Photo by Timothy R. Gaffney The “Missionator” is a Beech 1900D that Raytheon is marketing as a multi-mission airplane. On display next to the Fly for Life humanitarian aviation exhibit, the big twin-turboprop has caused some to mistake it as a missionary plane.

July 28, 2009 - Oshkosh, Wisconsin - If looks can be deceiving, so can locations.

Next to the Fly for Life exhibit with its humanitarian-mission aircraft on AeroShell Square stood a beefy Beech 1900D with decorative graphics—including a medevac symbol—and the name “Missionator.” Fly for Life representatives were scratching their heads over the eye-catching airplane. “It’s not one of ours,” said Rol Morrow, one of the Fly for Life program leaders.

Indeed, the 1900D stood on its own patch of ground, surrounded by a neat picket fence. David W. Carter, marketing director for Raytheon Airline Aviation Services LLC, cleared up the mystery.

Raytheon is selling the 1900D as a multi-mission aircraft that can carry both passengers and freight in its 39- foot pressurized cabin, thanks to a wide cargo door near the airplane’s tail and a bulkhead that can be repositioned to adjust the size of the passenger and freight sections. The medevac logo is just part of a graphic illustrating various potential missions for the airplane.

Raytheon Company, Carter explained, retained ownership of the airplanes under its airline LLC when it sold its aircraft manufacturing business to Hawker Beechcraft Inc. Now it leases with airlines and other 1900D operators are expiring, and Raytheon is using the “Missionator” as its demonstrator airplane on a worldwide marketing tour.

The airplane has been across the western United States and Canada, and after AirVenture it will tour Europe and Australia, Carter said. “People are surprised to see us at Oshkosh, but AirVenture brings in a lot of people,” he said.