July 19-26, 2026 - AirVenture 2026
Miscellaneous
After more than 60 years, the Beechcraft King Air is still being built. This is the Beechcraft Super King Air 360.
The Beechcraft King Air is one of the great success stories in general aviation. It is essentially the airplane that established the modern business turboprop category.
Beechcraft introduced the first King Air 90 in 1964. The idea was clever: take the proven Queen Air airframe and replace its piston engines with the new Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A turboprops. The result was a pressurized airplane that could fly substantially higher and faster than piston twins while retaining the ability to use relatively small airports.
It turned out to be an extraordinarily good formula.
The original Model 90 carried roughly 6–8 people, cruised around 270 mph, and had a ceiling of about 27,400 feet. Beech immediately had a winner: orders came pouring in and production rapidly expanded.
In 1972, Beech introduced the King Air 200. This was a considerably larger and more capable airplane, with:
T-tail
Two 850-shp PT6A-41s
Larger cabin
Much greater payload
Better high-altitude performance
Excellent short-field capability
The T-tail was particularly significant because it put the horizontal stabilizer above the wing's disturbed airflow. That basic configuration became the signature of the larger King Airs.
The magic of the King Air is that it occupies a very useful middle ground: Piston twin → King Air → light jet.
A King Air gives you:
Pressurization
Turbine reliability
Excellent range
High-altitude capability
A relatively large cabin
Ability to operate from comparatively short runways
Two engines
Excellent payload flexibility
And unlike a light jet, it doesn't require a long, smooth runway to be useful.
That's why King Airs became ubiquitous with corporations, charter operators, air ambulances, military organizations, government agencies and special-mission operators. The U.S. military and numerous foreign militaries also adopted various King Air derivatives.
more than 7,000 King Airs have been delivered
A 1999 Warner Revolution II that flew all the way from Monterey, California!
The Revolution II was designed by Warner Aerocraft of Seminole, Florida, and was sold as both plans and a kit. It was also marketed as the Spacewalker II. It evolved from the single-seat Revolution I/Spacewalker I. The construction is a combination of wood and welded steel tubing, covered with aircraft fabric. Only about 30 were registered at one time, and EAA's records show it as an old kit/plans design rather than an actively supported mainstream kit today.
This ultra sleek Lancair Legacy 2000 with spectacular paint job flew in from Durango, Colorado. It's a two-seat, side-by-side, very fast cross-country airplane. The Legacy's structure is a sophisticated composite sandwich construction, using fiberglass/carbon-fiber components and honeycomb/Nomex cores. The 310-hp IO-550 burns roughly 13.5–15 gph: ouch! The Legacy was introduced at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh in 1999.
With the 310-hp Continental IO-550, Lancair published: 276 mph cruise, about 1,150 statute-mile range and 2,000 fpm climb at gross weight. It's got my RV-7 beat there, for sure!
I'd like to see one of my grandsons go to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University down in Daytona, Florida and become a professional pilot.
The story of Embry-Riddle begins in 1925, when aviation pioneer John Paul Riddle met Cincinnati businessman T. Higbee Embry. They formed the Embry-Riddle Company at Lunken Field in Cincinnati, Ohio, and opened the Embry-Riddle Flying School in 1926.
The original company effectively disappeared but John Paul Riddle revived the Embry-Riddle name in Florida in 1939, establishing a seaplane base and flight-training operation in Miami. That is the direct ancestor of today's university.
During WWII, the organization became a major military pilot-training institution, training pilots for the rapidly expanding U.S. military aviation system. That experience established the school's reputation for producing professional pilots and aviation personnel.
After the war, Embry-Riddle increasingly evolved from a flight school into a college-level aviation institution, eventually adding engineering, business, aviation safety, air-traffic management and other aerospace disciplines.
The Florida operation eventually moved from Miami to Daytona Beach in 1965. That became the university's flagship residential campus. The second major residential campus came in Prescott, Arizona, in 1978.
ERAU currently reports approximately 32,000 students annually, more than 100 degree programs, and more than 165,000 alumni.
Students at Daytona Beach and Prescott learn to fly as part of their degree programs, with Cessna 172s forming the basic trainer fleet. In fact, ERAU's 2026 centennial Cessna 172, N1926R, pictured below, was specifically created to commemorate that tradition.
Nice!
It's hard to tell from this picture, but the engines are mounted on pylons above the wings, rather than on the rear fuselage.
Honda's aviation work began as research into advanced aircraft technology, rather than as an immediate commercial-aircraft program. Honda engineer Michimasa Fujino and his team developed and tested the concept for years before Honda decided to turn it into a production airplane.
Honda Aircraft Company was established in 2006, with its headquarters and manufacturing operation in Greensboro, North Carolina.
The airplane was eventually designated the HA-420 HondaJet. The FAA finally granted the HondaJet its type certificate on December 8, 2015, and the first customer deliveries followed later that month. So it took roughly 20 years from Honda's initial aviation research to a certified production airplane. The engine is the GE Honda Aero HF120, developed jointly by Honda and GE. Each engine produces approximately 2,050 pounds of thrust in the current configuration. As of December 2025, Honda said it had delivered more than 260 HondaJets.
