C-12 Huron
ICAO BE20The military King Air: a small twin that quietly does the errands. Live C-12 Huron positions.
Flying right now
Live · 30s- BGST424 28,000 ft 170776 🇺🇸 United States
- PAT022 26,000 ft 92-03328 🇺🇸 United States
- PAT564 25,000 ft 95-00090 🇺🇸 United States
- QUESO12 25,000 ft 84-24378 🇺🇸 United States
- PAT032 22,975 ft 84-24375 🇺🇸 United States
- PAT968 21,000 ft 94-00317 🇺🇸 United States
- PAT450 20,000 ft 94-00316 🇺🇸 United States
- PAT489 19,075 ft 84-00489 🇺🇸 United States
- PAT656 11,475 ft 84-00179 🇺🇸 United States
- VM559 9,350 ft 163559 🇺🇸 United States
- WAYLN25 9,000 ft 76-0166 🇺🇸 United States
- PAT087 5,975 ft 86-00087 🇺🇸 United States
Airframe
- Manufacturer
- Beechcraft
- Role
- Utility transport and liaison
- Class
- L2T — Landplane, 2 turboprop engines
- Crew
- 2
- First flight
- 27 October 1972
- In service
- 1974
Operators airborne
About the C-12 Huron
Every large air force needs an aircraft to move four people and some freight between bases without tying up a transport, and for the American services that aircraft is the C-12. It is a Beechcraft King Air 200 in uniform, and the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps all fly versions of it.
Because the tasks are routine and constant, it is one of the more numerous types on the feed. Sorties are short hops between airfields, usually below 25,000 feet, and the same airframes reappear day after day on similar routes.
The BE20 designator covers the whole King Air 200 family, so this page also picks up state and government examples from smaller air forces — Malta, Ireland, Japan and others — flying the same aircraft for the same reasons.
Callsign prefixes
- PAT
- Priority Air Transport — US Army
- NAVY
- US Navy UC-12 flights
- SPAR
- US Air Force special air mission block
How to recognise it
- —A small twin turboprop with a T-tail, three-bladed propellers and a handful of oval cabin windows.
- —Squat and businesslike; roughly the size of a large business aircraft.
- —Short sectors at modest altitude, repeatedly between the same pairs of airfields.
Common questions
+ Is the C-12 the same as a King Air?
Yes. It is a Beechcraft King Air 200 with military serials and minor equipment changes. Several variants exist — C-12J, UC-12W, RC-12 — for transport, liaison and in some cases signals intelligence.
+ Why are there so many C-12s flying?
Because the job is endless. Moving small numbers of people between bases happens constantly, and using a King Air rather than a transport is far cheaper. The fleet is large and flies most working days.
+ What is the RC-12 Guardrail?
A signals intelligence version of the same airframe, bristling with antennas, used by the US Army. It reports under a different designator from the plain transports.