Beechjet 400A

When Beech bought the Diamond business jet from Mitsubishi, the logical question was, "How long will it be before the airplane becomes 100-percent Beechcraft?" The answer to the question is, "Until Now." renamed the Beechjet but with many assemblies coming from Japan, production was gradually moved to Kansas. Recently completed airplanes are now 100-percent Beech-built, and the latest version, the Beechjet 400A, reflects a complete transformation with important systems and instrument panel changes. It is being manufactured in a new plant, built especially for the Beechjet and its sibling, the U.S. Air Force T-1A Jayhawk trainer version of the aircraft, which will be used to train tanker and transport pilots.

It takes awhile for a design to mature. The Beechjet first flew as the Mitsubishi MU-300 on August 29, 1978, and was certified as the Diamond I a few years later. This airplane had 2,500 pounds of thrust per side. Everyone who flew the Diamond knew that it needed more powerful engines. The airplane felt lively enough, though the climb slackened greatly above Flight Level 300. The lack of power showed up when computing required runway length or maximum weight for a high altitude takeoff on a hot day. In the summertime, the airplane was often weight limited for departures.

Mitsubishi's next effort was the Diamond IA, still with 2,500-pounds- thrust engines. Using some special procedures, such as shutting the environmental system off and maintaining the 2,500 pounds of thrust at higher engine temperatures, improved the takeoff performance. Then came the Diamond II with 2,900 pounds of thrust per side, the airplane that was current when Beech bought the design.

The first effort at Beech was to call the airplane a Beechjet 400 and make the interior look like a King Air's.

Beech assembled and sold a number of Beechjet 400s. In an interim step, a Bendix/ king EFIS system was offered, along with a new autopilot. Beech had further plans, though, and the big change came with the Beechjet 400A, which is about as "new" an airplane as you'll find when compared with the original. The instrument panel and avionics system are all new, with a three- or four-tube Collins system installed in most aircraft. The maximum ramp weight is up 450 pounds to 16,300. The zero fuel weight is up 530 pounds to 13,000. The maximum landing weight has been increased from 14,200 to 15,700 pounds. The 400A is approved to FL450, from 410 for the previous model.

Another new feature that comes with the 400A moniker is the opportunity to participate in the unique BeechPower program that allows the customer to buy an airframe and lease the engines. Under BeechPower, the customer can acquire a Beechjet 400A with thrust reversers for $4.1 million and lease the engines at an hourly usage rate of $610. The program reduces the capital outlay by $983,000 from the usual base retail price of $5.08 million. With BeechPower, the manufacturer provides full engine and thrust reverser maintenance, including hot sections, overhauls, routine maintenance, and annual inspection — everything, right down to the oil changes and filters. it's an interesting way to provide the operator with a guaranteed cost of engine operation.

With the new Collins autopilot, Beech was able to remove a separate surface for the yaw damper on the vertical tail, and the new yaw damper is approved up to the VMO of 320 knots. The old one was speed limited. The cabin benefited from a rearrangement of the fuselage fuel tanks to put more of the tankage beneath the floor of the airplane. In effect, this stretched the cabin without stretching the fuselage, and the cabin can now accommodate a double club arrangement for eight passengers. The full-size lavatory is aft, and there's a relatively modest 25-cubic-foot externally loaded baggage compartment. (External baggage is the exception rather than the rule in this class airplane.) Soundproofing has been improved to give the passengers a quieter ride.

There are a lot of neat things to look at during a walkaround inspection of a 400A. The wing leading edges are bright and shiny — no boots — and, along with the engine inlets, are heated with bleed air for anti-ice, with no loss of power due to this use of bleed air. The horizontal tail and elevator horn and anti-ice is electric.

Spoilers atop the wing, pretty far back, serve both for roll control and as speed brakes. In normal operation, a full wheel deflection to the right would result in the right wing spoilers (two to the presentations are not exactly like those on mechanical instruments.

