Warbird Information Exchange

At least one of the mosquito sprayers is apparently a surplus BEECH model 87/U-21 UTE, sort of an unusual airplane to be a survivor (think really short Queen Air with PT-6's)
Anyone heading for their camera bag?

_________________
After 40 years in aviation, I find only three reasons to run-
Fire, Free food, If someons yells 'hey, the free food's on fire'

Wild guess, Dynamic Aviation? They seem to have snapped up almost the whole fleet of ex-Army King Airs

_________________
"Spartans never die Jorge, they're just Missing in Action."
-Commander Carter-A259

Cool! Back in a&p school we had an ex NASA U-21, I think it was a basically a Queen Air with PT6's

Isn't a Queen Air with turboprops called the Beech Excalibur? I know a stretched Queen Air with turboprops was the Beech 99

On the 10:00 news this evening, they showed video of the sprayer planes taking off for tonight's workout. I was thinking they looked like Queen Airs, but something was "different" about them. Now I know! By the way, they have four aircraft up tonight, with the intention of spraying most areas of Dallas County.

For those of you not familiar with what this thread is ultimately about... the D/FW metro area currently accounts for over 25% of the confirmed cases of West Nile virus in the USA, with Dallas County leading the way. Ground spraying isn't cutting the mustard, so Dallas County has hired an out of state contractor to perform aerial spraying. Let's hope it works...

_________________
Dean Hemphill, K5DH

Crew Chief, NAA F-86F Sabre 52-4689
Vintage Flying Museum
Fort Worth, Texas

They even showed that clip on the news here in Belgium. Definitely a Beech 18!

_________________
Magister Aviation
www.fougamagister.be

Moons ago someone in the Seattle area had a model 88 which is even rarer, that was essentially a pressurized Queen Air (King Air fuselage, tail) with those obnoxiously loud LYCOMINGS, they built 45 of them.

_________________
After 40 years in aviation, I find only three reasons to run-
Fire, Free food, If someons yells 'hey, the free food's on fire'

It's the same length as a Queen Air.

Saw some footage on the Weather Channel, one aircraft was N70U- a Dynamic Aviation Beech A90. Would that be a Queen or King Air? The flat gray scheme makes them look like SpecOps aircraft.


Chappie

_________________
Brrring. Dispersal? TWO SECTIONS SCRAMBLE!!

For a few days prior to the arrival of the actual sprayer aircraft, the TV stations repeatedly showed a video clip of a yellow and black Beech 18, N797SB, spraying in the daylight. That one is registered to Brazoria County Mosquito Control (Texas). The video was apparently "stock footage". All four of the actual sprayers operating here are the Queen Air types being discussed in this thread, and they are working only at night, taking off well after dark.

It would have been more interesting IF they had used a bunch of Beech 18s, though! When I was a kid growing up in New Castle County, Delaware, we had Beech 18s spraying for skeeters every summer, dropping a delicious cocktail of diesel fuel laced with insecticide. For days after each application, the entire area smelled like the pump island at a truckstop!

_________________
Dean Hemphill, K5DH

Crew Chief, NAA F-86F Sabre 52-4689
Vintage Flying Museum
Fort Worth, Texas

Dynamic Aviation is the spraying company and the planes are all A90's or U-21's per Dynamic's local media contact. Had one of them (couldn't see the registration all that well in the semi-dark last night with all the lightning and city glow on the bottom of the semi-low clouds) fly over me several times when they shifted operations south when the first cell over Addison popped up, and it was definitely a King Air frame. The only problem I have with them is they've put "quiet props" on their fleet which makes the already puny PT6A even more puny. I want to hear these things fly over, not just a little buzz for 5-10 seconds as they zip by, but then I'm sure I'm in the minority there. I had the chance to experience both DC-3 and Convair spray ops in Florida several years ago, so getting to hear those big beefy radials pounding along (and working in aviation) kinda makes me biased.

The Excalibur was a larger (400hp) piston-engine and airframe cleanup program conversion done by Ed Swearingen, not a Beech factory designation.

Since most Queen Airs were unpressurized, I've always thought of the U-21 as being a turbine Queen Air.Beech records seem to back me up in this calling the U-21 a Model 65-A90. King Airs are Model 90s.

_________________
Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.

And Swearingen continued to morph that into the MERLIN series and eventually took the wing and created everyones favorite feederliner the METROLINER lawn dart.

_________________
After 40 years in aviation, I find only three reasons to run-
Fire, Free food, If someons yells 'hey, the free food's on fire'

The Metroliners and Merlinn III's don't use the Queen Air wing.

One of those IO-720 powered Queen Airs sat at Hondo for years and finally went away a couple of years ago when they started the runway expansion.