Beech 76 Duchess

All of the main aircraft manufacturers borrowed great ideas from each other. When Piper took the Arrow fuselage and mated it with Lycoming 180hp engines to make the Piper Seminole, it wasn’t long before Beechcraft ran with the same thinking. Taking the Sierra, and adding two engines with a T-Tail which gives both great pitch stability and rudder authority. The tail design also gives very minor trim changes with Gear/Flap extension, which makes for a less busy cockpit. The major difference with the Beech Duchess being, the large doors on with side of the Beech product, along with a generous cargo door at the rear. The Duchess is well known for its 2000hr TBO lowly stressed O-360 Lycoming engines, which are contra rotating, making it designed from the outset as an ideal step up aeroplane. In the training role, the aircraft serves students and instructors well with it’s unfeathering accumulators leading to easy inflight restarts. EI-BUN is a 1980 model year airframe with 7,308hrs TTAF thus giving over 12,691hrs remaining on the airframe which has a 20,000hr wing/carry through spar life limit. The Engines are 1,510hrs (Port) and 1,412hrs (Stb) SMOH in November 2010, and the Hartzell propellers have 826hrs SPOH in March 2018. The aircraft will have a new 100hr/Annual and ARC for the new owner, and fresh Hartzell I-4500 heater which is a hugely valuable item. At the annual there is a new set of replacement seat belts to be fitted, and the 100hr A-Frame NDT inspections will be complied with on the beefed up A-Frames in the landing gear. The aircraft will also have a freshly upgraded GNS-430 WAAS linked to the Trig TT-31 Mode S giving ADSB-OUT. The aircraft has King KMA 24 audio panel, King KCS-55 HSI, King KY 196 TSO Com 2, King KN 53 Nav 2, King KN64 DME, King KR 87 ADF w/RMI, SafeGaurd CO2 monitor. A common bug bear with the Duchess is the tachometer, and this aircraft has been upgraded with an Aerospace Logic 200 STC’d digital tacho for reliable service. Cosmetically it the exterior is functional, it could be easily touched up to be presentable to a private owner. The interior is original, and again was not expected to be pristine but function day in, day out. The aircraft has a tow bar and an outdoor cover. One of the highlights of this aircraft is the great maintenance history, where no expense was spared in making it compliant with all the recommended service instructions from Beech and the OEM equipment suppliers. Any aircraft we have ever sold that were maintained by NFC had outstanding paperwork. In addition to this Duchess, we have a large stock of BE76 spares almost 2 complete airframes and a Frasca Simulator. There is an additional BE76 coming out of maintenance and it too will be on the market, so there is a good opportunity for someone looking to enhance a school fleet.