Portland, OR. November 06, 2014 — Dewey Conroy, Vice President and COO of Pacific Coast Avionics Corporation announced today that the company recently completed its latest complete panel upgrade on a Beechcraft Super King Air B200.
“This King Air is owned and flown by Rick Coulter. Being in the software business, he makes frequent trips to the Bay Area and with the traffic and airspace congestion challenges in California, he needed more situational awareness capabilities to ease his workload,” Conroy said. “We looked at a lot of options, but it became clear that dollar-for-dollar this configuration gave him all the capabilities he needs now, along with the flexibility to grow in the future.”
“The first time Rick saw the new panel, he really couldn’t believe it was his King Air,” he added. “Sitting in the left seat, you’d never know this is a 23-year-old airplane. He’s very happy and I’m extremely proud of the work our guys did in creating this panel.”
Conroy explained that the all-new panel features:
• Garmin G600 EFIS with Synthetic Vision
• Dual Garmin GTN750 touchscreen GPS/NAV/COMs
• Dual Garmin GTX330/ES Mode S/ES Transponders
• Garmin GDL88 ADS-B
• Garmin GMA350 Audio Panel
• Garmin GWX70 Digital Weather Radar.
“We worked with Rick to design the panel to his exact specifications. We kept some of the original analog instruments, but moved them around to optimize the new Garmin digital displays,” Conroy said. “Then we did the CAD design, cut the metal and power-coated the new metal panel in-house. We also built new wiring harnesses to ensure optimum performance and reliability of the new avionics.”
“This King Air now has three, full-color MFD’s, EFIS with synthetic vision, dual WAAS GPSs for LNAV/LPV approaches, and is fully ADS-B compliant,” he said. “It is now a much more capable and safer airplane that it was when it rolled out of the Beech factory in 1991.”
While this was another extremely sophisticated Garmin panel upgrade that Pacific Coast Avionics completed on a King Air, the scale and relatively short turn-time of the seven-week-long project did not intimidate Conroy’s team.
“We have over 160-years of combined technical experience in our shop and we’ve done custom panels for a variety of high-end homebuilts to cabin business aircraft,” he said. “Other than it was a legacy King Air, this project held very few surprises for our guys. They really enjoy these types of challenges.”
About Pacific Coast Avionics
Founded in 1991, and located at Aurora State Airport, just south of Portland Oregon, Pacific Coast Avionics is a major supplier of avionics, instruments, and pilot supplies to customers worldwide, and represents all major manufacturers by providing sales, service and installation support. Its 14,000 square foot facility can accommodate a wide range of aircraft up to and including business jets. Pacific Coast Avionics is an FAA approved Repair Station, No. OPXR455L, Class 1, 2/Limited Instrument. For a copy of the PCA catalog or for more information, visit: www.PCA.aero.