The flight director and horizontal situation indicator presentations are more or less standard. Airspeed is a vertical presentation on the left side, and you can see about an 80-knot spread on the scale at a time. Mach is a digital readout at the top of the airspeed scale. Altitude is on the right, in a vertical display, with 500 feet at a time visible. With increasing values, the numbers on these displays move downward. The vertical speed is below the altitude and has a digital as well as an analog readout. All the flight director and autopilot modes are annunciated on this tube, along with all selected navigational data. Distance to go, heading, and selected course are also presented digitally. The drift angle is shown on the HSI portion, and an electronic slip-skid indicator is at the top of the flight director. The altimeter setting is shown (it flashes going through 18,000 feet to remind you to reset), and the altitude and decision height or minimum descent altitude alert are annunciated, as is the temperature.

If the PFD tube fails, the presentation can be moved to the multifunction display. If everything fails, a mechanical airspeed indicator, attitude indicator, and altimeter are provided.

The air data reference panel is used to set bug airspeeds, the altitude alert, and the altimeter and select various vertical speeds and profiles if desired. The altitude awareness panel is used for DH and MDA settings. The CDU keyboard is used for inputting flight plans, changing frequencies, and controlling the radar. The keyboard is numerical, similar to but not exactly like a telephone, so to input letters, as you have to do on a flight plan, you have to press two keys — first the one with the letter on it, then another to select between the letters on that key. (The difference between this and a telephone is that ABC is on the " 1 " key, where on a telephone, ABC is on the "2" key.) Someday, we are going to have full computer keyboards in airplanes.

Virtually everything you need or want to know about what is going on as the flight progresses is available on one of the tubes. If you want a map, you get a map. If you want to know the fuel status, it is in there. It is just a matter of learning which buttons to press.

With some basic understanding of the system and with the engines started, it is time to get going. The Beechjet taxies nicely, though if you honk on the effective brakes, the passengers might think there's a cowboy at the controls. For a maximum weight take off at 15 degrees Celsius at sea level, V1 is 105, VR 115, and V2 123. Under these conditions and with no wind, the balanced field length for takeoff would be 4,290 feet. The Beechjet is quite capable of using shorter runways and can use a 3,000-foot runway when carrying a total of just under 4,000 pounds of fuel and payload. The speeds are electronically set on the airspeed indicator, and the desired fan speed for takeoff thrust is determined.

The takeoff itself is simple enough. The pilot flying takes the thrust up to about 80 percent, and then the other pilot trims it in the high 90s, as calculated. At rotation speed, the nose is brought up smartly but smoothly into the V bars on the flight director, and away you go. Some nose- down trimming is required as the airplane accelerates.

The only thing different about the use of spoilers for roll control comes in trimming the airplane in roll. Because you don't want to fly around with one spoiler up a little bit, the roll trim drill is to center the control wheel and then trim as necessary to keep the wings level.

A Beechjet goes fastest in the high 20s and low 30s, but it is an airplane to be flown in the low 40s, where the efficiency is much better. The Beechjet will climb to FL430 in 32 minutes in standard temperature conditions. Two climb speeds, 220 and 250 knots, are given, with Mach 0.64 flown when it equates with either speed. At FL430, at mid-cruise weight, the Beechjet will push 440 knots on just over 1,000 pounds of fuel per hour. The fuel capacity is 4,911 pounds; it uses 845 pounds climbing to FL430, so you can go that 440 knots for quite a while. The airplane can depart with full fuel, plus 1,000 pounds (including the crew), and given average trip lengths, it would seldom need to depart at maximum weight.

Top cruise is at FL270 and is at the Mach limit of 0.785, which equates to 465 knots at standard temperature. The fuel flow is almost 1,800 pph.

The speed brakes are effective and do not cause much pitch change or rumble. As will most jets, the airplane descends quickly from those efficient cruise altitudes. It has to be slowed to no more than 250 knots at 10,000 feet on the descent and then down to 200, where approach flaps and the landing gear can be extended. Trim changes with configuration changes are minimal, and for the average landing, the VREF speed would be between 100 and 10 knots. The landing is pleasant. It is mainly a matter of letting the slight nose-up pitching moment that comes with power reduction combine with ground effect, and maybe a slight bit of back pressure on the wheel, to roll those mains onto the runway. The reverse is very effective down to 60 knots, where the reverses are stowed.

The Beechjet 400A is an interesting airplane in that it gives the appearance of being relatively small when viewed from the outside but spacious and roomy when you get inside. The new avionics system is capable as well as being pretty to look at, and the flying qualities of the airplane are excellent. It is a neat and efficient package, finished with the typical Beech flair for quality.