History
The Model 38P (Pressurized) (also known as the model PD.336) was created by installing a Garrett AiResearch TPE-331-9 engine in the nose of a Beechcraft Baron 58P fuselage, which was mated to a Beechcraft B36TC Bonanza wing in place of the Baron's wing with two engines. This resulted in a low-wing aircraft with six seats including the pilot's. The aircraft flew for the first time on 14 June 1982. After 133 flights over almost 18 months the aircraft was temporarily grounded so that the TPE331 could be removed and a Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-40 engine fitted in its place. The aircraft flew in this configuration for the first time on 9 March 1984 and the last flight was on 8 August the same year. Beechcraft originally planned to put the Lightning into production but the economic downturn among general aviation manufacturers in the United States in the 1980s led to the project being shelved shortly after the first flight with PT6A power.
Read more about this topic: Beechcraft Lightning
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“For a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“Every literary critic believes he will outwit history and have the last word.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Like their personal lives, women’s history is fragmented, interrupted; a shadow history of human beings whose existence has been shaped by the efforts and the demands of others.”
—Elizabeth Janeway (b. 1913)