Pic by Ken Mist (Flickr, CC Commercial License) The total development cost of the Beechcraft Starship was $300 Million. The Beech 2000 Starship 1 was conceived as a new generation light corporate aircraft in the King Air class. 1979 BEECHCRAFT A36 BONANZA 36. Unfollow beech starship to stop getting updates on your eBay Feed. What was unique about the Starship’s design? Moving the turbo-prop engines to the rear of the aircraft, paired with the noise dampening properties of the composite construction, gave the Starship a pleasantly quiet cabin similar to that of a jet. It was first produced in 1983 and was intended to be the successor to Beechcraft’s 15-year-old King Air 200 for the executive transport market, however only fifty-three Starships were produced prior to Beechcraft discontinuing the line in 1995. 2016 BEECHCRAFT G36 BONANZA. $219,900 USD. ): 2,748 ft./min. The landing flap system adds about 800 pounds to the aircraft weight. By using composites like carbon graphite, E-glass and Kevlar, the Starship avoids the long-term structural weaknesses inherent to aluminum airframes. Get the best deals for beechcraft starship at eBay.com. The first, N8285Q/NC-50, is listed for $1,400,000 in Washington state. Although testing moved along relatively smoothly, the company’s investment in composite construction was greater than expected—both in production facilities and an extended learning curve for a production team transitioning from conventional metal construction to composite construction. Robert also keeps track of the locations and status of all fifty-three Starships. Top Aviation and Space Online Shopping Sites for the Holidays, Five Videos Of Epic Birdstrikes and The Pilots Who Saved The Day, FAA Humor: Five Creatively Named Arrivals and Approaches, Here’s What It’s Like to Own an Original T-6 aircraft, Summer Bummer: Airshow Fans All Dressed Up with No Place to Go, The Chicken and/or the Egg: The Evolution of Safety for the GA Pilot, Meet Jessica Ambats, The Air to Air Aviation Photographer. Despite all of the research, innovation and collaboration that went into designing it, the financial legacy of the Beechcraft Starship is one of exorbitant failure. [edit] Operational history [edit] Sales Beechcraft Starship Commercially, the aircraft was a failure, with limited demand at list price. I loved getting to ride in it. The forward surface stalls first, causing the nose to dip slightly into an angle of attack that avoids main wing stall. Jul 10, 2019 - Explore John's board "Beechcraft Starship" on Pinterest. This lucky Starship has been the primary chase plane for Scaled Composites’ SpaceShipOne, the Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer, the X-37, the White Knight 2, and the Predator-B Reaper. With a canard wing configuration, the Starship’s lifting surface (or main wing) is aft of the horizontal stabilizer (or forewing/canard). I have only one twice in my life. The majority of the fleet were leased by Beechcraft’s parent company Raytheon until they decided to recommission them in 2003 saying, “We made the business decision that because of the low number of aircraft in service, and the specialized parts necessary to keep the aircraft flying, that it did not make sense from a business standpoint to continue to support the aircraft.". Hawker Beechcraft Corporation was founded in 2006 and closed their doors on February 19, 2013. NC-51 isn’t the only Starship to find a good home. Top models include KING AIR 350, 58 BARON, KING AIR B200, A36 BONANZA, KING AIR 200, and KING AIR C90. First, an economic recession had significantly weakened demand for new aircraft. According to Robert, the NC-35 was the only Starship to ever be involved in a “major” incident which took place in Denmark. The Beech Starship 2000 was conceived as a new generation, light corporate aircraft in the King Air class. The Beechcraft Starship is a twin-turboprop six- to eight-passenger pressurized business aircraft produced by Beech Aircraft Corporation (now Beechcraft). The flaps lower the landing speed by about five knots. (2 engines) or 670 ft./min. Most of their remains are at the boneyard in Marana, AZ. Page 1 of 3 The FAA-driven re-design also caused a reduction in the original projected performance and an extended delivery timeline while buyers waited for the aircraft to log twice the normally required amount of test time to gain FAA certification. Prospective customers learned about all the maintenance that was being done and incorrectly assumed that the Starship must be an unreliable and expensive aircraft to maintain. Replace the turboprops with fan jets for more speed and less turbulence from the aft-mounted propellers. The Beechcraft Starship is a futuristic-looking aircraft designed by Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites, and produced by the Beech Aircraft Corporation. Please log in again. Designed in 1982 by well known aircraft designer Burt Rutan’s Scaled Composites, the Starship is the first all-composite pressurized business class aircraft. diameter, Forward wing span: 21 ft, 11.5 in. Now retired, Jeff is on a mission to visit, photograph and write about aerospace museums—especially the smaller, lesser known museums. Robert, Raj and Suresh aren’t the only ones with an ongoing interest in the Starship. Manufacturer: Hawker Beechcraft Country: United States Manufactured: 1986 to: 2003 ICAO: Price: US$5.5 million Specifications. Although there several very successful canard experimental aircraft such as the Rutan Long E Z and the Velocity, a six-to-eight passenger composite canard was a new concept, and Beechcraft would experience unexpected developmental challenges. ), Rate of climb (at 1,4,900 lbs. Market timing, perception and misperception, and maybe with just a few tweaks to the design, and it could have been the replacement for the King Air that Beechcraft originally envisioned. The theory is that many potential customers were interested in the Starship, but they didn’t want to be the first to trust their lives to it. This makes the aircraft very difficult to stall. * Flight instrumentation for the Starship included a 16-tube Proline 4 AMS-850 "glass cockpit" supplied by Rockwell Collins, an early application of this concept in small civil aircraft. 