The company that remanufactures the Beechjet has turned its sights on remaking Beechcraft C90-series King Airs. The Nextant Aerospace G90XT has completed flight testing, and certification is expected soon. Nextant is exhibiting at the Henderson Executive Airport static display and brought both a 400XTi and G90XT to Las Vegas.

The G90XT features GE H75-100 engines, Garmin G1000 avionics, new seats, a new interior, a new digital pressurization system and new air-conditioning with twin evaporators that deliver 300 percent more cooling capacity.

Work continues on the G90XT's single-lever GE/Unison power controller, which offers complete exceedance protection. Aircraft delivered this year probably will not have the single-lever power system, but it will be retrofitted to the aircraft when it becomes available early next year.

Price for the conversion for customer-supplied aircraft is $1.99 million; a turnkey delivery with a company-supplied airframe is $2.75 million.

TBO for the H75 engines will be 4,000 hours. The H series also requires no mid-life hot section inspection, uses a fuel slinger instead of fuel nozzles and employs an axial stage compressor instead of a reverse-flow design. Because there are no fuel nozzles to get clogged, there are no hot spots in the combustion chamber, ensuring even thermal distribution and thereby eliminating the need for a hot-section inspection.

“GE undersold how good this engine is,” said Jay Heublein, Nextant executive vice president of global sales and marketing. “Our performance data shows a 10- to 12-percent improvement in specific fuel consumption [over the King Air’s original Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A engines], which is just incredible.”

The cockpit of the G90XT will be substantially different from a typical G1000 retrofit in a King Air. The instrument panel is trimmed in carbon fiber. It includes a three-screen layout with a backup Mid-Continent Instruments Standby Attitude Module and a Luma Technologies LED glareshield warning panel. The flight deck features a simplified, single-lever engine power control that manages engine power and prop speed and has inflight torque- and temperature-limit protection, auto-start and engine-trend monitoring capabilities. The fuel-system controls are now mounted above the power levers, replacing pressurization switches that are no longer needed because the pressurization system is digitally integrated into the G1000 system.

Several standard cabin configurations are available for the G90XT including special mission/air ambulance, a high-density five-passenger layout and an executive three-seat configuration. More than 1,500 C90 airframes have been produced, and Nextant believes an abundance of those are suitable for the program.

Initially, the H75 engines will need to be sent to the Czech Republic for overhaul, said Matt Gerus, GE Aviation senior marketing manager for turboprop engines. “As the fleet size grows we are seriously taking a look at putting an overhaul shop in the U.S.,” Gerus told AIN.

At present, engines needing overhaul are shipped to the former Walter factory in the Czech Republic. Shipping takes seven to 10 days each way. GE bought Walter Engines in 2008; the company is best known for its M601 turboprop engine, with more than 1,500 produced since 1975. After it acquired Walter, GE took the core of that engine’s technology and combined it with advanced materials and design features such as a new compressor section with a two-axial blisk ahead of a centrifugal third stage. This improved engine became the basis for GE’s new H series of turboprops, and the H75 (750 shp) is the variant selected to power the Nextant G90XT.