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Read this story in our October 2014 printed issue.
South African agricultural umbrella group Plennegy has taken delivery of a King Air C90GTx at its Greytown facility. Chief pilot Glen Meter and his colleague Andrew Campbell ferried the aircraft from the US, a journey which overflew parts of Canada and Europe as well as Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, Angola and Namibia before its arrival at the Plennegy aviation hub via Lanseria airport.
Meter says that he originally advised the management to opt for a Baron 58: “We needed something for our shorter routes and smaller passenger numbers rather than using our King Air 200. Their decision was to invest in a new C90, in light of the added safety of having two turbine engines as well as pressurisation in a King Air.
“This is especially important out of Greytown, where the weather is so unpredictable and can change from CAVOK to 300m visibility in less than an hour.”
The unpredictable weather represents the greatest challenge regionally, which at times requires the use of VOR/DME approach, sometimes down to minima in uncontrolled airspace.
He has been very impressed with the performance of the aircraft so far, and he has noticed some subtle but positive changes in the current C90 model when compared with previous generations.
Plennegy flies executives to various destinations in and around South Africa as well as into the neighbouring southern African countries. It occasionally flies sectors to east Africa as far up as Kenya and Uganda.
Several features of the aircraft set it apart, according to Meter: “The ability to fly RNAV approaches with the very user-friendly Collins Proline 21 avionics suite is a real benefit. Included in this is the Jeppesen chart facility which is very nicely presented on the multi-function display. This King Air will give us flexibility with being able to dispatch the correct aircraft for the correct routing depending on passenger numbers.”
Meter is looking to expand Plennegy in southern and east Africa. The company has operated a Dassault Falcon 10 for the past 20 years as well as various King Air 200s and C90s for the past 38 years.
