AOPA Pilot Magazine - February 2013 - 16

WAYPOINTS

Phoenix rising?

BY THOMAS B. HAINES
Editor in Chief

The life and times of the new Beechcraft

MANY OF THE

air-to-air
photographs in
AOPA Pilot are
taken from the
back of Editor in
Chief Tom Haines’
Bonanza A36.

16 | AOPA PILOT February 2013

FULL DISCLOSURE: I OWN A 1972 BONANZA A36. So,
when I write about the future prospects of the storied
company that built it, I do so with the hope that it will
succeed. For without that company, the value of my
airplane will decline and my ability to get parts and
service may also be impacted. I’m not alone in this.
Joining me are tens of thousands of owners of Beech
and Hawker airplanes dating back 80 years. Even
those who are not owners are pulling for the company
because they hope to someday own one of the products, or because they recognize the negative impact its
failure would have on the health of our fragile industry.
About the time you read this, if all goes as projected, a new company, Beechcraft Corporation, will
emerge out of the bankruptcy of Hawker Beechcraft
Corporation. HBC entered bankruptcy in May 2012, a
move that had been anticipated for months—years, in
fact. Many of us who have followed general aviation for
decades predicted back in 2007 when Raytheon sold
the Hawker and Beechcraft product lines to a group
of investors that the debt load would crush it. The
sale saddled the new HBC and its product lines with
$2.5 billion in debt, an amount that few of us thought
sustainable even in an up-market period and, if you’ll
recall, the 2007 up market quickly turned into 2008’s
down market. With that, a dated product line, and especially the albatross of the Hawker 4000 business jet, the
company’s finances spiraled downward, leading to massive layoffs and eventually the bankruptcy filing. The
Hawker 4000 was a decade late coming to market and
even then was not as complete as it ought to be, requiring the company to infuse some $750,000 in upgrades
to numerous delivered airplanes, which it did at no cost
to the customers—the right thing to do.
Those Hawker 4000 and Premier IA jet customers are the ones who will suffer the most as a result of
the bankruptcy. The company will not be honoring the
warranties for those products and has received permission to fire-sale the remaining 4000s, which will
highly devalue those already in the fleet. All those moves
are ones for which HBC Chairman Bill Boisture has
expressed regret, but were deemed necessary to protect the rest of the company. Speaking of the warranty
issue at NBAA last fall, Boisture said, “We are truly sorry
to have to disappoint our customers with this decision.”
The new Beechcraft will produce propeller-driven
airplanes only, a move that one former HBC executive

believes is short-sighted. The executive, who asked not
to be named, said the Hawker 200—which was the next
generation of the Premier IA in development—should
be kept as a step-up airplane for King Air owners. The
spun composite fuselage of the Premier will form the
basis of the first new product from Beechcraft. Boisture
announced at NBAA the company plans to introduce
a single-engine turboprop based around a stretched
Premier composite fuselage. Beechcraft officials have
not confirmed that the airplane will be called the King
Air 125 or will include the metal T-tail section of a King
Air 200 and a metal wing from another King Air model.
Based on specs announced at NBAA, the airplane will
fly at about 300 knots behind a new-generation Pratt &
Whitney PT6 engine and include a large fuselage door,
similar to the Pilatus PC–12. However, the new King Air
will be larger in volume than the PC–12.
I was initially skeptical about the company’s ability
to pull off a new single-engine turboprop. Not from a
technical capabilities standpoint—they certainly have
the expertise—but from a financial standpoint. Such a
program, even for a company with all the right engineering and manufacturing talent, will be hugely expensive
and take at least three years—quite likely longer.
However, the more I learn about the project, the more
confident I am that they can pull it off. Of course, building and certifying it is one thing. Succeeding in the
already crowded single-engine turboprop market will
be another thing altogether. The thing they have going
for them is worldwide name recognition and a terrific
service and support network.
We also have been told by sources at Beechcraft
that the Bonanza and Baron will be offered with three
engine variants—avgas (presumably compatible with
potentially lower octane unleaded avgas of the future),
Jet-A burning diesel, and turboprops. This is especially
good news for those us who own those products. The
news gives us hope that the airframes will be produced for years to come and potentially offer us retrofit
options that otherwise might not exist.
Stay tuned, the final chapter in this complicated
tale is not even drafted yet. 2013 will be a watershed
year in the life of this legendary company.
AOPA
EMAIL thomas.haines@aopa.org

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AOPA Pilot Magazine - February 2013

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