Two current King Airs separated by cabin size, payload and price: the nimble 260 against the larger, longer 360.
Cruise and range separate these two by almost nothing, so anyone choosing on performance is choosing on noise. The real division is cabin and load against airport access and cost. The 360 gives a longer stand-up cabin and materially more payload, which is what a corporate shuttle carrying eight people and their luggage runs out of first. The 260 gets into shorter runways by a wide margin and costs less to buy and to run, which matters when the home field is short or the trip is usually three or four people. Utilisation settles the rest: below a few hundred hours a year the larger aeroplane spends most of its cost sitting still.
The table below uses the same versioned PlaneFit dataset as the Finder. Prices and operating costs are planning estimates, not quotations.
| Decision factor | Beechcraft King Air 260View aircraft profile | Beechcraft King Air 360View aircraft profile |
|---|---|---|
| Typical market year | 2023 | 2023 |
| Estimated purchase | €6.79m | €8.08m |
| Annual cash cost at 80 h | €354k | €462k |
| Five-year cash outlay | €8.56m | €10.39m |
| Cruise speed | 310 kt | 312 kt |
| Advertised range | 1720 nm | 1806 nm |
| Seats | 8 | 11 |
| Realistic payload | 721 kg | 1152 kg |
| Runway need | 643 m | 1006 m |
| Landing gear | Retractable tricycle | Retractable tricycle |
| Ratings and endorsements | Multi-engine rating, Type rating, Complex airplane endorsement, High-altitude training | Multi-engine rating, Type rating, Complex airplane endorsement, High-altitude training |
| Data confidence | Normalized for direct comparison | Normalized for direct comparison |
| Main trade-off | A highly proven business platform with excellent runway performance, but twin-turbine economics require meaningful annual utilization. | Large cabin, excellent payload and broad airport access, but fixed costs and two large PT6 reserves are enterprise-level. |
A factual first pass. Mission, condition and configuration can outweigh a brochure advantage.
They do not cross. The Beechcraft King Air 260 is the cheaper of the two at every utilisation from zero to 300 hours a year, on purchase and running cost together, so there is no break-even point to find. That is worth knowing plainly: on cost alone this is not a trade-off, and the case for the other aircraft has to be made on mission, cabin, speed or access rather than on eventual savings.
| Five-year cash, including purchase | Beechcraft King Air 260 | Beechcraft King Air 360 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 40 h / year | $8.86m (€8.21m) | $10.71m (€9.91m) | $1.84m (€1.71m) to Beechcraft King Air 260 |
| 100 h / year | $9.44m (€8.74m) | $11.48m (€10.63m) | $2.04m (€1.89m) to Beechcraft King Air 260 |
| 200 h / year | $10.42m (€9.64m) | $12.78m (€11.83m) | $2.36m (€2.19m) to Beechcraft King Air 260 |
The gap widens as utilisation rises, which is the part a headline price comparison hides. Every figure uses the same planning model as the rest of the site: indicative market prices, a fixed annual base and a direct hourly cost, before financing, depreciation and tax.
Advertised range is a still-air, best-case number. With 4 people aboard and realistic reserves, plan on about 1,152 nm from the Beechcraft King Air 260 against 1,210 nm from the Beechcraft King Air 360. On a return trip without refuelling, that is the radius that decides which destinations are on the list at all.
Against the 28,815 airports in the PlaneFit database that publish a runway length, the Beechcraft King Air 260 has enough runway at 23,262 of them and the Beechcraft King Air 360 at 13,414, comparing each aircraft’s take-off requirement of 2,110 ft and 3,301 ft against the longest runway on the field.
This is a planning comparison, not a statement that any particular operation is legal or advisable. It ignores surface, slope, elevation, temperature, obstacles and how heavily the aircraft is loaded, all of which extend the requirement. It also compares take-off distance only: landing distance is frequently the binding constraint and PlaneFit does not hold approved landing distances, so a field in these counts is not necessarily a field you can get back out of, or into.
Nothing separates them here. Both require a multi-engine rating, a type rating, a complex airplane endorsement, a high-altitude training, so a pilot qualified for one is qualified for the other.
Eight-seat pressurized business twin turboprop. Its central ownership trade-off is: A highly proven business platform with excellent runway performance, but twin-turbine economics require meaningful annual utilization.
Planning snapshot: $7.34m (€6.79m) indicative price and $382k (€354k) annual cash cost at 80 hours.
Read the full aircraft profileEleven-seat pressurized cabin-class twin turboprop. Its central ownership trade-off is: Large cabin, excellent payload and broad airport access, but fixed costs and two large PT6 reserves are enterprise-level.
Planning snapshot: $8.73m (€8.08m) indicative price and $499k (€462k) annual cash cost at 80 hours.
Read the full aircraft profile