King Air® 350 Swept 5-Bladed Composite Propellers Begin FAA Certification Testing at Raisbeck Engineering

Raisbeck Engineering’s latest development in swept-blade propeller technology, the new Composite Swept-Blade 5-way Propeller for the Beechcraft King Air® 350 series, has begun FAA certification flight testing at Boeing Field, Seattle, Washington. The Raisbeck/Hartzell team completed all ground and flight vibration and governor output pressure surveys Sunday, September 7th, 2014. The program began company and FAA certification flight testing the following Monday, scheduled to be completed by the end of September, 2014.

The cooperative development program between Raisbeck and Hartzell is the 3rd in the Swept-Blade series; the first two were for the King Air® 200 and C90/E90 series. Both programs have proven very successful in sales and deliveries since the launch of the partnership in late 2009. Since deliveries began in January, 1985, there are close to 1500 airplanes equipped with Raisbeck/Hartzell propellers – a true testament to the 31 years of successful development and partnership between Hartzell Propeller Inc and Raisbeck Engineering.

Joe Brown, President of Hartzell Propellers Inc, said,

“Working side by side with Raisbeck Engineering for over a third of a century has been enormously gratifying to both our companies, in terms of technology advancement and resultant sales. For us, we wouldn’t change a thing about our relationship. As someone once said, ‘If it works, don’t fix it’. We expect to continue down this path.”

Raisbeck Engineering’s CEO James Raisbeck added his enthusiastic support,

“Our parallel development and certification programs began with an honest look at how we could work together to maximize the benefits to our customers, while minimizing the cost and calendar time to achieve our desired results. It is working well; never a measurable glitch, and always an impressed and happy customer.”

The new King Air® 350 propellers will be introduced at this year’s NBAA in October, with production deliveries scheduled for July, 2015. Raisbeck will also offer an official “King Air® 350 5-Bladed Propeller Wait List” at NBAA, which will not require a deposit but will be on a first-signed, first-availability basis. More details and preliminary performance improvements will be available at NBAA in Orlando, Florida this year. Raisbeck Engineering will be at NBAA booth #720.

Raisbeck Engineering continues in the tradition of its founder, dedicated to the improvement in performance and productivity of business and commercial aircraft through the infusion of advanced technology into in-service and new production aircraft. For more information about Raisbeck Engineering and our products, please visit www.raisbeck.com.