The Flight
Take a round-trip flight in the Beechcraft King Air 350 from Denver, Colorado's Centennial Airport to the highest commercial airport in North America, Telluride Regional.
You watch and listen as our pilot starts the 350, the largest King Air in the Beechcraft family.
Once both 1050 HP turbine engines are up and running, our pilot receives and reads back his clearance and the flight plan is entered into the flight management computer. We are then cleared to taxi to the active runway where our pilot goes through the before takeoff checklist. After all system checks have been completed, we are cleared for takeoff.
On climb out from Denver, we are assigned several altitudes before being cleared to our final cruising altitude of 28,000 feet. At cruise, views of the majestic Rocky Mountains from the flight deck are spectacular. It's a good time to turn off your business phone, take in the view and listen to the activity around you on air traffic control. Once cleared for the approach, we descend to our approach fix and the pilot announces his landing intentions on the Telluride unicom frequency.
At an elevation of 9078 feet above sea level, and located in a box canyon, the approach into Telluride is one to remember. On final approach you are amazed by the location of the runway as it sits on a mesa 1000 feet above the valley and river below. Because of the extreme drop off on both ends of the runway, local pilots have described it as comparable to landing on an aircraft carrier.
After our pilot completes the engine shut down, you are treated to some of the local traffic and scenery at Telluride Regional.
On the return trip to Centennial, you observe once again as our pilot gets the King Air up and running. Telluride Regional is a busy non-tower controlled airport, and with only one way in and one way out of the canyon, proper coordination among pilots during arrival and departure is most vital. As we leave Telluride Regional and we pass a Citation Jet in the canyon, you will value the importance of proper communication between pilots. On approach to our home base we are asked to keep our speed up for spacing as we land at one of the busiest general aviation airports in the country: Centennial Airport .
The King Air 350
The Beech King Air 350 is a twin turboprop eleven-passenger business aircraft that first flew in 1988. There are currently over 400 King Air 350 aircraft in operation today.
The Beech King Air product line has been in continuous production since 1964 and more than 6,000 aircraft have been sold for corporate, commercial and special mission operations. Besides the King Air 350, the current production versions include the King Air B200 and the C90B. The B200 transport and utility aircraft is shorter than the 350, and the C90B is the entry level variant with seating for four passengers and a range of 1,050nm.
CABIN
The King Air 350 has a comfortable "squared-oval" pressurized cabin. The roomy air-conditioned cabin is fitted with double club style seats for eight passengers plus up to three single seats. An Ultra Electronics, Ultra Quiet active noise control system, reduces the in-flight noise to under 80 dB in the passenger cabin. The active Ultra Quiet system acoustically cancels propeller noise in the cabin by introducing sound waves using 12 speakers and up to 24 microphones to broadcast "anti-noise" that attenuates the unwanted sounds. .
ENGINES
The King Air 350 has two Pratt & Whitney PT6A-60A reverse flow free turbine engines, each rated at 1,050 shaft horsepower. The Hartzell propellers are four-bladed, 104 inch aluminum alloy automatic feathering reversible-pitch propellers.
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