternatively, it might be better to park this element until better information appears.

John

[jimrodger]

KOKC ANG Pan from http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/fslib.php ... fid=124318

File name kokcfull.zip.
I know it's a bit old but it will fill a gap.

Jim

[RKE]

I take it by Belle Chasse, LA you mean NAS JRB New Orleans? If so, Matthew Donica did a scenery for that: nas_jrb_new_orleans.zip @ AVSIM.