Flight Precision Limited (FPL), the flight inspection organisation based at Durham-Tees Valley Airport in the UK, has acquired its fourth Beech B200 – registration G-FPLE.

The aircraft joined the fleet in the middle of August and work is underway to reconfigure it for its flight inspection role. This will be complete in December and, following UK CAA approval, the aircraft will enter service in January 2006.

“It’s quite a complex task, as the siting of the aerials is critical, and the actual kit that goes on the aircraft is very specialised to the task we do,” explained chief pilot Howard Young.

The company had previously operated a fleet of Beech 200s and Cessna Conquest 441s but once the new King Air has been calibrated for its inspection role, the final Conquest remaining will leave the fleet.

Explaining the reasons behind the choice of aircraft, Young said: “It’s used by a number of other flight calibration organisations. It’s robust, is relatively quiet (which is very useful for night-time work at airports), has adequate range for what we do and, being a turboprop, it suits us well, as we spend 60 per cent of our time operating at 3,000 feet and below.”

Sales and marketing manager Andrew Radforth added: “It’s very frugal on fuel consumption; the operating costs are low. Our customers want work done quickly and cheaply. Flight inspection is one of the overheads an airport has – they have to do it and don’t want to spend more than they need to, but we have to calibrate to the highest standards using the most efficient means.”

Utilisation of the fleet is ever-increasing and the company projects annual usage for all four airframes to reach 4,000 hours. But does such high utilisation lead to increased downtime for maintenance work? Quite the contrary, says Young: “If you work them hard and don’t fiddle with them, then the aircraft are very reliable.”

Flight Precision performs inspection work for most of the UK’s civilian and all military airports, as well as working in Ireland, Belgium, Netherlands (where it has just won a year’s contract), Spain, Portugal and Denmark. It is currently awaiting final approval to work in Germany.

“Many countries still run state flight inspection organisations, though some are now reviewing their position and some have already contracted out their flight inspection, several of which have engaged us,” said Radforth.

For an ILS precision calibration, which is the company’s main type of mission, an aircraft will be flown with two pilots and a flight inspector on board. Another member of the team will transit with the aircraft and deploy on the ground with a laser tracker, GPS station and telemetry unit.

The whole left-hand side of each King Air’s interior, from the cabin door to behind the pilot’s seat, is taken up with flight inspection equipment and the operator’s seat.

Young states that most of the company’s 18 pilots are dual-rated on the Conquest and King Air, and that the firm recently appointed new members of staff to accommodate an increasing workload.

“The work is quite intensive, as only about 30 per cent of our flying is route flying; the rest is instrument approaches,” he said. “So there’s a lot of concentrated flying.”

The options of expanding the fleet further are already being looked at, according to Radforth.