Queen Air Experience

Lance F

Lance F

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Lance F
For my Beechcraft loving buddies on POA I'm kind of in the club now. My contract pilot work has me in an Excalibur Queen Air as of this week. I got an email to fill out an insurance pilot record to see if I could be a named pilot on the plane. Within an hour of sending it to the broker I was approved by the underwriter. Just need to do a IPC check on the plane once a year.

So Tuesday I did an IPC with a CFII who has a lot of time in the Queen Air. Went back to the airport that night and got my night currency done. Then yesterday got up at 4:30am for a trip with the owner at 6:30. Made two stops to pick up 3 of his buddies and then on to KACJ where they were going quail hunting. Used my waiting time to visit the humbling Andersonville National Memorial and POW museum. Then took everybody home that night with 4 night landings. 14 ½ hour day with 7 legs.

The BE65 is a beautiful handling plane and lands easily. This one is 8,000# GTOW and carries 230 gallons of gas. I'm still a low timer in it but learning as fast as I can. Trips like this get you experience pretty fast. Not as glamorous as jets but got to admit I like the left seat better.
 
I'm jealous, Lance. Which engines are on it? Is that the 720 conversion?
 
C Lucky U.

If you weren't such a good guy, I'd resent it!
 
The Excalibur has the Lycoming 400hp IO720. It need more:yes:
 
Lance F said:
The Excalibur has the Lycoming 400hp IO720. It need more:yes:
Click to expand...

720s would work well on the 310. :D

I am jealous. Would love to fly 720s.
 
I flew a B-65 for a couple of years.
 
Henning said:
Is it a pressurized one with turbos?
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No, the Excalibur is NA. The pressurized QA was the model 88 I understand. Not many made. Total QA production was close to 1,000.
Eight big cylinders take plenty of gas. Cruise is about 19GPH per side at 22" and 2300rpm. Too new to have a solid feel, but I think that's only giving us about 170kts TAS :(. (Oh, well. More time to enjoy the plane.) You don't want to know how much it's guzzling with TO power.
I'll get some pictures shortly. Mechanically it's in great shape. The engines are only a couple of years old from brand new. Panel isn't the most modern, but it works for me. P&I are very good.
 
Lance F said:
No, the Excalibur is NA. The pressurized QA was the model 88 I understand. Not many made. Total QA production was close to 1,000.
Eight big cylinders take plenty of gas. Cruise is about 19GPH per side at 22" and 2300rpm. Too new to have a solid feel, but I think that's only giving us about 170kts TAS :(. (Oh, well. More time to enjoy the plane.) You don't want to know how much it's guzzling with TO power.
I'll get some pictures shortly. Mechanically it's in great shape. The engines are only a couple of years old from brand new. Panel isn't the most modern, but it works for me. P&I are very good.
Click to expand...

The 720 is an ok engine, I operated one on a Brave and it did fine, nice on the high planes, would work alongside an AgHusky but was much nicer to fly.

There were some Excaliburs that had twin turbo normalized kit on them as well, we used to get one in every now and and then, I don't think it was an 88 either, wasn't sure if they ever did a pressurized one.
 
Sure don't see many QA around any more. Pretty airplanes, and the original engines with exhaust augmenters had that great '50s sound.

Below are Queen Airs 65, 80 and 88 (pressurized), respectively, in their original configurations:

be_65_1962_2.jpg


be_80.jpg


be_88.jpg
 
Back in the 70s I worked the line for an FBO/charter outfit. Every once in a while all 3 aircraft would end up in BOS together and it was a race to see who got back home (AUG) first. The "Bo", "Baron" or "Queen". They all ran at about the same speed.

It was a Be-65 model, every once in a while we had to configure it with the couch for medical transport.
 
Better the 720's than the gopher engines. Must move along quite nicely.
 
flyingron said:
Better the 720's than the gopher engines. Must move along quite nicely.
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Don't the 88s have the IGSO-480(540?)? I always liked those engines. I was flying a T-Bone that had a pair of the IGSO-480s hung on it for a while and I though they were great engines engines. I probably put 100hrs on it in 9 months and they never gave me a problem and were smooth as.
 
Yeah IGSO-480's. These are perhaps the best of the Gopher line, but in my opinion the only thing worse than one geared lycoming is two geared lycomings.
 
I have a friend with a gorgeous Comanche 400, powered by the IO-720.

Truly breath-taking, what it costs to operate. I can't imagine TWO of those engines.

Which, of course, is why most Queen Airs have been scrapped. Sad.
 
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