20/Twenty: The Kodiak 100, Daher’s Durable Bush Plane

Designed in the late 1990s to support missionary organizations working in remote locations, the Kodiak 100 single-engine turboprop remains popular with government and private operators for aerial firefighting, forestry, law enforcement, wildlife management and other missions.

The Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF), a Nampa, Idaho-based nonprofit group that provides aviation services to other Christian and humanitarian organizations, in 1998 helped the founders of Quest Aircraft develop the Kodiak 100 by raising seed money from other mission aviation groups. Profits from commercial sales of the airplane were to subsidize the cost of each 11th one produced, which would be delivered to a participating group.

“The Kodiak started life as the Packer Spirit 100 in the late 1990s when Tom Hamilton, former head of Stoddard Hamilton aircraft and then lead engineer at Idaho Air Group, held a summit meeting with a diverse group of Christian missionary aviation leaders at MAF’s headquarters,” recounted BCA’s Fred George.

“Multicolored markers in hand, Hamilton stood in front of a whiteboard and asked representatives of the MAF, JAARS (aka Jungle Aviation and Radio Service), New Tribes Mission and Air Serv International Christian nonprofit groups what they needed in their support aircraft.”

Renamed as the Kodiak 100, the resulting high-wing, aluminum-construction, Jet A-burning single-engine turboprop seats 10 passengers and can fly to 1,000 nm range.

Rough Runway Performance

Fitted with a Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-34 engine and Garmin G1000 avionics, Kodiaks are distinguished by their ability to operate to short and unimproved runways. They have robust, fixed tricycle landing gear, high propeller-tip ground clearance, and a wing with a sawtooth leading edge that improves slow-speed handling control and makes the plane resistant to stalls. 

Should an operator need to change out its tires for seaplane operations, the Kodiak 100 comes provisioned for amphibious or wheel-less floats without structural changes.

Quest launched the Kodiak 100 Series II iteration, featuring Garmin’s G1000 NXi avionics suite and other improvements, in 2018. France’s Daher Aerospace, the manufacturer of high-end TBM turboprops, acquired the Kodiak line in October 2019 when it bought Quest Aircraft from Setouchi Holdings of Japan.

Kodiak Series III

Daher introduced the third-generation Series III in 2021. Series III models come with a 750-shp (700-shp max continuous power) P&WC PT6A-34 engine, Hartzell five-blade composite propeller, Garmin G1000 NXi flight deck, GFC700 autopilot with full envelope protection, optional Garmin GWX 75 weather radar, and TKS ice-protection system.

The manufacturer offers “Summit” and “Timberline” interior options. The top-of-the-line Summit interior has six fully adjustable club seats, optional tables and cabinets, dual-zone air conditioning control, headset jacks, charging ports and other cabin amenities.

The factory-new, average equipped price of a first-generation Kodiak 100 in 2007 was $1.26 million, according to the Aircraft Bluebook. A Series III model listed this year for $3.25 million. Its average retail price—the average price for a mid-time, average aircraft at the end of the previous quarter—was slightly less, at $3.17 million.

Kodiaks compete for sales with the Cessna 208 Caravan, which has greater overall cabin volume but lesser range (807 nm with full fuel and available payload versus 1,005 nm for Kodiak). Average retail price of the current Cessna 208B Grand Caravan EX is $2.85 million.

Aviation Week’s Fleet Discovery Database counted 199 in-service Kodiak 100s and 129 parked, stored or in the possession of a third party. Most in-service aircraft (102) are based in North America, followed by the Asia Pacific region (31), Latin America (24), China (19) and Africa (15).

The MAF took delivery of its first Kodiak 100 on March 19, 2009, and reports operating 12 of the turboprops, along with Cessna 208 Caravans, 206s, 210s and 172s.

Owner Loyalty

Paul Carelli, Daher Kodiak director of flight operations for North America, says the reliability and relatively low operating costs of the Kodiak 100 make it attractive to the general aviation and government agency markets.

“Operating costs are really low on this aircraft, probably the lowest [for a] high-wing turboprop,” Carelli says of the Kodiak 100. “Governments have fixed annual budgets, so they’re very aware of what they can spend and Kodiak fits that niche well.”

At any one time, there likely will be less than a dozen pre-owned Kodiaks being offered for sale, Carelli says. “There are not many [Kodiak 100s] on the used market,” he reports. “People tend to hang on to their Kodiaks. We get called all the time to ask for used airplanes.”

Kodiaks hold their value and haven’t depreciated enough to be affordable for smaller bush plane operators in places like Alaska, where “they’re still operating Beavers and Otters that are 60-70 years old,” observes another Daher Kodiak official. The average retail value of a 2021 Kodiak 100 Series III ($2.4 million) has stayed the same for the past six quarters, according to Aviation Week Network’s data team.

Since the Quest acquisition, Daher has worked to unify the Kodiak and TBM maintenance networks to pool its resources and provide integrated customer support of both turboprops. It provides 24/7 Aircraft On Ground and technical support of both types.

BCA welcomes comment and insight from aircraft dealers and brokers for its monthly 20/Twenty pre-owned aircraft market feature. The focus aircraft for January 2025 is the Beechcraft King Air 250/260. To participate, contact [email protected].