Beechcraft Starship

I think they actually made 53 Starships.
 
Wow, talk about histrionic. Don't take her home to meet mother - run.
Run for your life.
 
I couldn't possibly listen to 10 minutes of that.

I thought Beech tried to buy back all the starships.
 
Actually, they sold most of them. The eleven count I believe is the number that remained registered after Beech pretty much shut them down and bought back most of them. There are five left more or less airworthy in private hands. Beech sold most of the viable parts remains to the guy who owns three of them I think.
 
So there must be a huge stash of spare parts somewhere...

IIRC Beech/Raytheon did a buyback program several years ago and scrapped the ones they bought. So, there may or may not be a ton of spares?? I think Raytheon just wanted them to go away:dunno:
 
There's one that flies out of LAX occasionally. My office is out west under departure between 25R and 24L, the Starship has a very unusual sound (enough to get me out of the office to watch)
 
There are parts out there. The guy who owns NC-51 bought Ratheyon's entire inventory. History channel has a good DVD on him. He also flew chase for Spaceship One. Probably has enough parts to keep his running for years to come.

Golfer Bill Glasson used to fly one back in the 90's. I talked to him once on approach while he was flying into a tournament. Pretty sure he leased his.
 
Still several setting on the Tarmac at Marana, KAVQ
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I couldn't possibly listen to 10 minutes of that.

I thought Beech tried to buy back all the starships.

I only lasted about ten or so seconds of it. That shrill voice reverberated through my entire nervous system, my ears started bleeding even with my volume on low. My mind went into lock down to block out the unbelievably phony enthusiasm.

Kind of a bummer, I'd like to have seen more of the plane.

-John
 
I only lasted about ten or so seconds of it. That shrill voice reverberated through my entire nervous system, my ears started bleeding even with my volume on low. My mind went into lock down to block out the unbelievably phony enthusiasm.

Kind of a bummer, I'd like to have seen more of the plane.

-John

Well John I made it through the whole thing and man that plane was really awesome.
 
Well John I made it through the whole thing and man that plane was really awesome.

It was awesome looking.

Too bad the same company was making an airplane that was bigger faster lighter stronger and had proven provenance.
 
Yeah, I think it was originally designed to replace the King Air 200. If it had hit it's original design specs, it might have made some huge inroads in the turbo prop market, but it gained 1000-1500 lbs from what I remember and that killed the useful load! But, it's still a sexy looking airplane, it does make an odd sound flying over! :dunno:

It was awesome looking.

Too bad the same company was making an airplane that was bigger faster lighter stronger and had proven provenance.
 
Yeah, I think it was originally designed to replace the King Air 200. If it had hit it's original design specs, it might have made some huge inroads in the turbo prop market, but it gained 1000-1500 lbs from what I remember and that killed the useful load! But, it's still a sexy looking airplane, it does make an odd sound flying over! :dunno:

No, it was originally built as a proof of concept/materials and engineering test bed for future government programs. If it hadn't gained the weight, the program would have likely come to a catastrophic end.
 
It was awesome looking.

No question about that!

I had finished my runup, and switched to tower freq at BDR a long time ago. I heard the tower talking to 'Starship xxxx" so, as there was nobody behind me in line for departure, I asked tower for a delay. Granted. I had a great view of the Starship landing.

Shoulda had my camera.... :(

-Skip
 
Beech had an open house at KONT for the big reveal back in the dark ages, and a bunch of us got to go on board and ogle the glass before it was a common thing. Used to watch the takeoffs of a couple birds out of SNA when I was in ops there. I seemingly recall these things are a real pig on the takeoff with a roll of 5,000ft or more and a slow climbout as well. Obviously a regular bizjet would run circles around the Beech.

The carbon tech inspired the famous quote from someone I don't recall......"when the world ends only two things will remain, cockroaches and the Starship"..........lol...........could be.............
 
You can walk through this one at the Beechcraft Museum. At least that's what I did.
 

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The first time I saw a Starship was out the window of a 737 taxiing across the ramp at IND. This was probably 1993. It was parked at Signature. After I got a rental car, I drove over to the FBO. Looking through the fence I noted the tail number of a parked Bonanza, went into the FBO, and told the desk agent I had left my wallet in Bonanza NXXXX.

That got me out on the ramp...at least for a couple of minutes until they noticed me taking pictures of the Starship.

I was invited to leave. :D
 
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No, it was originally built as a proof of concept/materials and engineering test bed for future government programs. If it hadn't gained the weight, the program would have likely come to a catastrophic end.
Hate to disagree with you Henning but this is not correct. The Starship was intended as a production aircraft from the start. The weight gain resulted from the carbon airframe not breaking during static and fatigue testing. The FAA kept saying it had to break, and material was removed from the design to make that happen. Once it did break the FAA wasn't happy, and the resultant redesign added half a ton.

I did not work Starship when I was at Beech, but I worked with several guys who did, and the word was that only 35 were produced, not the 53 claimed. Starship and the Piaggio Avanti were too unconventional in a world that cherishes convention - Piaggio persevered, and with help from Ferrari has made a great resurgence but the running gag at Beech was that Sheldon Blue had been given an unlimited budget to make the Starship work, and he exceeded it.

The then 'Super' King Air 350 was a superior aircraft in all operational terms, but some folks initially liked the quiet cabin, the glass cockpit and futuristic lines of the Starhsip better, just not enough of them.

The real mistake was trying to take anything to production that Burt had a hand in designing. The man is a visionary but his designs have zero record of success in commercial terms in the certified world (Visionaire, Starship, Toyota, the V-Jet/V-Jet II, Adam M-309).

Don't get me wrong, I like the EZ's and his other menagerie birds as much as the next guy, his moldless foam core technique revolutionized homebuilt aviation, but the track record for real aircraft companies using his designs is terrible.

'Gimp
 
Hate to disagree with you Henning but this is not correct. The Starship was intended as a production aircraft from the start. The weight gain resulted from the carbon airframe not breaking during static and fatigue testing. The FAA kept saying it had to break, and material was removed from the design to make that happen. Once it did break the FAA wasn't happy, and the resultant redesign added half a ton.
Yeah, the FAA did not know how to certify composites. And we've seen time and again what happens when the FAA doesn't know how to certify something ...
 
Yeah, the FAA did not know how to certify composites. And we've seen time and again what happens when the FAA doesn't know how to certify something ...
It really snowballed on the Starship with respect to weight and complexity, with the variable sweep canard, wing flaps, etc.

Again, one VERY cool plane, but a nightmare in terms of recouping Non-Recurring Engineering costs, especially on what turned out to be a very short production run. Big heads rolled at Beech unfortunately (I think the Blue's are some visionary guys).

It was a true first in the industry on a number of fronts and it is sad but true that the all-at-once approach rarely works out, see DH Comet, L-1011, Eclipse 500, B-787 - it hurts to bite off more than you can chew.

'Gimp
 
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