Design and Development
The first C-12A models entered service with the U.S. Army in 1974 and was used as a liaison and general personnel transport. The aircraft was essentially an "off-the-shelf" Super King Air 200, powered by the type's standard Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-41 engines.
The U.S. Navy followed suit in 1979, ordering a version of the Super King Air A200C (modified with a 52 inch by 52 inch cargo door from the Super King Air 200C), designating it the UC-12B, for logistics support between Naval and Marine Corps air stations, air facilities, and other activities, both in CONUS and overseas. The cabin can readily accommodate cargo, passengers or both. It is also equipped to accept litter patients in medical evacuation missions. Through 1982, the Navy ordered 64 of these aircraft.
A variant of the plane for surveillance roles primarily over Afghanistan and Iraq is the MC-12 Liberty. For that variant, Beechcraft builds the basic plane and then sends it to Greenville, Texas where sophisticated Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance equipment is installed by L-3 Communications Missions Integration.
Read more about this topic: Beechcraft C-12 Huron
Famous quotes containing the words design and/or development:
“You can make as good a design out of an American turkey as a Japanese out of his native stork.”
—For the State of Illinois, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“The work of adult life is not easy. As in childhood, each step presents not only new tasks of development but requires a letting go of the techniques that worked before. With each passage some magic must be given up, some cherished illusion of safety and comfortably familiar sense of self must be cast off, to allow for the greater expansion of our distinctiveness.”
—Gail Sheehy (20th century)