Martin-Baker, a UK-based ejection seat and crashworthy seating systems company, has chosen to have its King Air 200 upgraded by MCA Aviation at Bournemouth. Chief pilot Andy Gent comments: “This is an older King Air but with barely 8,000 hours on it. It is lightweight at just over 8,000 lbs, and it will probably be a couple of hundred pounds lighter once the G1000 avionics have been fitted. It has PT6A-61 engines, Raisbeck mods, and is a 305 kts cruiser.

“We asked ourselves whether we would be better off to acquire a newer aircraft or invest in the upgrade. Ultimately we decided on the upgrade based on the reliability and performance of the current machine.

“The upgrade will fit the aircraft for another 10 years of service. When people ring me up from Hawker Beechcraft and ask: ‘What about a new King Air for Martin-Baker?’ I respond: “As you built them so well to start with, we’re still very happy with the one we have!’” However, we had reached the stage where the autopilot and much of the original core avionic equipment isn’t supported any more. The wiring gets old, electrical components get old, and the best technical and cost effective solution is to refit with an integrated system as opposed to the odd stitch here and there. The G1000 is judged to be the ideal solution in that scenario.”

As well as performing corporate flights for Martin-Baker, the aircraft is operated commercially on Zephyr Aviation’s AOC. Gent is also the chief pilot and accountable manager for Zephyr. He says: “The upgrade will give us RVSM and PRNAV/PBN1 capability. Sometimes when we want to fly at 30,000 feet instead of 27 or 28, we will be able to do that. We recently came back from Andoya in northern Norway in one hop and there was adequate fuel, but had we been a couple of thousand feet higher we would have benefitted from a couple of hundred pounds of fuel, which is always worth having.

“The King Air will also undergo a bare metal re-spray to lift its ramp presence. As an older B200 which is used for freight as well as passenger transport, it is a workhorse. But with the fresh avionics and paint it will look and perform as new.”

Most of Zephyr’s clients are repeat direct business who appreciate the ‘technical quality’ associated with the operation, so it is anticipated that this upgrade will enhance the confidence of those clients. The operator flies from Chalgrove, 10 miles south east of Oxford, a base which provides flexibility for 24/7 operations and is activated as required by Martin-Baker to support its own activities as well as those of Zephyr. As an operator in its own right, Martin-Baker has more than 70 years of experience in aviation, with a 100 per cent safety record.

Zephyr is a small AOC company, owned by Gent, Kate Fitton and Tim Grace-Macdonald. It conducts regular organ transplant flying and some air ambulance work, for which the B200 is well suited. In addition, it carries out dangerous goods and munitions of war flights, along with a growing number of business charters. Gent concludes by saying that the operation is best kept small-scale: “We prefer a small number of clients with whom we enjoy an easy relationship and to whom we can provide good availability; in that sense, we prefer to remain a lower key operator – a little under the mainstream radar as it were.”

The upgrade work is well under way and the aircraft is expected back in service during late September.