Design mockup. Clay Bluff Aviation is not a real company and this page is not a real charter operator's website.
Charter, Kansas City Downtown Airport
Runway, weight, range, crew day. Four things run out on a charter, only one of them runs out first, and it is almost never the one the brochure talks about. We tell you which one binds on your leg before you agree to anything.
How a quote is actually built
A charter quote is a series of subtractions. The airplane has a maximum weight, and the fuel and the passengers share it. The tank has a volume, and the reserve takes a third of it before the trip starts. The runway at the far end has a length, and the air over it has a temperature. The crew has a day, and it began before you woke up.
Run those four in order and one of them fails first. That number is your trip. The other three are irrelevant and quoting them at you is noise.
Below are the four, in the order our dispatch works them, with the actual figures for the airplanes we operate and one real leg where each one is the thing that binds.
Limit one, runway
Our home runways are long. Wheeler Downtown has 6,827 feet of concrete on 1/19 and 5,050 feet of asphalt on 3/21, at a field elevation of 757 feet. A King Air 350i at maximum weight needs about 3,300 feet of balanced field length at sea level on a standard day. At home, on any day, pavement is not the conversation.
It becomes the conversation the moment the far end is high or hot. Runway length is a fixed number painted on the ground; the distance the airplane actually needs is not, and it grows with elevation, temperature and weight. A field with more pavement than Wheeler can still be the tighter operation.
Aspen is the standing example. 8,006 feet of runway, which is more than we have at home, sitting at 7,820 feet of elevation with terrain on the departure. The pavement is not the limit there. The air over it is, and on a warm afternoon the answer is that we take fewer people or we go somewhere else and drive.
Runway available, against what the airplane asks for
Scale runs to 9,000 feet. Published runway lengths; the 350i figure is the manufacturer's balanced field length at sea level on a standard day, and it is a floor, not a promise.
| Field | Longest runway | Elevation | What actually binds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wheeler Downtown, Kansas City | 6,827 ft | 757 ft | Nothing. Full load, any day. |
| Teterboro, New Jersey | 7,000 ft | 9 ft | Not the runway. Range, and the slot. |
| Jackson Hole, Wyoming | 6,300 ft | 6,451 ft | Summer afternoons. Margin thins fast. |
| Aspen, Colorado | 8,006 ft | 7,820 ft | Departure performance, not pavement. |
Limit two, weight
This is the one that decides most trips, and it is the one nobody explains. The airplane has a single number it may not exceed on the runway, and everything on board comes out of it: the airplane itself, the crew, the fuel, and you.
Our 350i weighs 10,050 pounds ready to fly with two pilots aboard. It may not leave the ground above 15,000. That leaves 4,950 pounds, and the fuel is drawn from the same 4,950 as the passengers. Longer leg, more fuel, fewer seats. There is no third option and no operator can sell you one.
There is a second ceiling underneath it that catches people out. The airplane may not weigh more than 12,500 pounds with no fuel in it at all, which caps the payload at 2,450 pounds no matter how short the trip is. On a short leg you run out of that limit long before you run out of takeoff weight, and roughly 900 pounds of capacity simply sits there unusable.
One airplane, three trips. Watch the payload go.
Short leg, about 350 nautical miles Kansas City to Chicago
Nine seats, and 380 pounds left over for skis.
Medium leg, about 850 nautical miles Kansas City to Scottsdale
Eight seats. This one leaves at exactly 15,000 pounds.
Full fuel, as far as it goes Kansas City to Teterboro
Five seats and hand luggage, or nine seats and a fuel stop.
Bars drawn to a common scale of 15,000 pounds, the maximum takeoff weight. Seat counts assume 230 pounds per person including a checked bag, which is the number our dispatch plans on and the number we will use on your quote. Give us your real weights and the answer usually improves.
Limit three, range
The 350i holds 3,611 pounds of usable fuel, which is 539 gallons. That is not 539 gallons of going somewhere. Taxi and run-up take a slice. The trip takes the largest slice. Then the rules and the weather take three more, and they are not optional: enough to fly to an alternate airport if the destination goes down, enough to hold for forty-five minutes after that, and on a westbound winter day a real allowance for a headwind that can take fifty knots off the groundspeed for four hours.
Add those up and roughly 1,400 pounds of the tank is committed before a single mile counts. An operator who quotes you the still-air range off a brochure is quoting a number that has never once been flown.
