Fairchild Swearingen Metroliner SA227DC departing from Inverness airport in the Scottish Highlands - October 2019.
The Metroliner was an evolution of the Swearingen Merlin turboprop-powered business aircraft. Ed Swearingen, a Texas fixed-base operator (FBO), started the developments that led to the Metro through gradual modifications to the Beechcraft Twin Bonanza and Queen Air business aircraft, which he dubbed Excalibur. A new fuselage (but with a similar nose) and vertical fin were then developed, married to salvaged and rebuilt (wet) Queen Air wings and horizontal tails, and Twin Bonanza landing gear; this became the SA26 Merlin, more-or-less a pressurized Excalibur. Through successive models (the SA26-T Merlin IIA and SA26-AT Merlin IIB) the engines were changed to Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6, then Garrett TPE331 turboprops. These were marketed as business aircraft seating eight to ten passengers.
Size: 6054px × 4041px
Location: Dalcross Inverness Airport Scotland UK
Photo credit: © David Gowans / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
Keywords: &, ., 0, 03-06-99, 07-94, 08-94, 1, 19-03-96, 2, 318mph, 355mph, 7, 23, 110, 1150, 2131, 3963, 6400, 25000, 45ba05, 4in., 57ft, 59ft, 9m-apa, adshex, aeroplane, air, airborne, aircraft, aireserch, airline, airliner, airtaxi, alborg, aviation, built., ceiling, charter, civil, construction, crew, cruise, danish, dc-867b, delivered, dornier, driven, efficient., empty, engined, fairchild, flight, fly, flying, ft, fuel, garret, icao, iiib, kg., km, length, maximum, merlin, metroliner., miles, model., n23vj., north, number, officer, operator, oy-npe, persons, pilot, powerplant, previous, prop, propellor, range, regestration, regional, registered, registrations-, rollout, , , seating, service, speed, sw4, swearingen, thin, total, tpe-331, turbo, vh-mye, weight, wingspan
