Last year at AirVenture, Cessna rolled out its latest Caravan, and it is the most powerful Cessna-built 208 yet. The new model will maintain its 208B designation, but it will give operators a great deal more power, thanks to a new Pratt & Whitney turboprop engine — the PT6-140 — which Pratt developed expressly for the EX. After a quick certification test program, Cessna earned FAA approval for the big bird early in the new year (2013). We recently had the opportunity to fly the EX out of Cessna’s flight-test facility in Wichita, Kansas, and got to see just how much good the new engine does for the airplane, the airframe of which is essentially unchanged from the previous model.
The Caravan formula is legendary, and for good reason. Customers keep lining up for it because the airplane makes them money. With the Caravan, you get the brawn of a PT6, the economy of a single-engine airplane, the ruggedness of a Super Cub and the simplicity of a 185, all rolled into one gargantuan utility machine that can hold a prodigious combination of cargo and passengers.
