44 AUGUST 2018 ÇPlane&Pilot
he Kodiak was type certiicated in the United
States in 2007, and its identity was caught up in the
fact that it was designed expressly for work in the
mission ield, in the mountains of Ecuador, the jun-
gles of the Philippines, the deserts of East Asia, places
where the qualities most in demand are reliability,
versatility, carrying capability, ease of maintenance
and dependability. he Kodiak
was designed to be all those
things, and Quest succeeded.
he plane is an all-metal,
tricycle gear high-wing turbo-
prop with the ability to seat 10.
It has a big back door with a
minimalist airstair built in for
loading passengers or pax and
baggage or just a lot of cargo.
Years ago Plane & Pilot did
a story on the Kodiak where
we took along a couple of dirt
bikes in back for a day of fun in
the wilds. here’s lots of room,
and with a useful load of better
than 3,500 pounds, depending
on coniguration and with the
ability to quickly pull back seats
as needed, it’s an incredibly versatile machine, just
as planned.
he new model isn’t really a new model at all but
rather a new packaging for a greatly evolved airplane
that does feature one huge improvement, the addi-
tion of Garmin’s G1000 NXi avionics suite and all of
the safety of light enhancements that entails. NXigives you Garmin’s new Vertical Situation Display,
which shows a graphical representation of where you
are in relation to the terrain and obstacles, making
it easier to miss that stuf but also allowing a quick
look way to plan the best route though terrain when
you’re in and among the rocks. his is nice always
but especially so when you’re doing the kind of lying
the Kodiak was made for. here’s
also integrated graphical weight
and balance utility on the MFD
(and don’t we all wish that were
a feature of every plane we ever
lew?). Another really cool fea-
ture for bush pilots and the rest
of us, too, is Garmin’s Visual
Approach utility, which lets the
pilot home brew an approach
with a 3-degree descent path
the autopilot will ly and a pilot-
selected descent altitude, all of
which is wonderful potentially
life-saving stuf when you’re
talking mountainous terrain
and dark of night conditions.
Another cool option is the
Garmin color GWX-70 radar,
which deserves its own story and features four-color
storm cell tracking with vertical scanning, pitch and
roll stabilization, side-view scanning, storm tops and
the ability to suss out suspicious areas of weather
that are attenuated by closer-in cells. Also new on
the Series II airplane is Garmin’s Flight Steam 510 for
uploading and updating your light plan and lightIt was designed
expressly for work
in the mission ield,
where the qualities
most in demand are
reliability, versatility,
carrying capability,
ease of maintenance
and dependability.
» PRICE AS EQUIPPED: $2.36 million
» ENGINE: Pratt & Whitney PT6A-34
» TAKEOFF POWER: 750-SHP
» MAX CONTINUOUS POWER: 700-SHP
» PROPELLER: Hartzell four-blade
constant speed, reversible, 96” dia
» SEATING: 1 to 10
» WINGSPAN: 45 FT.
» LENGTH: 34.2 FT.» CABIN LENGTH: 15.8 FT.
» CABIN WIDTH: 4.5 FT.
» CABIN HEIGHT: 4.75 FT.
» CARGO CAPACITY: 248 CU. FT.
» BASIC EMPTY WEIGHT: 3,770 LBS.
» MAX. TAKEOFF WEIGHT: 7,255 LBS.
» USEFUL LOAD: 3,535 LBS.
» FUEL CAPACITY: 320
GAL./2,176 LBS.» TAKEOFF DISTANCE
GROUND ROLL: 934 FT.
» LANDING DISTANCE
GROUND ROLL: 765 FT.
» MAX. RATE OF CLIMB: 1,371 FPM
» MAX. CRUISE SPEED: 274 KTAS
» RANGE AT MAX. CRUISE: 1,005 NM
» RANGE AT LOW CRUISE
(135 KTAS): 1,132 NMThe airplane we flew was a factory production model with TKS FIKI anti-icing, the Timberline interior, the Garmin
G1000 NXi avionics suite with SurfaceWatch, integrated weight and balance, FlightStream 510 connected cockpit
interface, the Garmin GTX 345R ADS-B transponder, the L3 ESI-500 all in one standby instrument, the Safe Flight
ARINC 429 AoA indicator, and an accessory gear box chip detector.SPECIFICATIONS
Quest Kodiak 100 Series II