N193RA is a Beechcraft B300 (King Air 350) ISR aircraft, Mode S hex A174C8, owned through most of its recent life by the defence contractor Metrea Special Aerospace. It now flies near-daily intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) orbits along the United States–Mexico border. Right now it is orbiting over Brownsville, Texas.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Registration | N193RA |
| Mode S hex | A174C8 |
| FAA unique ID | 00444712 |
| Make and model | Beech B300 (King Air 350) |
| Engines | 2 × Pratt and Whitney Canada PT6A-60A |
| Current registrant | Wilmington Trust Co, trustee (Wilmington, DE) |
| Status | valid registration |
The King Air 350 is the standard airframe for medium-range special-mission ISR work. The same type flies for US Customs and Border Protection as the Multi-Role Enforcement Aircraft.
The FAA temporal record shows the tail moving from a fuel or charter operator into the special-mission world, then into a trustee structure two months ago.
| Period | Registrant | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 2008 to 2009 | registration pending | Lexington, KY |
| 2009 to 2014 | Energy Aviation LLC | Lexington, KY |
| 2014 to Dec 2017 | Colley Acquisitions LLC | Oklahoma City, OK |
| Dec 2017 to Mar 2021 | Commuter Air Technology Inc | Bethany, OK |
| Mar 2021 to May 2023 | Meta Special Aerospace Air Operations Inc | Bethany, OK |
| May 2023 to 8 Apr 2026 | Metrea Special Aerospace ISR Inc | Bethany, OK |
| 8 Apr 2026 to now | Wilmington Trust Co, trustee | Wilmington, DE |
Two points stand out. First, "Meta Special Aerospace" became "Metrea Special Aerospace ISR" in May 2023, which is the same firm rebranding, not a sale. Metrea, founded in 2016, is a US defence contractor that builds and operates modified King Air ISR aircraft and sells turnkey airborne ISR as a service.
Second, the aircraft moved to a Wilmington Trust trustee registration on 8 April 2026. A Delaware trustee registration hides the real operator. The aircraft kept flying the same border ISR pattern after the change, so this reads as a financing or contract restructuring rather than a change of mission.
The flight record from mid-March to 30 June 2026 is consistent and clear. The aircraft flies long, slow orbits at 11,000 to 16,000 feet over three stretches of the southern border, and transits between them at 20,000 to 27,000 feet.
The three operating areas:
- El Paso sector, around
31.8°N, 106.4°W, covering far west Texas, southern New Mexico and the Tucson or Nogales approaches as far west as112°W - Laredo and the middle Rio Grande, around
27.5°N, 99.46°W - the Rio Grande Valley and Brownsville, around
25.9°N, 97.4°W, where it is orbiting today
The map shows the three patrol areas as tight clusters of low-altitude orbit points (purple), linked by high-altitude transit legs (yellow). The track follows the Rio Grande along the border.
Low-altitude points, which mark takeoffs and landings, cluster tightly at Laredo International (KLRD, 27.54°N, 99.46°W) and at El Paso. These are its main operating bases. The aircraft also made two long runs east to the Florida Gulf coast (near 82.5°W) on 4 April and 21 to 22 April 2026, most likely for maintenance or a detachment.
A King Air flying slow racetracks at mid-altitude over the border, day after day, from forward bases at Laredo and El Paso, is a border-security ISR operation. The orbit centres sit over populated border areas and the riverline, not over any single fixed target.
Open sources tie this aircraft and its operator to counter-narcotics ISR for a military task force, not to a civilian agency. Reporting on Metrea describes the firm delivering live airborne ISR video from a Starlink-equipped King Air B350, fitted with electro-optical and infrared (EO/IR) sensors, into a Joint Interagency Task Force South (JIATF-South) system in the cloud. JIATF-South runs the interagency counter-drug mission in the southern approaches to the United States.
Federal spending records list contracts to "Metrea Special Aerospace, ISR Inc." under a US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) contract vehicle, which fits a contractor-owned, contractor-operated ISR arrangement rather than a CBP-owned aircraft.
So the best-supported reading is: N193RA is a contractor-operated, sensor-equipped King Air flying border ISR orbits, feeding full-motion video to a US government counter-narcotics or border-security task force. The Brownsville orbit you saw is one leg of that recurring patrol.
I could not confirm two things from the data to hand:
- the real party behind the April 2026 Wilmington Trust registration, which a bill-of-sale or lien filing in the FAA document index would show
- whether the aircraft carries a CBP, DHS or DoD mission tasking, since the trustee registration and generic callsign hide the customer
