Every pilot who’s ever packed an airplane for a trip has experienced the desire for more—more room, more useful load, more seats, more. . . As a family grows, the four-seater isn’t enough—the baggage kids seem to need grows exponentially with age. Part 135 operators want a small freighter that is rugged and can get in and out of remote village airstrips with a big payload.
Airplane design is tough—optimizing for speed hurts payload; a large comfortable cabin may mean stodgy performance and no baggage capability. Rumor has it that trying to find an optimum compromise between speed, payload, range and comfort has driven more than one aeronautical engineer around the bend. Many airplanes that have been advertised as “do it all” machines aren’t.