Practically: about 1,100 nautical miles is the honest still-air number with the reserves in place, and westbound in January it is closer to 850. Teterboro is inside it. Naples in February usually is not, and we will say so rather than plan a fuel stop we did not tell you about.
3,611 pounds of fuel, and where it actually goes
A representative winter westbound plan at maximum fuel. The exact split changes with the weather at the destination and with which alternate the forecast supports, and it is worked fresh for every leg.
| Destination | Direct | Nonstop | Cabin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dallas Love Field | 390 nm | Yes | Nine seats and the bags |
| Denver Centennial | 465 nm | Yes | Nine seats and the bags |
| Aspen | 610 nm | Yes | See limit one before you book |
| Teterboro | 950 nm | Yes | Five seats, or nine and a fuel stop |
| Naples, Florida | 1,040 nm | Usually not in winter | Nine seats, one planned stop |
Limit four, the crew day
The airplane will fly all night. The two people flying it will not, and the limit is federal, not a preference of ours. Our dispatch plans a fourteen hour duty day, measured from the moment the crew shows at the hangar to the moment the airplane is chocked at the end, and ten hours of rest before the next one starts.
Fourteen hours sounds enormous until you lay a real day across it. A 6:00 a.m. departure means the crew showed at 5:00. Two and three quarter hours out, a day at the far end, two and three quarter hours home, half an hour to put the airplane away. The clock runs out at 7:00 in the evening whether your dinner did or not.
So we ask for your return time before we quote the outbound, and if the day does not close we tell you the two ways out, an overnight or a second crew, and what each one costs, at the quote and not at the gate.
Fourteen hours, spent
A same-day round trip of about 800 nautical miles each way. Ninety minutes of margin covers a late passenger and a holding pattern. It does not cover a two hour delay, and when it goes we will have told you first.
The other half of the answer
A limit is not a refusal. Every one of the four has a way around it, all four ways cost something, and the difference between an operator you use twice and one you use once is whether you heard about the cost at the quote or at the airplane.
01
We move you to a longer field within a reasonable drive and arrange the car, or we send the PC-12, which gets off in roughly a third less pavement and takes eight. Mountain fields in July usually resolve to an early departure instead, before the air heats up.
02
A planned fuel stop costs about forty minutes on the ground and buys back three or four seats, which is nearly always the right trade for a full group. If it is the bags rather than the people, the bags go on an airline and meet you, and we book that ourselves.
03
One stop, planned, at a field we already use, with the truck called ahead so the wheels are turning again inside thirty minutes. You will see the stop on the itinerary before you sign it. We do not discover fuel stops in the air.
04
Either the crew stays over and you come home in the morning, or a second crew is positioned to the destination on an airline to fly the return. The second option is faster and it is the more expensive one. Both are priced in the quote, not added afterward.
What we operate
Two turbine engines, nine passenger seats, a stand-up cabin and a belly locker. This is the one that carries a full group and their luggage, and it is the one every number on this page is worked against.
| Passenger seats | 9 |
|---|---|
| Maximum takeoff weight | 15,000 lb |
| Maximum zero fuel weight | 12,500 lb |
| Ready to fly, two pilots | 10,050 lb |
| Usable fuel | 3,611 lb / 539 gal |
| Balanced field, sea level | about 3,300 ft |
| Planning cruise | about 300 kt |
One turbine engine, eight seats, a cargo door wide enough for things that do not fit through a passenger door. Shorter fields, smaller groups, and the one we reach for when limit one is the problem.
| Passenger seats | 8 |
|---|---|
| Maximum takeoff weight | 10,450 lb |
| Ready to fly, two pilots | about 6,800 lb |
| Usable fuel | 402 gal |
| Takeoff over 50 ft | about 2,485 ft |
| Planning cruise | about 285 kt |
| Cargo door | Yes |
Dispatch
Where from, where to, how many people, and what time you need to be back. That is enough for a real answer, usually inside the hour. If one of the four limits bites, you will hear which one and what it costs to get around it in the same call.
Dispatch answers around the clock. The office is 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Monday to Friday.
123 Rampside Rd, Hangar 4
Kansas City, MO 64105
Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport, north side, past the fuel farm. Park at the gate and call from the car.
Photo identification for every passenger, and a real weight for anything unusual: golf clubs, ski bags, a dog, a case of equipment.
The dog is fine. We just need to know about the dog.