1979 BEECHCRAFT B60 DUKE. Page 1 … In an effort to boost sales, Raytheon decided to offer free maintenance to Starship buyers. It’s not correct. Consequently, the first production aircraft did not fly until April 1989. Several aircraft have been donated to museums, including the Beechcraft Heritage Museum in Tullahoma, Tennessee. The legacy of the Starship is one of revolutionary vision and ahead-of-its-time innovation coupled with an unfortunate series of fatal circumstances. This made it far more expensive than the King Air it was set to replace. Each aircraft had a specific test program: aerodynamic testing, avionics and systems testing, and integration and testing of a flight management system and engine testing. First, since Starship owners didn’t have to pay for it, extensive and sometimes unnecessary maintenance was frequently done on aircraft. Robert Scherer, owner of Starship NC-51, has spent a lot of time studying what went wrong and talking with industry insiders. Designed by Burt Rutan it favored many of the design features of his popular home built experimental aircraft. The Beech Starship fleet is being destroyed at the behest of manufacturer Raytheon, which owns 40 of the 50 production airplanes built from 1988 to 1995. Beech initially built three full-scale flying prototypes for testing and certification. The two Starships with perhaps the most interesting stories are the NC-35 and the NC-51. A total of 53 Starships—the three prototypes and 50 production aircraft—were built. Private parties own 8 decommissioned Starships. He flew in the Air Force and later taught college-level aeronautics. Background/History. 1987 BEECHCRAFT F33A BONANZA. Beech attributed the slow sales to the economic slowdown in the late-1980s, the novelty of the Starship, and the tax on luxury items that was in effect in the United States at the time. Eight were donated to museums, 1 was donated to a collage, and another 4 were donated for composite testing. The FAA is inherently and understandably cautious about certifying any radically new type of aircraft, especially one that is meant for commercial use. What are the take-aways from its story? The King air is a boring cargo van by comparison. It was subsequently repaired, returned to service and is currently “residing in Mexico as an outlaw.”, The pride of the remaining Starship fleet is Robert’s lovingly cared for NC-51. Visual Descent Point (VDP): What is it Exactly? The composite aircraft was also new to the FAA and they, in effect required twice the flight test time than for a more conventionally constructed aircraft. The design result was a sleek, twin turboprop pusher, canard design. The second misconception that arose as a result of the free maintenance offer was also devastating. Where are the remaining Starships now and how many are still flying? $795,000 USD. at 32,000 ft. Cruising speed: 324 kts. The business aircraft market, typically slow to accept radically new concepts, was cautiously optimistic. The Starship earned the first FAA certification for a full composite business class aircraft. To this end, he purchased the entire parts inventory from Raytheon when they decommissioned their Starship fleet. Browse a wide selection of new and used Jet Aircraft near you at Controller.com. Raytheon, the parent company of Beechcraft, has essentially decommissioned all aircraft it had in its possession or could obtain. Top models include BEECHJET 400A, PREMIER I, PREMIER IA, and BEECHJET 400. See more ideas about starship, aircraft, aviation. What caused the Starship to fail so spectacularly from a sales perspective, and what could Beechcraft have done differently? An all-glass cockpit, using 14 different displays for all aircraft systems, navigation, and performance data. See more ideas about aircraft, general aviation, aviation. Certified on June 14, 1988, production ended in 1995. Even though this company wasn’t officially founded until 2006, its history began in 1994 when the Beech Aircraft Corporation and Raytheon Corporate Jets units were merged by Raytheon. It is a six- to eight-seat business transport. The Starship was the first business class twin turboprop pusher to be FAA certified. The lingering question is, “What went wrong?” Having had several decades to debate that, aviation experts and Starship owners have arrived at several theories. Beech Aircraft first looked to Burt Rutan’s company, Scaled Composites, Inc. to design and produce an 85 percent scale technology demonstrator of a canard-configured aircraft. In fact, the Starship’s retail price was on par with a jet rather than other turbo-props of the time. We know that you will enjoy the extreme detail and level of care that went into this model. 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