Can anyone provide any insight into how to slow down the Kingair when taxiing? I find even having the throttle at 6%, I find the plane “getting away from me” and I need to touch the brakes frequently. Tried changing the pitch, and that had little effect. What does everyone else do?
BTW, I’ve always been an airliner guy, but I’m beginning to like the roar of the turboprops!
I don’t know the Kingair specifically but sounds to me like that’s quite normal …
Usually it takes a burst of thrust to get the wheels rolling but then back to Idle and touching the brakes for control
Thanks. I’m having a difficult time keeping the plane at a steady taxi without having to apply the brakes constantly.
You will find most turboprops tend to try and get away from you, unless you have it under control. This is due to the way turboprops provide thrust, that is why pilots usually feather and shut one engine down while taxing to parking (i.e. ATR72-600/DHC4) and use other engine on idle to provide minimum thrust to keep the thing moving forward. Credit to Asobo for trying to implement some turboprop improvements with recent updates. Once you have started to move forward, just keep throttle on idle and use toe brakes to keep speed down.
Not flown the Kingair for a while but I do this in the Cessna Caravan. Leave the Condition lever in low idle for ground ops, and control the speed by just slightly pulling the throttle towards reverse then back to idle, you will hear the engine note change and notice the braking effect from the prop. It takes a little practice but with perseverance you will be able to largely leave the brakes alone unless coming to a stop.
How you achieve this depends on the controls you are using. A throttle qaudrant with reverse thrust mapped is ideal, otherwise you need to map a button on your joystick to ‘Hold Throttle Reverse Thrust’, I think it is! Press that button and your throttle lever will move back instead of forward.
Shutting one engine down is a great idea coming into the terminal. I’ll try that out and see if it’s properly modeled.
Bringing a turboprop back in beta/reverse usually stops it running away if you have it mapped (can’t remember if KingAir has that)
I do have it mapped. Just a matter of playing with it to figure out the method I guess.